Best Places to Work honorees serve as models for region's employers

As publisher and CEO of Springfield Business Journal and Joplin Tri-State Business, it's my job to attract, hire and retain great staff members. That's why I'm paying such close attention to the survey results and company profiles contained in this special publication, the inaugural SBJ/JTB Best Places to Work. A call for entries, in the form of surveys inserted into both of our publications, went out during September. We were pleased when more than 70 completed surveys were returned before the deadline to sponsors and judges Whitlock Selim & Keehn LLP, the Springfield CPA firm which tabulated the results.

Over the last almost 27 years in business, I have come to the strong belief that if I take good care of our staff, the staff will take good care of our customers, the SBJ and JTB subscribers and advertisers. If the readers and advertisers get what they need and want from us, then everyone who comes around my table at home will get enough to eat, and there will be extra to give away. Everyone wins.

A longtime friend and adviser, local banker Brian Fogle once told me – and I think this is an exact quote – that “businesses can do good by doing good.” His words continue to ring in my ears. A week seldom passes when the humble truth in this wisdom does not serve as my personal guide for publishing and human resource management.

But the bar has been raised significantly since July 1980 when we went to press with Vol. I, No. 1. The best and the brightest members of the work force in southwest Missouri and around the nation are looking for a growing number of benefits and perks from their employers. 

An applicant told me this summer that she would rather have more vacation time than a higher salary. I suddenly found myself in the unfamiliar territory of negotiating terms rather than simply laying out the “rules” of employment as defined by the company handbook. I realized that there is a new and strong competitive environment in the recruiting world and that, furthermore, we will all be confronted with this situation again in the future. 

I do not hesitate for a moment to admit that without a consistent level of hard-working, conscientious and intelligent people in every department, our publications would literally cease to exist.

So when staff members encouraged me to fill out one of the “Best Places” surveys myself, just to compare the benefits we offer our employees in Springfield and Joplin offer with what organizations in our area are doing, I took pencil in hand. To tell the truth, “encouraged” is not a strong enough word. “Insisted” is closer to the meaning I want to convey. As it turns out, we stacked up well among other companies in most areas, and we know exactly where we can improve.

Looking at the results of Best Places to Work confirms what I already suspected: Top area organizations offer more flexibility to their work forces. Quality-of-life issues such as flex time and vacation time, job sharing and provision for family leave are much more prominent now than they were just five or 10 years ago. We must constantly revisit and rebalance what we can offer with what we can afford and still stay in business.

It is our sincere hope and intention that you will learn as much as we have, not only from the Best Places survey, but also from the stories related by top area employers to Springfield Business Journal and Joplin Tri-State Business reporters and editors.

As in all of SBJ's established and most respected recognition events, every possible effort is made to be objective in the selection process. The companies were judged strictly by the numbers by Whitlock Selim & Keehn. That our staff is hands-off in the judging is the criteria that contributes to the priceless credibility of both SBJ and Joplin Tri-State Business.

There are many other factors outside of the realm of the company benefits manual that further delineate the Best Places to Work, and staffers endeavored to portray this “soft” and subjective side in the profiles presented here.

We will argue, in fact, that great benefits are a reflection of the respect for people that is the hallmark of Best Places to Work everywhere.

Hearty congratulations from all of us at Springfield Business Journal  and Joplin Tri-States Business to the organizations from all parts of southwest Missouri honored in this special publication. These companies are among the best companies in southwest Missouri because they are The Best Places to Work.