Fort Worth Inc.’s annual Best Companies to Work For in Fort Worth issue — this is our fourth — is easily one of our most fun, because we get to visit CEOs who are thoughtful about what makes great workplaces, even if the tradeoffs they make are often complicated and expensive.
This year’s Best Companies, a contest independently run and judged each by the Best Companies Group, a research firm that runs more than 70 Best Companies programs worldwide, honors 30 private employers in the Fort Worth area and ranks them in the small/medium and large categories, with 250 U.S. employees being the dividing line. The rankings were announced Nov. 7 in a special luncheon and reception at The 4 Eleven in Fort Worth. Sponsors were Valliance Bank and the Better Business Bureau.
This year’s category winners were Gus Bates Insurance & Investments in the small/medium category and Legacy Mutual Mortgage in the large category. Bates has been a previous finalist in the competition, and Legacy won its category in last year’s contest.
Best Companies Group assesses entrants in the competition in two segments. The first is an examination of company practices in everything from benefits to diversity in recruitment; methods and frequency of employee reviews; training, education, and career development; leadership development and succession planning; communication and encouragement of employee feedback; employee recognition; and family-friendliness and work-life balance. The second segment is the result of confidential surveys of employees that the Best Companies Group runs. Contestants have access to detailed data on the employee feedback from the Best Companies Group. The magazine’s ownership, management, and staff have no input into the results of the contest.
Several of our Best Companies finalists on this year’s list are making repeat appearances from prior years’ contests.
All of our finalists speak of the bottom-line benefit of treating employees well. Culturally, family, trust, respect, and integrity appear often among our finalists’ values. “If we take care of people, they take care of the rest,” Nicholas Ward, CEO of finalist Koddi, last year’s small/medium company winner, says. And that means low turnover and less drama and cost that goes with having to replace employees.
In the tight labor market, our finalists spoke of beefing up benefits; coming up with innovative recruiting pipelines; using mentoring, cross-training and support of employees’ leadership roles in the community as a way of fostering employee growth and opportunity; creative ways to recognize employees’ performance; allowing flexible hours for family needs; and deploying technology to allow work from remote.
At Legacy Mutual’s Fort Worth office, all but one employee — the receptionist — work from remote at least part of the week. Well-being initiatives are big among our Best Companies. Gus Bates has an on-site gym with a trainer and scheduled fitness classes, open to employees, family, and friends.
And working hard and turning results mean playing hard for our finalists. Topgolf outings are among the most cited by our finalists. Koddi, an advertising technology company for the travel industry, gives out gift cards to employees who post pictures of their travels on the #KoddiTravels Instagram feed and the company's internal Slack account.
Our favorite perk: the running tab at a popular Near Southside bar that the employer traded services for and that employees readily identify as one of their faves about working at the company. “Please don’t put that in the story, that we have a running bar tab,” the CEO pleaded. “Please.”
Small/Medium Companies: Up to 249 U.S. employees
1 Gus Bates Insurance & Investments Fort Worth
What they do: Benefits and investments
Employees: 58
Fast-growing Fort Worth benefits company says its people “work hard, play hard.” But that’s not trite. Among the benefits: full on-site gym (see cover), flexible hours, and the bosses’ support of leadership roles in the community.
Gus Bates, a second-generation family-owned firm, has continued to nurture and sustain the family culture set by its founder, Gus Bates III. “We embrace it,” Gus S. Bates, the owner and founder’s son, says. “My dad has always told me [to] treat people the way you would like to be treated. Be humble and enjoy what you do. Be persistent.”
The firm, founded in 1966, has 58 employees today, 68% women, and has grown conservatively and organically, Bates says. “We’ve always grown organically. There is so much business in North Texas, we can’t get to it all. There’s lots of people I can’t get to in my lifetime. I know the doctors; I know the hospitals. Fort Worth is a big, small town.”
Bates says it’s possible the firm may look for an acquisition. “Next year, I wouldn’t be surprised if we acquired a smaller agency. I would say a minimum of 10 employees next year.”
By focusing on its own base, Bates has been able to reel in a lot of employees — 23 currently — who graduated from TCU. The firm offers profit-sharing. “Our philosophy is we share the wealth. We have a model that is skin in the game. If the company does well, we all do well.”
The company also supports charities — and its employees’ leadership roles in them — financially and through flexible hours. Bates estimates the agency supports more than 60 charities annually. “Each and every one of us has something that’s super-fulfilling,” says Bates, who chokes up in talking about one employee who asked the firm to support Special Olympics. “We want to help you support that.”
Bates credits the firm’s clients for many of the ideas it’s built into its culture. “I’m a copier of great ideas. We have the luxury of meeting many different business owners.”
On-site perks include a fully equipped gym and locker rooms — actually, across the street from Bates’ headquarters off of South University Drive near the Trinity River — with trainer and lineup of scheduled fitness classes open to employees, family and friends. “I’m not the first person to come up with the idea of an employee gym, but ours is
OLAF GROWALD
Susan Blassingame
a lot cooler,” Bates says.
The office has an outdoor putting green. The agency caters in lunch once a week. Dogs are welcome. The firm can put on training in a modern 60-person seminar room. Celebrations and recognition include an annual service luncheon for employees who reach certain employment anniversaries, starting at one year.
Benefits include health insurance, short-term disability, company-paid premiums for long-term care and long-term disability, and 50% company match on employee 401(k) contributions up to 6%, and 15 days paid time off after the first year of employment.
Susan Blassingame
Senior account manager-retirement plan services
Gus Bates Insurance & Investments
11 years with the company
“Gus Bates Insurance & Investments encourages employees to grow and thrive professionally and personally. All employees can bring in new business and are encouraged to be active members of community organizations. Employees are expected to work hard, treat everyone with respect, and always do the right thing. At Gus Bates, family comes first. Employees have flexibility with work schedules to be available for life’s most important moments. Each year, a Gus Bates Family Day is hosted and allows the team to come together and not only make memories with our own families, but with each other.”
2 Forte Benefits
Fort Worth
What they do: Benefits
Employees: 21
Forte, a Fort Worth benefits company, prides itself on empowering employees and entrusting them to do their jobs. “We’ve got really smart people,” Bill Hester, a partner in the firm, says. “We train well, and we let them loose. We don’t micromanage. Our leadership doesn’t have the time to micromanage. We don’t have time clocks. We don’t have office hours.”
Forte’s a “high-touch” firm, Hester says, helping, for one, users of its health plans navigate benefits in complex situations. Employees have to be effective communicators and advocates. “We triage everything,” Hester says. “You call our office, and we do that for you.”
Forte’s culture promises respect, “relatable leadership,” and opportunity for professional growth, and is built around values like encouragement, service, growth and integrity. The company offers mentoring, job-shadowing, cross-training, and support of employees’ leadership roles outside work.
Forte, whose office is 60% women, puts on quarterly team-builders and regular parties, like Summer Fun, Halloween, Thanksgiving potluck, and Christmas. Besides the flexible hours, benefits include 100% company-paid medical, long-term care, and long-term disability premiums, and 15 days paid time off after the first year of employment. “We would never advise our clients on something we wouldn’t purchase for our employees,” Hester says.
Sandy Buck
Director, reporting, analytics | Forté Benefits | 6 1/2 years with the company
“Coming to work on Monday mornings is never hard for me. We are not simply coworkers here at Forté; we are part of a diverse family of respected professionals who bring individual talents to our team. The long-term business relationships that we have attest to the fact that we work hard and place our clients first in everything. The positive atmosphere here begins with the partners who have set the scene for both a professional and relaxed environment in what can often be a hectic industry.”
3 Satori Capital
Fort Worth
What they do: Private equity, alternative investments, acceleration capital
Employees: 35
Satori — a private equity, alternative investments, and acceleration capital firm — has more than $1 billion in assets under management, but co-CEO Randy Eisenman describes that as a “byproduct” of the Satori mission. “We’re not trying to build a large firm; we’re trying to create extraordinary outcomes,” he says. “The growth in assets under management is really just a byproduct. We are investors, not asset gatherers. We’re all dedicated to making great investments.”
Satori co-founders Eisenman and Sunny Vanderbeck have built the firm on the principles of Conscious Capitalism, which asserts that shareholders do well when all stakeholders are served and invests in firms that follow its values. “Profitability is a byproduct of creating great value for all your stakeholders,” Eisenman says.
Employees’ well-being is a focus of the firm. The firm allows flexible hours for personal needs. Satori provides biennial health screenings at $3,000 apiece. Staff members meditate before meetings. Health advisers, like Larry North and a chiropractor, make monthly office visits. Satori caters in daily chef-prepared lunches, provides free flu and B12 shots, and a $1,000 annual allowance to purchase products related to fitness.
Olaf Growald
Executives and other staffers are known to work out together before the day’s start and to take walking meetings around the firm’s West Seventh offices. Employees receive 25 days of paid time off annually after the first year of employment. Satori, following a Never Stop Learning mantra, also offers tuition reimbursement for advanced degrees. Once a year, Satori treats employees to a Gratitude Dinner. Other benefits include health insurance, profit-sharing, and retirement plan.
“We’re in our second decade [as a firm], and we’re trying to build a firm that lasts in perpetuity,” Eisenman says. “We’re really in the first inning.”
Cami Miller
Director, stakeholder experience
Satori Capital
7 years with the company
“Satori Capital’s purpose is to create, fund and inspire businesses that elevate humanity. As such, we want to lead the way by ensuring our own company serves all of its stakeholders well — and that certainly includes our outstanding team members. We do this by creating and nurturing a culture that supports the overall well-being of our high-performing team.”
4 Fort Construction
Fort Worth
What they do: Commercial construction
Employees: 40
Fort, a fast-growing construction company with 40 employees, does about $40 million to $45 million a year in construction projects and estimates it’s racked up about 100 projects, including recent ones for Cook Children’s, Lola’s Saloon, Fort Worth Camera, and a multifamily developer. Workplace flexibility is a big value for the company; CEO Scott Price notes he has three single moms among his employees.
“We encourage flexible hours so people can spend time with their family,” he says. Employees who need to take time off during the day to take care of kids can shift their schedules, completing work, for example, in the evening. “We don’t punch clocks. We get our work done. That’s how we do it.”
Relationship-building is a cornerstone of the company’s culture. The company provides opportunities for growth through cross-training, particularly with newly hired young employees. “They’re going to get time in estimating, field operations, project management, and field engineering. Then they can decide what field they’re most interested in.”
The company puts on regular social outings, including fishing trips and fish fries. It does a lot of work for nonprofits; recent work included a kitchen for Cuisine for Healing, nursery school for Lena Pope, and women’s health clinic. “I think people like to work on projects that help each other,” Price says.
Founded in 2005, the company has boosted its benefits in recent years. “We didn’t have health benefits the first four, five years,” Price says. Its lineup today includes 100% company-paid medical, long-term care, and short- and long-term disability premiums, and bonuses. “It’s the way to treat people,” Price says. “Our people get called on a weekly basis to go work somewhere else. It’s really competitive.”
Ashley Tinsley
Marketing director/business development | Fort Construction | 7 years with the company
“It is an environment that promotes individualism, creativity, relationships and fun! Our leadership manages the company and staff with the utmost respect and pride. Another important factor is work-life balance. As a single mom of two boys, I can personally say this is one of the things I am most grateful for at Fort. I never feel as though I am being ridiculed or judged for needing to take care of personal things in life, and in turn, I don’t mind working after-hours or on the weekends whenever needed.”
5 Fort Capital
Fort Worth
What they do: Real estate investments
Employees: 20
Fort Capital, the company that’s developing the River District — the West Side’s rapidly emerging urban mixed-use district off of the Trinity River — is moving away from ground-up development in the future. The firm and its investors have secured 28 acres near the River District and fronting the river and, this fall, are looking to bring on a developer as a partner.
“We are not going to do ground-up development” anymore, Chris Powers, the Fort Capital CEO and founder, says. “Our goal is to be a steward of the land and partner to a developer” that will put in retail, restaurant, office, townhome and multifamily development that complements the River District.
What’s Fort Capital interested in? Industrial, for one, with the continued growth of web commerce and the resulting need for warehouse and distribution space, Powers says. “The type of the development we’re doing, infill, urban development, there’s people who do it very well. We’ve just found other ways to better use our time and investor dollars.”
Fort Capital, as it’s built momentum under the 32-year-old Powers, has built a straight-forward culture of accountability and ownership. Fort Capital has invested — $500,000 this year and likely the same amount next year — in technology that’s created better workflow and accountability and collects data on what’s working and what isn’t.
“We continue to put our people first,” Powers says. “The more we give them accountability and ownership, the more the business moves forward.”
After two years of employment, all employees are eligible to participate in Fort Capital’s employee participation entity that offers equity opportunities in each project Fort Capital works on.
Fort Capital’s Leadership Team comprises rising entrepreneurial leaders, and it meets bi-weekly and is mentored by the company's chief operating officer. The team also attends a multiday, off-site retreat each year focused on leadership development.
Powers sends a weekly letter to the entire company, highlighting employees for performance. Fort Capital celebrates big team wins with company merchandise, catered breakfast and Friday happy hours. It throws surprise monthly recognition events. Fort Capital closes for an outing each quarter, such as the Colonial golf tournament, bowling, and a visit to the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo. “For Fun” activities during the work day include sports brackets, health and wellness challenges and catered lunches three times a week. At year-end, the company throws a holiday celebration.
The company pays 100% of employees’ medical insurance premiums. It allows flexible hours for personal needs. The office has half-day Fridays twice a month, and Powers often announces surprise days off and extended weekends. The company also provides a concierge service that employees can use to coordinate services like dry cleaning, meal catering, child-care arrangements or automobile services.
Jenny Halford
Chief accountability officer | Fort Capital | 2 years with the company
“Fort Capital’s company culture is unique in that it promotes a learning environment where it’s safe to fail. Employees are encouraged to fail fast, learn, grow and repeat — day in and day out. As someone who thrives in this type of environment, I have grown exponentially by being able to truly ‘own’ my work. The leadership team is always identifying ways to enhance and add new employee benefits that encourage a balanced personal and professional life. The flexibility Fort Capital offers allows me to be the best employee, teammate, mom and wife I can be."
6 MineralWare
Fort Worth
What they do: Software
Employees: 23
MineralWare, a fast-growing software company, is so determined to win the Best Companies to Work For in Fort Worth competition by 2020, if not 2019, that it’s put a suggestion box in the kitchen of its new, airy, modern digs on the 12th floor of the Fort Worth Club Tower.
Suggestions the company has implemented so far: Xbox lounge in the office, to go along with the cold beer already on tap; half-day work from home the last Friday of each month; work from remote between Christmas and New Year’s, if not on vacation; lunch-and-learn sessions; spins of the “MineralWare Wheel of Fortune,” in which employees vie to go to lunch with three others on the company Fridays and then take the rest of the day off; logo merchandise; and office voting on nonprofits to be served with money and volunteer time.
MineralWare CEO and co-founder Ryan Vinson and chief operating officer Spencer Albright have nurtured a culture of trust and integrity in the company, which sells software and service that investors and institutions use to manage oil and gas interests. The company has 23 employees and expects to have 26 by year-end, up from 17 last year.
The company’s core values are built on the acronym SERVE — service, excellence, relationships, virtues, and enthusiasm. “The No. 1 reason why we’re successful is the level of service we provide to our clients,” Vinson says. “We’re here to serve our clients, but we’re also here to serve each other.”
The company, the Fort Worth Club’s largest tenant, is in its third downtown office, having outgrown the first two. The wide-open floor plan features lounges; “collaboration rooms”; “huddle rooms”; kitchen with bar; game room with Xbox, golf arcade game, and beer on tap; TVs throughout; and amenities like standing desks. The company pays for employees’ athletic memberships at the Fort Worth Club, it has four bikes that employees can use to move around downtown, and it offers group workout classes on Tuesdays.
Because it’s a software company, MineralWare ensures its employees are adequately equipped, handing a tool bag to each new hire containing a new laptop, AirPods, and MineralWare socks and water bottle.
Benefits include 100% health and short- and long-term disability premiums paid. The company’s also hit an incentive target it set in July 2017: reach $250,000 in recurring monthly revenue, and employees would be paid up to 50% of annual base salary. “We will be paying it out this year,” Vinson said. “We weren’t expecting to pay it out until 2020.”
Ian Withers
ScrumMaster/developer | MineralWare | 1 year with the company
“As soon as I first set foot in the MineralWare offices, I knew I was in a special place. Everybody made an effort to make me feel a part of the team from day one. I quickly learned this was the result of a culture that promotes teamwork, innovation and personal growth, while also encouraging a good work/life balance.”
7 Worthington National Bank
Fort Worth
What they do: Community bank
Employees: 55
In most companies, shareholders rank the highest in importance. “In ours, the employees are at the top,” Greg Morse, CEO of Worthington National Bank, says. Treat employees well, and they’ll treat customers well, he says. “We just treat our employees the way we want to be treated.”
Morse views the staff at Worthington’s four Tarrant County locations as a big family, with mutual respect a big value and an open line of communication to the CEO. “We run this place like a family.” One employee learned she had cancer and had a prognosis of six months to live. She went into treatment and stayed at home for several months, finally going into remission. “We still paid her,” Morse says. “If your kid’s sick, we want you to be at home with her.”
Olaf Growald
The bank works hard at maintaining a stable environment and not overheating during good times. “If we think we’re getting near the end of the cycle, we need to be getting ready for winter,” Morse says. “We try to be aggressive at being conservative.”
Benefits include a full slate of health, plus company-paid premiums for life insurance and short- and long-term disability. The company gives time off with pay to employees so they can attend family events like school plays. The bank also pays for employees’ gym memberships, so long as they visited at least four times a month. Worthington’s also working on obtaining designation as a Blue Zones healthy workplace.
Morse is chairman and co-founder of Tarrant County Blue, which raises money for gifts to families of police officers, particularly when one has died in duty. The organization raised more than $70,000 for the family of the slain Fort Worth officer Garrett Hull.
Gena Attebery
Loan administration officer
Worthington National Bank
12 years with the company
“In 2017, I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and not expected to live even six months. My coworkers at Worthington knew I needed their help to stay alive. They worked right alongside my family to help me recover and get back to a normal life. Two and a half years later, I am thriving at work and home because of the support from my coworkers.”
8 Warren Douglas Advertising
Fort Worth
What they do: Advertising agency
Employees: 40
Doug Briley, founder and CEO of the award-winning, full-service ad agency, describes the Warren Douglas culture as “high performance, but high trust.” Its values are built off of the acronym THRIVE: trust, humility, relevance, innovation, vision and excellence. “The advertising industry is not famous for being humble or trustworthy,” Briley says.
The firm’s offices are in a historic building on West Seventh Street that once housed a Packard auto dealership. The company’s benefit package includes 100% employer-paid medical and long-term disability premiums; 401(k) match on employees’ contributions of up to 3%; and bonus of 2.5% to 10% of pay, both if the company meets goals; extra paychecks on certain work anniversaries; and tuition reimbursement. The company giv
Olaf Growald
es monthly stipends for employees to use on fitness classes, trainers or gym fees. And it gives paid time off to employees who volunteer during the work day.
The firm allows flexible hours for family and four-legged Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays, it brings in lunch for employees. The company throws parties for holidays and takes team outings, for one, to a Texas Rangers game. Every week, it hands out restaurant gift cards to employees for meeting or exceeding the core values. And it hands out an Employee of the Year Award annually during a holiday party at Briley’s home. Employees start with 15 paid days off and, depending on time with the company, can work their way up to 35 days. “The work in marketing is high-stress,” Briley says. “We try to make it enjoyable.”
The firm also allows employees to telecommute depending on their job. “If their role allows them to be productive by remote, then we will allow them to do so,” Briley says.
Doug Briley
CEO, founder | Warren Douglas Advertising | Founded: 1998
“Warren Douglas Advertising is an award-winning, full-service agency located in Fort Worth’s bustling West Seventh corridor. Occupying the building of the former Packard Automobile Dealership, the agency’s open-concept floor plan sits directly on the original showroom floor. This lends itself to a highly collaborative environment that encourages creativity and communication among people who share the same drive and passion for their work.”
9 Steele & Freeman Construction Managers
Fort Worth
What they do: Commercial and institutional construction. Recent project: Roanoke City Hall
Employees: 60
Steele & Freeman is one of several companies making a repeat appearance as a finalist in our 2019 Best Companies to Work For. The second-generation construction company, which does projects such as schools, municipalities, nonprofits, small retail and churches, doesn’t do bid work. Its jobs are fee-based and usually repeat business from satisfied clients.
Relationships are at the heart of the company’s success. The company operates from a set of 23 fundamentals that it pushes out to its clients and subcontractors. It pays its subs quickly to ensure their loyalty.
Steele & Freeman views its employees, clients, and vendors as parts of a big family. “We’ve got more work than we’ve ever had before,” Michael Freeman, the president, says. “It’s very important we keep that positive vibe going on.” The company has a $380 million backlog, and “$190 million will roll in next March, May,” Freeman says.
Olaf Growald
“There’s so much work,” Freeman says. “You can easily go out and get more work than you can handle. We have a very high success rate of the projects we go after. The architects really appreciate our team. One of our fundamentals is blameless problem-solving. That’s what we do, problem-solving.”
The company has made room in the ownership for a total five shareholders, providing opportunity for senior leaders to take equity. The company offers flexible hours for family needs. Benefits include health coverage, a 401(k) match of 50 cents on the dollar up to 6% of pay, cash bonuses given out at weekly staff meetings for client feedback, end-of-year bonus, and a $300 annual voucher for company logo merchandise. The company’s on-site gym is available to family members on weekends. Employee socials include big fish fries, and outings include clay shoots and bowling.
Jared Jones
Senior project manager
Steele & Freeman
Nearly 16 years with the company
“Almost 16 years ago, I chose to come to work for Steele & Freeman, Inc., and since then, I have not had to ‘work’ a day in my life. When I came for the interview, my first day and every day after, I have always had the feeling that this company was a family, but what makes this company great is that they care more about your personal family. Recently, we established 23 Fundamentals that our company wholeheartedly believes in, and one of our fundamentals is based solely around our family. Our Fundamental No. 9: ‘Family is Everything.' "
10 Forrest Performance Group
Fort Worth
What they do: Sales training
Employees: 30
Jason Forrest believes there are three stages of development en route to becoming a great workplace. At a Stage 1 company, “an employee’s disposable” and can be easily replaced, he says. At a Stage 2 company, “we’ve got an employment contract. Every company has to have a Stage 2 foundational relationship. Most organizations don’t have that.” And in Stage 3 companies, “let’s create together. How can we work together?”
Forrest believes his own company, an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing concern, is a Stage 2 company. “We have moments of Stage 3. Everybody here knows exactly what’s expected of them. You couldn’t be a Best Company if you weren’t at least a Stage 2.”
Forrest Performance Group provides proprietary sales training to industries like homebuilders, auto sales, furniture retail, luxury retail, technology, and commercial machines. Forrest estimates the company has $5 million in business it can count on for the next year. “I think we’ll end the next year at $5.6 million.”
He characterizes his company’s culture as “all-in,” inspired by military, college Greek systems, and church. “They all have the same characteristics: I’m here to do something bigger than myself.”
The firm provides extensive training and feedback to its employees and a structured roadmap to advancement. “We practice what we preach in our sales training,” Forrest says. Accountability, trust, excellence, drive, and dialogue are what drive the company. “The mistake most companies make is they go on retreat, they come up with values, put them on the wall, and they never talk about them again,” Forrest says.
Benefits include employer-paid health insurance premium; long-term care and short- and long-term disability coverage; and 24 days annually of what Forrest calls “flexible paid time off.” Employees are given the lump sum of days off, and they decide how to use it, including what holidays they want to take off. “Create your own time-off experience,” he says.
The company augments its feedback with a 4 p.m. Friday happy hour dubbed “Friday Freaking Awesome Happy Hour,” where employees pour themselves a beverage and “validate” at least one other for good work.
Laurie McCullar
HR and finance manager | FPG | 1 year with the company
“I’ve never worked for a company that’s so concerned for the growth and well-being of its employees. FPG manages to find the perfect blend between fun and challenge. The skills I’ve learned as a team member here have helped me grow not just as an employee, but as a person as well."
11 Koddi
Fort Worth
What they do: Ad technology for travel industry
Employees: 150
Welcome Koddi, our 2017 small/medium Best Company to Work For winner, back as a finalist in this year’s competition. The company continues its fast growth, making the 2019 Inc. 5000 ranking of fastest-growing U.S. companies, with 2018 revenue of $27.3 million, up 1,409% over three years.
The advertising technology company, whose search platform helps direct web searchers to appropriate hotel sites, had 99 employees at the start of this year and has reached 150, Nicholas Ward, the company’s president, says.
The company, founded in 2013, has consistently remade its processes and systems as growth took off, Ward said. “It sounds painful, but it’s been fun.”
Along the way, the company has also begun developing its culture, settling on one of high performance and high accountability. “It also creates a very high-trust environment. We’ll power something like $20 billion in transactions this year,” about 2% of total global digital travel, Ward says. “That starts to sound really impressive.”
Values include integrity and empowerment. “We have to go beyond,” Ward says. “It’s the idea of constant improvement.”
The company now has six offices, in Fort Worth, Austin, New York, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Dusseldorf, creating opportunities to employees to relocate or just try a stint.
Koddi likes its employees to travel. It holds an annual employee retreat at popular travel destinations. It’s one of three Best Companies finalists on this year’s ranking with unlimited paid time off, but Ward says Koddi is rethinking that because employees aren’t taking enough time off. “You want them to take at least three weeks off,” he says.
Koddi gives gift cards to employees who post vacation photos of their travels on the company’s #KoddiTravels Instagram feed and the company’s internal Slack account.
The company’s expanded its family leave policy to allow 14 weeks maternity leave outside of the unlimited PTO policy and four weeks for dads. Ward counts 11 new babies born to Koddi employees this year, which he takes as an indication that employees are comfortable working at Koddi.
Caroline Bailey
Senior marketing analyst | Koddi | 8 months with the company
“Koddi surprised me – and it still does – because there are so many different backgrounds across the team: from former school teachers to social media influencers. The work is hyper-niche, and we’re solving technical problems that haven’t been solved before.”
12 Sutton Frost Cary LLP
Arlington and Fort Worth
What they do: Accounting and auditing
Employees: 42
Sutton Frost Cary, an accounting and auditing firm, is big on providing work-life balance for its employees, being flexible for their personal needs, supporting employees’ leadership roles outside the organization, and helping its people grow personally and professionally.
One way the firm helps guarantee its employees can have balance: by staffing adequately, says Kim Crawford, one of the firm’s partners. Sutton Frost Cary has been growing 5% to 8% annually and recently added four new charter schools as audit clients. Nonprofit audits are a big piece of the firm’s business.
“We’re really business, but we try to keep our staffing levels to where we can keep our overtime minimal,” Crawford says. “We try to keep our staffing levels up to provide a good work-life balance.”
She describes the Sutton Frost Cary culture as empowering, well received by the firm’s younger employees. “The biggest differentiator is our culture,” Crawford says. “We’re very much hands-off. [Employees] feel they have ownership. Young people really like that.”
Olaf Growald
The firm’s Fun Squad is in charge of planning social activities. In October, for one, the firm participated in a softball tournament, University of Texas at Arlington Accounting Society Chili Cookoff, and a community service day, where the employees split into teams and worked on a Habitat for Humanity project, at a food bank, and a school. “It’s great for team building,” Crawford says. “It’s my favorite day of the year.”
Benefits include company-paid health coverage, a 3% 401(k) match even if the employee doesn’t contribute, and six-weeks paid maternity leave.
The firm supports its employees in organizations such as Leadership Arlington and a Dallas arts leadership program to help its employees grow and get connected. Employees receive a 10% referral bonus if they bring in work. “We encourage them to build their networks,” Crawford says. “We encourage them to be involved in what they’re passionate about.”
Jennifer Guse
CPA, tax manager | Sutton Frost Cary, LLP | 5 years with the company
“The field of public accounting can involve long hours and lots of deadlines, but working at SFC is so much more than that. SFC genuinely cares about their clients and the people who work hard to meet the clients’ needs."
13 Qualbe Marketing Group
Haltom City
What they do: Digital marketing
Employees: 80
Qualbe, a digital marketing firm that sells dental insurance, has built an Inc. 5000 business by nurturing what CEO Randy Meinen calls a “No Drama, Mama” culture around “teachability and humility.”
Employees have grown to 80 today from 53 a year ago. The office runs like a big family, from the free healthy daily snacks available in the expansive kitchen to the encouraging notes pasted on the walls, game room and pickle ball court; Book Wars contests meant to encourage continued learning; and occasional all-hands building of bunk beds for the Sleep in Heavenly Peace charity. Some employees eschew standard office chairs for exercise balls.
Meinen describes the culture as “very intentional,” quoting the late Southwest Airlines chairman Herb Kelleher: “Hire for character, train for skill. You can’t train for character.”
Hiring is deliberate at Qualbe. It starts with a “3D” online assessment tool Qualbe developed and now sells called Talent Insights. “We really try to find out what kind of person you are,” Meinen says. Not that Qualbe is looking for identical personalities, but the information helps the company communicate and manage. “I would rather have an empty seat than the wrong person. We would rather go slow. Once you become a best workplace, you have some come and seek you out.”
Qualbe seeks to nurture and encourage, handing out Rock Star cards to employees for performance, sponsoring an Idea Monkey contest for ideas, and holding book reading contests. The kitchen, stocked daily with fresh fruit and vegetables, is a meeting place, as is the game lounge where Qualbe holds pickle ball tournaments. The company runs events that bring everybody together, such as a family carnival with pie smashing and a Christmas party where employees plan the entertainment, like Battle of the Bands. The company’s benefits include health, short- and long-term disability and long-term care coverage.
Nick Krueger
Product manager | Qualbe Marketing Group | 2 years with the company
“As a midsized, privately held, founder-led company, Qualbe provides the opportunity to work directly with company leaders in the near-constant drive to innovate. A cultural touchstone is to never stop learning. Our cultural ‘mojo’ is a direct function of Qualbe’s founder and CEO, whose daily presence serves to inject the business with vision, enthusiasm, energy, and fun.”
14 Frank Dale Construction
Southlake
What they do: Commercial construction
Employees: 30
Frank Dale’s office is filled with memorabilia from the days he coached his kids’ sports teams. He wants the same for his employees, and that’s the kind of recruit he looks to hire. “I want the guy who comes to me and says, ‘I’ve been on the road for years, and I’ve got two teenage kids at home and my wife needs me,’” Dale says. Surest way to have your resume hit the round file is to tell Frank Dale you’re ready to leave your family to supervise construction jobs, he says. “If he’s not loyal to them, how is he going to be loyal to me?”
The company has 30 employees, consistent for years, Dale says. In recent years, he and his partner have brought in new key employees who set the company up for the future, Dale says.
The Southlake company takes commercial, health care and senior living, industrial and manufacturing and church construction jobs, and focuses on projects around the Metroplex that don’t require crews to stay overnight in hotels.
Dale makes sure his employees know they can take time off for family needs. “Our people come before the bottom line,” Dale says. “We challenge our group to be scout leaders, coordinate their youth leagues, be leaders in the church youth group. If they’ve got to leave work early, we want them to leave work early.”
Dale’s is one of three companies in the 2019 Best Companies to Work For that offer unlimited paid time off. Dale says it’s possible the company might have a vacation policy somewhere, but he doesn’t know where it is; the company doesn’t track vacation days, and he doesn’t care. Having said that, the work still has to get done. “We’re not going to close the job; we work it out,” Dale says, of staffing to cover work for employees who, say, want to vacation with their families over the summer or holidays.
“We don’t have a vacation policy,” Dale says. “This is a long-hours business. Our field supervisors work 60 hours a week. I’m not going to let them get down to Christmas and not be able to take time off because you’ve already had your eight days.”
The company works to keep things light, with a fantasy football league, quarterly celebrations, in-office putting tournaments, clay shoots, and Dallas Cowboys game-watching parties. It also supports a charity that helps the families of construction workers who’ve died on the job.
Dale’s benefit package includes company-paid health premiums for employees and dependents, and company-paid short- and long-term disability premium. The company also has profit-sharing and tuition reimbursement.
The company operates in a highly-competitive market for labor, Dale notes. “We’re spending as much time finding people as we are work, which is a challenge,” Dale says. “Because all the good people have work.”
15 Cancer Care Services
Fort Worth
What they do: Cancer support and navigation
Employees: 30
Everybody who works at Cancer Care Services, the only nonprofit among our 2019 Best Companies to Work For, knows their “why,” Melanie Wilson, the agency’s CEO, says. Nestled in a historic building in the Near Southside’s Medical District, the agency assists cancer patients, caregivers and survivors with financial gifts, navigation services, counseling, wellness programs, and social support.
“Most of our staff has a personal connection to the mission,” Wilson, herself a cancer survivor. Wilson lost a daughter to cancer, and her husband and their other daughter are survivors. “Many of us are cancer survivors. Many of us have been caregivers. Everyone here knows their why.”
Cancer Care has 30 employees, including part-timers, and plans to launch an initiative soon to increase the social work staff by six, Wilson said. With the fragmentation of cancer and support, many patients, caregivers, and survivors don’t know where to turn for help. “We want to be the resource for cancer navigation and resources in the community,” Wilson says.
The agency, founded in 1946, has a $2.9 million annual budget, all funded by private gifts. Last year, Cancer Care served more than 4,200 people. “We’re on track to serve at least that number, if not higher, this year.”
The agency provides financial assistance to people who qualify for items such as supplies and equipment, medications, transportation, health insurance premiums, and nutritional supplements; case management support to help with estate planning, navigation for local and financial resources; counseling for individuals and families and play therapy for kids; wellness, including meditation, yoga, exercise, massages, and other education; and social connections.
Olaf Growald
Wilson structures the workplace to help relieve employees’ stress. Staff members work 30 minutes longer each day so they can leave at noon every other Friday. “Saturday and Sunday, they can recharge,” Wilson says. “This is hard work.”
The agency’s benefits include health, long-term care coverage, short- and long-term disability, and a 401(k). The agency pays most of the premium for employees’ medical coverage and short-term disability, and 100% for long-term disability. The agency also provides yoga, meditation and massage therapy to the staff.
Annie Presley
Counselor | Cancer Care Services | 15 years with the company
“As someone who has experienced multiple cancer diagnoses and who is now a survivor, I know all too well the financial burdens and family stressors that cancer causes. Despite cancer, I was able to continue my education and am now the full-time counselor for Cancer Care Services! Working here has been a calling since the beginning.”
16 VLK Architects
Fort Worth
What they do: Architecture
Employees: 202
VLK’s principals spend a lot of time working on ensuring employees are happy, balanced in their lives, and challenged personally and professionally by their work. “We want people to do what they’re passionate about,” Sloan Harris, one of the firm’s partners, says. “We focus on that a lot.”
Every employee is assigned a fellow mentor/mentee from another department to work with throughout the year. “It really builds strong bonds with people who may not be interfacing with each other,” Harris says. VLK hosts regular chats between the agency’s leaders and employees, including a monthly staff-wide Friday breakfast called the Fireside Chat. Its monthly VLK University meetings with staff revolve around conversations of lessons learned. The company regularly sends staff members to conferences. The agency ties everything to its core values, which include integrity, continuous improvement, honesty, quality, and personal growth. “There’s a constant dialogue from the top layer of leadership throughout the entire company,” Harris says.
The company has 202 employees, 62 hired this year. It has five offices, including the Fort Worth headquarters and offices in Houston, Plano, Austin, and El Paso. The geographic spread has broadened the pool of potential recruits and allowed opportunities for transfer, Harris said. The firm opened its Austin and Plano offices in early 2018, and both are tripling in size. The Fort Worth office has 85 employees, the largest. The Plano office has 34, including five who transferred from Fort Worth after the opening. The firm will likely reach 250-300 employees within the next two years, Harris says.
The company allows flexible schedules for personal needs. “It’s an unspoken informality,” Harris says. “People have personal obligations that come up, and we will always be flexible if we can.” The company’s investments in technology ensure “you can do almost anything remotely that you can do here.”
Socially, the company uses vehicles like team and office happy hours, ice cream socials, Breakfast Fridays, and company softball teams to build esprit de corps. It puts the skills of employees to use on community service projects; employees in the Houston office, for one, participate in a sandcastle build for charity.
Benefits include 100% of health and short- and long-term disability premiums paid, bonuses, and a $150 annual allowance for company logo merchandise.
“This is not just about generating architecture for VLK,” Harris says. “This is about happy lives. You only have one.”
Debbie White
Project architect | VLK Architects | 7 1/2 months with the company
“I am a team member within a diverse group of talented, fun, responsible and supportive people who truly care for each other. I experience on a daily basis servant leaders empowering young and not-so-young new employees by taking the time to teach, encourage and affirm tomorrow’s servant leaders.”
17 Construction Cost Management
Fort Worth
What they do: Construction cost estimation
Employees: 16
There’s something about an office where guests may be greeted by the two office dogs — Sunny, a yellow lab, and Piper, an Australian cattle dog — before a human comes up. Such is the case for Construction Cost Management, a 40-year-old cost estimation company based in a historic building over the popular PR’s Saloon in the Fort Worth Stockyards.
Besides the dogs and the location, the 16-employee company is distinct for a diverse workforce that includes a growing number of staffers who aren’t from the U.S., the result of a recruitment pipeline the company has built with a program at the University of Texas at Arlington.
That’s meant a lot of employees who are young and don’t know Fort Worth, and who want to travel home for extended periods, or spend time with family who travel to the U.S., says Katy Abraham, the CEO and owner, who purchased the company in 2012 from her father. The company doesn’t have health insurance coverage for its employees (it gives a $500 stipend annually to subsidize employees’ related spending and covers flu shots), but it’s one of three firms on this year’s 2019 Best Companies to Work For that offers unlimited paid time off, a nod to the population of expats on the staff, Abraham says.
“Everybody has to work really hard to be gone for that period of time,” Abraham says. But the benefit is worth it, she says. “It’s important, especially for these young staff members. It’s also important if some of their families come here. You have to be flexible. We’re a small company, and we can be flexible with things like that.”
The company works for architects and engineers on major projects like justice, government, health care, science and technology, education, commercial, industrial airports, historic restoration, water, railroad, utilities and civil infrastructure, and national parks. It’s often called in to consult on bids that require an independent estimate outside of the architecture and engineering firms.
The office dress code is decidedly casual. “It’s summer; we wear shorts,” Abraham says. Even though it’s at the clogged intersection of North Main and Exchange streets, it offers parking behind the buildings for employees.
The firm has a strong stream of business and is certified as woman-owned, a help on pursuing government contracts. “These certifications help market the team, but you still have to provide the best service,” Abraham says. “You can’t keep jobs with your certification.”
The firm puts on Fort Worth “bucket list” contests, monthly Taco Tuesdays, and pizza party contests for employees. It hosts a toastmaster’s club that employees can use to improve their speaking and presentation skills. With its ability to put documents in the cloud, employees who need to can telecommute.
The firm hands out bonuses based on performance, and at the end of each year, it makes a gift to each employee’s charity of choice. “When we do well, you do well,” Abraham says. “We’ve been able to give really nice bonuses the last couple of years.”
Nishant More
Cost estimator | Construction Cost Management | 2 years with the company
“My story started with CCM three years ago when I was searching for a summer internship. CCM is the first place where I was introduced to the American work culture, and I cannot be more thankful to our president, Katy, for giving me this opportunity and start living my American Dream. As an international student, the CCM work culture was new and exciting. An open-door policy, direct access to senior management, continuous guidance and support from the team members have helped me become more than a cost estimator.”
18 Imperative-Bulletproof Background Screening
Fort Worth
What they do: Background screening
Employees: 20
Mike Coffey, founder and CEO of the private investigations firm Imperative, likes to say he’s the background screening firm for anyone who can’t afford a cheap background check. Imperative works for a range of clients, from energy and health care firms to high net worth individuals.
“We cater to a specific client,” Coffey says. “We cater to clients who expect to get it right and make the right hire, and they want a certain level of service. We haven’t abandoned the human touch in the process. Most companies are using what they call AI. It’s not AI. They’re using screen-scraping software. In the margins, there’s all kinds of errors that a human would see.”
“Risk-aversion is the thing,” Coffey says. “And [clients] want it done white-glove, which goes back to the kind of employees we have to have here. If I miss 2% of the records out there, that 2% is as likely to be felony murder as misdemeanor.”
Imperative has 20 employees, and adds one to two per year, Coffey says. Th
Olaf Growald
e company last year purchased a new growth vehicle, a competitor that does background checks for clients seeking to hire nannies. “Most people in the industry don’t want that business,” Coffey says. “It’s high-risk. Nationwide, she was the nanny background check company.”
In the last two years, Imperative has brought in full-time information technology and marketing staffers. “My goal is to get rid of all these hats I wear,” he says. “Ultimately, all I want to do is think big thoughts and do the fun stuff I like to do.” Coffey is a frequent traveler on the HR speaking circuit, presenting on topics such as being a “Second Chance Employer” of people with criminal backgrounds.
Imperative fosters a culture of teamwork, compassion and respect, and leads its job postings with its values. The firm cross-trains its employees in all disciplines, giving pay raises to employees who reach competence in different disciplines. Employees organize celebrations such as birthday parties and game nights. It gives employees flexibility to leave work to pick up their children and lets them make up the hours elsewhere.
Benefits include health and long-term care coverage, 24 hours paid time off per year to do volunteer work including chaperoning children’s school trips, 21 days paid time off after the first year of employment and accruing during the first year, 401(k) match up to 3% of employee’s contribution, payday catered lunches, and employer-paid self-defense classes.
The firm runs weekly gift card drawings for employees who achieve performance goals, weekly team meetings where employees can recognize each other for their work, and quarterly luncheons where employees are recognized. At Christmas, the firm makes donations to a needy family.
Mitchell Colston
Research analyst | Imperative | 1 year with the company
“Everyone genuinely cares for each other and about their work. The management and senior staff care for the clients and employees equally, encouraging and creating respect from the employees. It perfectly encompasses the company’s core values of acting with integrity, working as one with compassion and respect, and acting in the best interest of the client.”
19 Comfort Experts
Weatherford
What they do: Air-conditioning and heating installation and service
Employees: More than 100
The 57-year-old, second-generation company, founded by Philip Hobson and now headed by his son, Brett, goes out of its way to treat employees as family. Company makes the first payments when an employee buys a new home or car. While Fort Worth Inc. was visiting one recent afternoon, the company presented four employees with ceremonial first payments on their new cars and another employee with the first payment on his new home.
Olaf Growald
Robert Vinson | Operations manager Comfort Experts
“This is going to sound corny, but I take more pride when our employees buy something like that for themselves than if I bought it for myself,” Brett Hobson says. The company extended the celebration a little longer to accept an award from a veteran’s organization for Comfort Experts’ lengthy track record in recruiting and retaining vets and current National Guardsmen.
It’s another passion of the company. “When you hire a veteran, you know they’re going to say, yes, sir, or no, sir, and if they say they’re going to show up to work on Tuesday, they show up on Tuesday,” Hobson says. The company makes substantial use of telecommuting and flex schedules to help employees manage obligations outside of work.
Hobson estimates 30% to 50% of office hours annually are put up by employees working from home, including all of accounting. “In accounting, there’s deadlines for everything we do,” Hobson says. “They may work hard for two days, and then they don’t work. I don’t care.”
The company headed in that direction when a valued employee put in her notice, Hobson says. “She had 10 reasons. I said, ‘What if we can work around five of those.’ It’s the best compromise we know of to allow them to fulfill two roles.”
The company also works a four-day week. Its HVAC techs go online to pick their own schedules every month, based on a formula that includes customer reviews, internal reviews, revenue and other factors. The highest-rated tech each month picks first, and so on. Comfort Experts’ benefit packages include 75% company-paid health premiums for employees, short-term disability and partially paid long-term care premium.
The company also has its own trade school, training its own techs and ones for other HVAC companies, another tool in its recruitment box in an industry where a candidate paying for his own HVAC education might pay up to $25,000. The industry is short on labor, with HVAC techs making $50,000 to $100,000 per year, Hobson says.
“My real job here is recruiting people,” he says. That becomes more and more important as Comfort Experts, up 30% this year in revenue, continues to expand. “If we accomplish our goals, we’ll finish next year with about 165 employees.”
20 University Building Specialties
Haltom City
What they do: Distributor of commercial doors, frames, hardware, toilet stall partitions and doors.
Recent client: Dickies Arena
Employees: 35-40
Willie Dubuis readily acknowledges the fact that the main reason he’s worked so hard to make his company a great place to work since he bought it a few years ago, beyond wanting it to be a positive place, was that recruits weren’t banging down the door.
“We’ve got to be good to our people,” he says. “We’ve got make sure they’re happy and content. Here’s some small companies that do a good job for their employees. You don’t need to go to work for a big company.”
Dubuis’ recent client list has included high-profile projects like the new Dickies Arena and Greek houses at TCU. Those kinds of relationships help project the sort of workplace that draws employees. “If you build those relationships, you don’t necessarily have to be the low-price guy anymore.”
Dubuis promotes a family atmosphere. The company’s gone on a team-building outing to Topgolf and brought in a hot dog food truck for a company party. Dubuis’ door is never closed. “I’m here to help you do what you need to do. I get much of my work done at night.” But he maintains he doesn’t micromanage. “I don’t micromanage anything. If people trust their people, they’re going to trust you back.”
Dubuis also promotes flexibility in employees’ schedules. “I tell our people don’t ever be afraid to do something with your family,” he says. “Just go and spend time with your kids when they’re out of school.”
The company pays profit-sharing bonuses, 100% of employees’ health insurance premiums, a substantial piece of short-term disability premium, and a 50% 401(k) match up to 3% of an employee’s pay.
“It’s a lot of money, but you’re going to have to supplement pay somehow,” Dubuis says. “People are not banging down the door to come to work here.” Dubuis supplements the staff with temps, often hiring full-time help from the temp staff.
Elena Flores
Sales | University Building | Specialties | 6 years with the company
“I am proud to say I work for our company and am honored to be part of the family. I feel respect and valued for what I bring to this company. There is flexibility to attend to family matters if necessary. I get the freedom to make my own decisions and not feel pressured to conform.”
21 Work Wear Safety Shoes
Haltom City
What they do: Distributor and retailer of safety footwear and related merchandise
Employees: 85
Coleman McDonald flew F-16s for the Air Force for 11 years and was out of the service and a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers when the opportunity to take the helm of Work Wear surfaced. “My cousin was in the space and heard about the deal,” says McDonald, who took over as CEO in 2016 after financing the purchase through partners he organized. His cousin is co-owner.
McDonald entered the company and, using what he calls “fighter squadron mentality,” established a culture and mission where none was stated, based on integrity, selfless service, excellence and respect. “Everybody knew it in their heart,” he says. “They just hadn’t said it out loud.”
Work Wear’s target customers are employers that are required by the federal government to supply safety equipment to their employees. Work Wear has 10 superstores in Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and Colorado, and it also deploys trucks containing mobile showrooms to major work sites to sell to employees on the spot.
McDonald and his team have worked to deepen relationships with its employer clients, starting a fit camp to better train the Work Wear staff, and establishing processes to help partner companies understand what they need and what Work Wear can do for them. Work Wear staff are in regular contact with the company’s clients to schedule mobile visits, sometimes annually after the start of a new budget year. “They can just cross that item off the list of the sales director,” McDonald says.
Work Wear has added flexibility for employees, closing stores at 7 p.m. weekdays. The stores are also closed Sundays. Work Wear now has a cloud-based information system, which makes work from remote possible, McDonald says. McDonald hosts regular dinners with employees, and the company hands out Wow awards for recognition. Benefits include health insurance, and short- and long-term disability.
The firm awards paid time off for employees who spend it volunteering. The company sponsors charities such as Hire Heroes, a veteran’s organization, and Operation Clean Slate, a charity that aims to help the homeless. But McDonald encourages employees to “go serve where they’re living.”
Renee Wright
Key accounts manager | Work Wear Safety Shoes | 4 years with the company
“Work Wear Safety Shoes is a place where we all gather and do work that matters. It’s a big responsibility to make sure that workers return home safely to their families and not a task we take lightly. Like all jobs, some weeks we may see our coworkers more than we see our own families, so we like to make it fun. Being a part of something bigger is rewarding.”
22 Ardent Creative
Fort Worth
What they do: Graphic and web design, digital marketing
Employees: 26
Much has changed since David Carington and Brad Ball founded Ardent Creative in 2005. For one: the culture. Carington and Ball have worked to promulgate a fun, lighthearted work culture understanding of family needs, so much so they’ve assigned a staffer to be “culture girl” to be “champion for the company” and infuse the wow factor into everything the company does. “We do not take ourselves too seriously,” Carington says. “It would be a stressed environment.”
That’s a change from years ago, Carington and Ball say, when they founded the company and weren’t forced to think about culture for a while later. “You learn how to have the culture you want by having the culture you don’t want,” Carington says.
“When you say family, you mean family,” Ball says. “If there’s something with family, they come first. You only have so much time with your kids. We want that for ourselves; we want that for our families as well.”
Employees also praise the bosses for going to bat for them with combative clients, to the point of giving up a client. “If a client yells at one of our employees, we have a conversation with them,” Carington says. “We don’t talk to our employees that way. If we don’t, you don’t.”
A number of the agency’s employees are in their 30s. The company allows flexible hours for family. It sponsors regular outings, including happy hours, dinners, lunches, and charity runs. Benefits include health insurance, retirement plan, and gifts of paid time off for performance.
Anna Lossau
Art director | Ardent Creative | 4 years with the company
“Ardent focuses on having a strong culture. We hire fit over talent, and we make an effort to make sure that people love being here. We are team-oriented and strive to find the joy in our work because we really believe in what we do. From team-bonding activities like escape rooms or bowling to staff meetings that turn into a massive game of “Family Feud,” there is never a dull moment. We are one big family that lives on company-wide Chipotle orders and movies on Friday afternoons.”
23 Muckleroy & Falls
Fort Worth
What they do: General contractor. Recent project: Seventh & University mixed-use
Employees: 63
Principals Harold Muckleroy and Max Falls reached a point several years ago when they had to decide whether to steer toward their retirement or set the company up for a new round of younger principals, including Muckleroy’s son, Zach.
They chose the latter. The company today has a $120 million backlog, its largest ever, Muckleroy says. Three years ago, the firm was taking projects worth $1 million to $5 million. Today, it’s pursuing projects of between $5 million and $30 million. That’s created new opportunities for the firm’s younger employees. Two years ago, the firm had nearly 50 employees; today, 63.
“Large projects bring on new challenges but also bring on new opportunities,” Muckleroy says. “That’s a great opportunity for a young person to work with a more experienced person.”
To handle the growth, Muckleroy & Falls have purchased a building at 3200 Riverfront Drive fronting the Trinity River, west of South University Drive, and expect to move out of their Clearfork headquarters next April or May. The firm will occupy about 10,000 square feet in the new headquarters, compared to the current 8,000, and the floorplan will be open, compared to the current more traditional. The new offices will feature a locker room and shower, so employees can use the Trinity Trail and shower and change in the office. The firm will retain ownership of their Clearfork building.
The firm promotes a family atmosphere, with regular events such as cookouts, cookoffs, and fish fries with bounce houses. Company outings include Texas Rangers games. The firm offers flexible hours for family needs. “We are understanding of others who need to do what they need to do,” Muckleroy says.
The company caters in breakfast for a monthly employee appreciation event. Employees receive a $250 annual credit for company logo Patagonia merchandise and 75% discounts on Apple watches through a partner. The firm recognizes birthdays, employee anniversaries and other milestones with a $250 merchandise credit at the company’s online store. The firm also throws a big annual Christmas party with gifts and bonuses.
Benefits include employer-paid health insurance premium for employees, long-term care coverage, short- and long-term disability coverage, and 401(k) match up to a 3% employee contribution.
Dustin Vardeman
Project manager | Muckleroy & Falls | 3 years with the company
“Muckleroy & Falls stands out as a great place to work due to the ‘win together’ mentality across the organization. The leadership team embodies our core values of loyalty, honesty, leadership and work ethic. As the company has grown, these values have remined intact.”
24 Con-Real
Arlington
What they do: Construction contractor and real estate services.
Recent project: Texas Live!
Employees: 70
Gerald Alley, who founded Con-Real in 1979, has been working hard at setting his company up for its future. “Seventy-five% of the employees were not born when we started the company,” he says. “The way we think, the way we do, we have to be a little different.”
The company, which partnered with Manhattan Construction on the Texas Live! project in Arlington, has set up an innovation technology department, looking at technology such as 3D, drone, and virtual and augmented reality to improve construction processes. “Find something that makes us unique and something that makes us better,” Alley, the company’s CEO, says. “That’s where we’re trying to cultivate young people.”
Alley wants to apply those innovations to the company’s core construction business. “What are we doing in our core business that we could make better?” says Alley, who recently directed the company project superintendents to give up their company pickups in favor of using rideshare services such as Uber and Lyft to move between jobs, reasoning the advertising exposure provided by the trucks was insignificant. Con-Real split the savings with employees.”
In the case of using rideshare, superintendents can work on their laptops while in the car. “The byproduct is you get a more productive employee.”
Olaf Growald
One of Alley’s favorite core values: Be agile and willing to change.
The company offers office employees the flexibility to work from home. “We tell people you know what your assignments are, the goals of the project,” Alley says. “If you need to do things that require you to be at home, we’re very flexible in allowing you to do that."
Con-Real has 70 employees and works with 20 consultants. It offers cross-training and mentoring. Benefits include health insurance, short- and long-term disability coverage, 401(k) match of up to 2% of an employee’s contribution, tuition reimbursement plan, summer work hours, and annual family picnic.
Ashley Haley
Con-Real | Building information modeling coordinator | 1 year with the company
“Con-Real is a great place to work because of its unique genetic makeup. We are an African-American-owned firm that embodies four different divisions. Program management, real estate, construction and the newly added innovation and technology division are what separate Con-Real from the rest. We have completed projects all over the United States. That will only grow extensively through the technology advances we are making.”
Large Companies: 250 and more U.S. employees
1 Legacy Mutual Mortgage
Fort Worth
What they do: Mortgages
Employees: 255 total, 17 Fort Worth
Legacy Mortgage, with generous benefits and a conservative style that’s preserved jobs in the competitive mortgage industry, is our top large company for the second straight year.
Let’s say this for Legacy Mutual Mortgage: It’s been highly flexible with workplace flexibility. It started when a staff member’s husband was transferred by his employer to Austin. She asked to be able to work from remote. “She set the whole thing up and has been working from home for five years,” says Gary Linville, the Fort Worth office executive and former owner of a mortgage company he sold to Legacy, creating its local office.
Today, every staff member but one – the receptionist – works at least part of the week by remote. It’s a tradeoff the firm accepted given its business. “The nature of our business is calls on weekends, calls after-hours,” Linville says. “We’ve got to be connected and available. People are working contracts, and they need pre-qualification letters.”
Linville asks that every employee at least start the week on Monday in the office. “I think it makes a good kickoff to the week,” Linville says. “There are synergies everywhere.”
Legacy has 17 employees in the Fort Worth office. The company’s San Antonio headquarters took some layoffs a year ago. “We were just too fat,” Linville says. But not the Fort Worth office. “I’m just pretty conservative by nature. We haven’t lost anyone out of this office for budgetary reasons. I try to do everything I can to avoid the shrink, grow, shrink. That’s a terrible problem in the mortgage industry.”
Work by remote requires trust. “To have a stable family-oriented environment, we have a lot of people who work from home,” Linville says. “It takes the right person to allow that.”
Olaf Growald
Legacy, for the research period covered by the 2019 Best Companies to Work For contest, had no turnover the prior year. “I think that flexibility is something that really helped with retention,” Linville says.
Legacy has a strong benefits lineup, including health insurance, company-paid long-term care premium, short- and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, bonus plan, retirement accounts with 100% company match up to 6% of an employee’s contribution, home loan discount, discounts on merchandise and services available through a partner, $1,500 annual reimbursement to offset insurance deductible, and a $500 health savings account contribution to employees who choose high-deductible health plans.
Troy Turner
Senior loan officer
Legacy Mutual Mortgage
8 years with the company
“Legacy has been my home away from home for a little over eight years now, after merging [with another firm] in 2011. I have been in the mortgage industry for a little over 20 years now and have had the privilege to work with many of my colleagues here in the Fort Worth office for almost 18 of those years. I consider everyone here my friends. The culture and atmosphere we have truly makes it a joy to come to work every day. As a company, we have some of the best benefits and perks, from a 6% 401(k) match to flexible work-from-home hours if you need it. I am asked all the time, what makes the loan officers at Legacy more successful? It’s simple. The mentorship, coaching, and willingness to help a fellow colleague in any way possible.”
2 Olympus Property
Fort Worth
What they do: Multifamily investments and management
Employees: 422, 125 North Texas
Aisha Hamilton has worked for OIympus for 15 years, first as a leasing manager and more recently as an operations specialist who helps consult property managers. “My job is to help out,” Hamilton, a Fort Worth-based employee who more recently has been working at an Olympus property in Tulsa. “You’ve got to have a heart for this, for helping people.”
Olympus, founded in 1992 and which owns and operates apartment properties in 10 states, nurtures a family atmosphere at its headquarters and properties. “Our first employee is still with us,” Chandler Wonderly, a principal, says.
Olaf Growald
Olympus brings all of its employees together for an annual holiday party. It shares corporate profits with its headquarters employees and shares profits from the proceeds of sales with employees at those properties. “Every employee is a de facto owner,” Wonderly says. Olympus is an active buyer and seller. “The portfolio is shifting to newer properties,” Wonderly says.
Benefits include health insurance, long-term care coverage, company-paid short- and long-term disability premiums, and college tuition reimbursement, including a benefit for employees’ dependents. Olympus partners offer financial planning, travel assistance and estate planning. The company sponsors an annual leadership conference to encourage growth. It recognizes employees through periodic shoutouts and rallies.
Aisha Hamilton
Community manager
Olympus Property
15 years with the company
“Olympus promotes an amazing culture that embodies its core values. These values are the foundation which yields an amazing support structure, teamwork and professional development. For me, the concept of team is insufficient to describe what we have at Olympus; it is better stated in the word ‘family’.”
3 Apex Capital Corp.
Fort Worth
What they do: Financial services for trucking industry
Employees: 286
Apex CEO David Baker is intent on providing a fun, inspiring workplace, so much so, he sought out and won an audience with the Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher before Kelleher died. “It was an affirmation from somebody who counted,” says Baker, who met Kelleher at an Italian restaurant near Dallas Love Field, where he watched as Kelleher downed a glass of his favorite Wild Turkey and lit up a cigarette, even though the restaurant was no smoking. “I said, ‘I get my energy by coming into work.’ He knew exactly what I was telling him.”
Baker was 37 in 1995 when he founded Apex the day after Thanksgiving. He’d watched at a previous workplace as it cut 25% of its workforce and survived, but eventually left.
That’s part of what Baker considers his backdrop for learning why culture is important. “Work and having fun are not mutually exclusive,” he says.
At Apex, “we’ve got the having fun down,” he says. “But we’ve got to get the work done. The business we’re in is not a no-risk business. It’s a very competitive business. It requires a lot of energy, and you’ve got to operate at a very high level.”
Baker likes to manage by “walking around. You never know when I’m going to pop into a meeting or just sit down and talk to someone about what’s going on in their lives.” Apex does 360 reviews, where employees and the bosses review each other.
Apex celebrates its people in numerous ways. Benefits include health insurance, company-paid short- and long-term disability premiums, quarterly profit-sharing, and a $15,000 annual tuition reimbursement offer. The company sponsors family events, holds an annual Employee Appreciation Week with movies and free snacks, and offers lunchtime yoga and chair massages in the office. Baker calls it all “connectedness. It’s about the people.”
Mayra Tavera-Ledesma
Auditor | Apex Capital Corp. | 9 years with the company
“I was 19 when I started at Apex, and from my first moment, I knew that Apex was more than just an average company. One of the owners volunteered at my high school. He truly represented an important aspect of the core values of Apex, which is giving back to the community. He supported Junior Achievement, one of the many local organizations Apex actively works with. When I started at Apex, I thought, This is too good to be true. I enjoy coming to work — everyone is very optimistic, energetic, and I truly feel the meaning of teamwork!"
4 Burns & McDonnell
Fort Worth office of Kansas City company
What they do: Full-service engineering, architecture, and construction
Employee owners: 7,000 total, Fort Worth, 240 DFW
Burns & McDonnell, making a repeat appearance as a finalist on our 2019 Best Companies to Work For ranking, is enjoying another strong year in its DFW market. “We’ve sold $160 million of work this year,” Scott Clark, vice president and general manager of the region, says. “We’ll eclipse our previous record” set in 2015. “We’ve got a really strong backlog.”
That’s all good for the 7,000-plus companywide employee-owners of Burns & McDonnell, a company whose principals converted it to employee-owned under an Employee Stock Ownership Plan in 1986. A percentage of all employee-owners’ compensation goes toward stock gifts. The company also has a 401(k) plan.
“That creates a great culture where everyone works together,” Clark says. “We don’t have a lot of employees working past 55, because they don’t need to work past that.”
Burns & McDonnell’s clients notice, he says. “What we hear from our clients is no matter who we send out on a project, everyone we see on a project just seemed to care more. They run towards problems and get them solved. That’s what we hear from our clients.”
Olaf Growald
The company gives back through a $30 million foundation that throws off dividends that are distributed to each office, where locals decide what charities and initiatives to support. “We support a lot of STEM initiatives” in schools and science and history museums, Clark says. “We volunteer time. We try to bring sort of a practical application of what does an engineer look like.”
To foster camaraderie, the Fort Worth office sponsors happy hours, bowling tournaments, and Topgolf outings. It’s just installed a shuffleboard in the office. “We’re going to have a shuffleboard tournament,” Clark says.
Maria Ferraro
Environmental scientist
Burns & McDonnell
8 months with the company
“Our employee-owned culture at Burns & McDonnell creates an entrepreneurial atmosphere where everyone has a chance to make a positive impact for our clients. I’m proud to work for a firm that delivers innovative solutions, invests in its employees and gives back to our communities.”
5 Freedom Powersport
Fort Worth
What they do: Powersports retailer
Employees: 350
Freedom Powersports is about to put the finishes on what CEO Kevin Lackey calls “its best year ever,” seeing growth in revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, amortization and depreciation, even with margin pressure.
The company a few years ago slowed its aggressive growth of new stores to layer in needed infrastructure. Lackey’s still working on that. “We’re trying to get a lot of stability in the organization, investing in our people.”
The company’s been working on transparency and selling its vision. “We really have been working on explaining why we do this.”
Freedom’s in the process of refinancing its corporate debt. Additionally, Freedom this fall broke ground on a 35,000-square-foot store in McKinney that will replace an existing one. “It’s going to be a world-class facility,” Lackey said. “We’re leasing one to the south, but it’s old and worn out.” Also this fall, Freedom bought a competitor in Burleson and will merge a dealership in Cleburne into it.
Lackey has resisted opportunities to acquire other businesses to add to its 21 stores in Texas, Alabama and Georgia. “We have ignored opportunities to acquire other businesses,” he says. “We do want to grow again. We are teed up to grow again.”
Freedom has focused significant resources on training employees and building its pipeline of potential store managers. The pipeline was empty and one of the reasons the company halted its growth, because Freedom likes to promote from within.
Freedom is promulgating a culture of individuality, entrepreneurship, discipline, no nonsense, fun, caring and people. It also wants its employees to know it’s a flexible workplace, particularly to the single moms who work for the company. “We want to be a company of flexibility,” Lackey says. The stores are closed Sundays and Mondays. The company caters in lunches on Saturdays.
Nathan Hull
General manager | Freedom Powersports | 11 years with the company
“I’ve worked in the powersports industry since 2006, and having worked with Freedom Powersports for over 10 years, I have been able to learn and grow in a great environment. The potential for growth within the company is unlimited and will continue to grow.”
6 First Financial Bank
Fort Worth branch
What they do: Banking and mortgage
Employees: 1,290 total, 51 Fort Worth
First Financial Bank Fort Worth is changing its marketing focus under new President Marcus Morris, and Morris is testing the changes’ impact on the office culture. The bank has ditched its pursuit of big customers, and the marketing expense that went with it, and instead is focusing on smaller community banking targets, Morris says. “Going head to head with Chase on downtown business, I’m not going to win that battle. Let’s find new groups of people who were not marketed to by everybody else and do well at those.”
One such group the bank is pursuing: nurses, for deposits and home and consumer loans. The bank promoted two open houses with lunch this summer. “We can directly point to business that day and the following days,” Morris says.
Women in business is another target the bank is interested in. “Let’s put on some events and let them tell their story as a woman business owner.” Community service is another area the bank is rethinking. For its annual fall service day this year, the bank was set to align itself with an elementary school on the Near Southside. A bank employee with children at Western Hills High School on the West Side pitched Western Hills as in need of the help. Bank employees painted hallways and the concession stand at the school. And the bank is asking community partners it supports financially to also support Western Hills High School.
First Financial’s benefits include health insurance, generous profit-sharing, and tuition reimbursement for advanced degrees. The company has a number of employee recognition programs, including its Shining Star awards.
Courtney Cumbie
Personal banker | First Financial Bank Fort Worth | 1 year with the company
“The main reason I like working here is because I feel appreciated and valued as an employee. My coworkers really do a good job of letting me know when I am doing well, and they’re always offering assistance if needed. My branch manager lets me know that I am appreciated. It also helps to know that if anything unexpected comes up in my personal life, I can come to them and work something out.”
