Biz 417’s 2021 Best Places to Work

About OMG Commerce, LLC

319 N. Main Ave., #130, Springfield, 417-315-8831
HQ: Springfield
No. of employees: 43
Industry: Advertising/PR/Marketing
CEO: Brett Curry

What does it take to hit the No. 1 spot on our list? For OMG Commerce, it was the right blend of freedom and fellowship.

Autonomy and camaraderie are the yin and yang of the working world. Everyone wants the independence and flexibility of remote work without sacrificing the sense of belonging you find in a happy office. Employers that offer both experiences have the potential to send their employees into a balanced state of bliss.

This might be why OMG Commerce finds itself atop the Best Places to Work mountain. Employees at the digital marketing agency enjoy telecommuting options and unlimited paid time off. If you’re wondering what “unlimited paid time off” means, COO Sarah Still says it really means “unlimited,” provided “the performance of your job isn’t getting hurt, and your team isn’t feeling negative impact in terms of having to cover for you.” All staff have the option of working remotely two days per week, which allows for quiet, dedicated focus time. But the office is important, too. It’s where spontaneous interactions happen, sometimes over activities like Ping-Pong, foosball and Jenga, but Still says these recreational perks aren’t the essence of what makes OMG a fun place to work.

“The way we define ‘fun’ is more focused on having fun solving problems and delivering results together,” she says. Sure, everyone loves group lunches, happy hours and games, but “as a team, the real enjoyment and fun we have together is doing what we do,” Still says. Compensation is also critical. It’s important to proactively offer pay raises, Still says. OMG has a guaranteed compensation plan, which ensures everyone receives an annual salary bump, and additional pay increases happen, too. These extra raises are calculated according to a set ratio system, derived from the business’s bottom-line target numbers, which ensures raises are distributed in an objective, fair manner. Still likes to spice things up by offering them at times other than annual review sessions, when they might feel obligatory. “It’s exciting and fun,” she says, “if it happens when you’re not expecting it.” 

About Ollis/Akers/Arney Insurance & Business Advisors

2274 E. Sunshine St., Springfield, 417-881-8333
HQ: Springfield
No. of employees: 63
Industry: Insurance
CEO: Richard Ollis

Since transitioning to an employee-owned model, President/CEO Richard Ollis has found, “The more empowered our people have become, the more successful we have become.”

Stability is a common trait among the 20 Best Places to Work, and the business that came in at No. 2 has an abundance of it. The legacy of Ollis/Akers/Arney Insurance & Business Advisors (Ollis) extends back to the 19th century. Current President/CEO Richard Ollis joined the company his great-grandfather founded in 1984—about the time Indiana Jones was sneaking into the Temple of Doom.

Yet even with such deep roots in the business, Richard says the company can still surprise him. For instance, at the beginning of 2020, Ollis was just beginning to implement remote work policies, an experiment Richard wasn’t sure would work. When the pandemic struck and remote work became a necessity, he found that productivity actually increased. As a result, Ollis now offers the option to work from home up to 50% of the time.

“The more freedom and flexibility we’ve allowed, the better we’re able to serve clients as a result,” Richard says. “It’s been a real game-changing experience for us.” Since 2008, Ollis has been completely employee owned, a transition that began in the 1980s because, Richard says, the family business “needed new ‘family members,’ so we did it through an employee stock ownership program.” This model is now a foundation to company culture. Personnel are referred to as “employee-owners,” and Richard says trust, commitment and respect flourish when everyone has a literal stake in the business.

In turn, “employee-owners” maintain their environment through transparent, intentional communication. In regularly scheduled meetings, teams gather to anticipate, discuss and solve problems together. These sessions not only strengthen bonds between colleagues; they also limit interruptions during the work week. And they’re critical to the company’s mission: addressing risk in the organizations and households they serve. As Richard says, “We are in a business of trust.”

About Classy Llama

2215 W. Chesterfield St., Springfield, 417-866-8887
HQ: Springfield
No. of employees: 70
Industry: Technology
CEO: Kurt Theobald

This e-commerce agency has a clear strategy for being a great place to work: Treat everyone like they’re part of the family.

In its Best Places to Work application, the company at No. 3 on our list stressed the importance of making everyone feel included. Or, as Classy Llama CEO Kurt Theobald puts it, "My favorite thing about working here is that I have the freedom to be fully myself. That’s what I want for every person working here."

Even the offices of this e-commerce agency feel a lot like home. Designated “stress-free zones,” let employees connect through Ping-Pong, gaming and movies, and the snack cupboard is kept stocked. Classy Llama provides plenty of family-friendly perks, too, like flexible work schedules and telecommuting options. One year in, employees receive unlimited personal, vacation and sick days, a policy Theobald says evolved out of practicality. “I got tired of trying to nail it down,” he says. “We want to operate by values and not by rules, and that’s what defined PTO is—just a rule set.”

The company maintains its environment through intentional hiring and growth and by creating opportunities for staff to really get to know each other. At monthly parties, everyone shares a meal and takes part in contests or competitions designed to help break the ice.

The team also makes time for employees' “real” families and work families to meet and meld. “We believe people are only living one life; there is no clean demarcation, no matter how much corporate America tries to create that hard line,” Theobald says. “We want to engage with the whole human and all aspects of their lives.”

As Classy Llama wrote in its application, its culture “puts relationships first,” and that includes all relationships—“with employees, clients and self.”

About World Wide Technology

440 N. Campbell Ave., Springfield, 417-351-6634
HQ: St. Louis
No. of employees: 6,654 (37 in Springfield)
Industry: Technology
CEO: Jim Kavanuagh

This technology provider looks for people who will connect with its core values, which are collectively known as “the path.”

It’s hard to define what trust means, but if you have it, you know it,” says Ben Pomerenke, technical operations manager for the Springfield office of World Wide Technology (WWT), which came in at No. 4 on the Best Places to Work list.

At WWT, more than 6,000 employees manage to work together from cities as far apart as Mumbai, Phoenix and London. And they maintain that long-distance teamwork while serving the integrated technology needs of big brands, including Fortune 500 companies. Most of the 37 WWT employees working in the Springfield area focus on custom software development, and Pomerenke believes their work is efficient because they trust each other.

For example, WWT often utilizes pair programming, a technique in which two programmers work together as they write and review code—functioning almost like one entity. Teams also conduct brainstorming and ideation as a group. “If you don’t have trust in those scenarios, it can turn into politicking to find a solution,” Pomerenke says, “and then you don’t get to the best solutions.”

To find new employees who will thrive in this culture, some divisions within WWT include “a specific interview called the values interview,” Pomerenke says. “It touches on what it means to be an ideal team player.” During interviews, candidates answer questions designed to shed light on their ability to rely on others and flourish in the WWT world. This process helps confirm that new hires will relate to the company’s core values, collectively called “T-H-E P-A-T-H” (trust, humility, embracing change, passion, attitude, teamwork, honesty).

Pomerenke says it’s fitting that trust—the lifeblood of collaboration—is the first “T” in “the path.” It’s what helps WWT deliver innovative solutions for clients all over the world, and that’s the whole point.

About Pearson-Kelly Technology

2013 W. Woodland St., Springfield, 417-877-0003
HQ: Springfield
No. of employees: 40
Industry: Technology
CEO: Chelsey Bode

Employees say they’re looking for opportunities to develop as leaders. Chelsey Bode, president of Pearson-Kelly Technology, says that’s also good for business.

Chelsey Bode’s story might sound familiar to other family business owners. When she first joined her dad, CEO Mike Kelly, at Pearson-Kelly Technology (PK Tech), she was “employee number six.” The business grew rapidly, and it grew up around the family that founded it. Bode says this left PK Tech with “an underdeveloped leadership platform. Because we’d grown so fast, we weren’t aware until it really became a problem.”

Bode and Kelly were directing every project and process—pitching in the way a family does, but the company had matured and needed a new management structure. “My light bulb was: I’m holding awesome people back because of how we’re structured,” Bode says. “I was trying to do too much.”

Her “light bulb” led to more reflection. PK Tech's leadership team embarked on a process that helped them identify skills and traits they’d consider desirable in new hires. These attributes were used to develop a set of core values that could be clearly articulated as the company's culture and vision.

This new articulation of the vision wasn’t a good fit for everyone. According to Bode, 17% of staff positions turned over during the next 18 months, but she considers these growing pains healthy. People who wanted something different had the clarity they needed to move on, and those who sparked to the new vision had pathways to thrive.

The current structure of PK Tech includes double-digit supervisory leadership roles, and all employees receive ample mentorship and professional development opportunities, including coaching sessions that are targeted toward individualized goals, workshops designed to promote healthy teams and cross-departmental focus groups.

This kind of robust communication and management style requires intentional effort, but Bode says it’s absolutely worthwhile since it develops the team.

“There are businesses who offer similar services or products. What they can’t copy is our people,” she says.

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