A Great Place to Work

We just received great news today. Nxtbook Media has made it into the finals and is one of the top 50 Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania, in the medium size business category. We won’t know until December 2^nd where we will actually end up, so the tension will build over the coming months. Thinking about it though, it really doesn’t matter where we end up; it is an honor to just be on the list.

The process is really more a matter of pride than the final result. While the contest begins with a company representative filling out a long application and survey, this ends up resulting in only 25% of your total score.

In the end, 75% of the final score comes from surveys that are filled out by the employees themselves. This really is where magic occurs. Imagine being rated as a company confidentially by your employees. These results have an obvious direct impact on where we end up on the list (or whether we make the list at all). This fact alone keeps a great deal of companies from even applying. Some employers think somehow that a problem you don’t know about can’t hurt you. I think if you don’t know it can kill you, but I digress.

The employees of Nxtbook Media think enough of the company to rate it highly and get a score large enough to be in the top 50 in the state of PA. PA is a big state; there are lots of companies in PA, lots of competition. But yet here we are, top 50! Magic indeed.

The great things about having a company that the employees feel so positively about are these:

1.) It’s great for our customers. Would you rather work with a company positive connected employees or a company where people are just punching the clock? To me this is what this award is,
really. When you have a solid connection between the company and the employees you can move mountains for your customers. I think at Nxtbook Media we truly do move mountains. It may be a foot at a time but we move them a little every day. We work hard for our customers and we make a good partner - always keeping the partnership in mind.

2.) It has always been one of the goals of my partners and I to make Nxtbook Media the place we always wanted to work at. When you start your professional career, “What not to do?” makes an impression on you.

There are lots of those moments. If and when you are lucky enough to own your own company, (I truly feel lucky) you remember those things you saw and you don’t repeat the error. Unfortunately many people lose that part of what they see and when they have “their turn” they instead make the same mistakes they have seen all the others make in their career. This “Best Places” accolade says that everyone who is a part of the company agrees that Nxtbook is on the right track and it is a pretty special place. We can always do better but we are constantly moving in the right direction.

So congratulations on the honor of the award and now we wait until December to see where we end up. No matter where it is though, it truly is Magic!

Michael