Like many companies these days, N2 offers snacks, a casual dress code, and an in-office gym. But while those are great, they're just perks that live within four office walls––and they don’t apply when our people head home for the day or work remotely. N2 Publishing’s culture is something that exists within our team members. It’s positive, radiating, and motivating. It’s a shared attitude, and it’s something we deeply feel is worth celebrating and recognizing.

Managing our first wave of company growth was an exciting time for us. The challenge ahead of us was clear, we had a large contract and hence a large customer to “onboard” –– larger than anyone at the company had experience with. In my mind, the lack of experience didn’t concern me, as I knew we had the right people that would figure out how to be successful. My once major concern, instead, was that focusing on the large contract would take our eyes off our existing customer base…

Contegix is a cloud computing, manager hosting provider. We house infrastructure for a number of customers, including household brands like Chico’s, Panera, and eBay. In 2013, we began a data center consolidation process in Saint Louis. We were moving all of our local infrastructure from 3 previous generation data centers into a modern facility. This was a phenomenal upgrade for our customers in terms of resiliency, security, and future-proof capabilities.

When you think about good company culture, it's easy to visualize ping-pong tables, happy hours and unlimited snacks. While those perks are great and can definitely help contribute to a fun environment and catch potential job-seekers interest, they are not your culture. Culture is driven by a company’s mission, vision, and values. At Direct Agents, we look to propel a culture of excellence that is driven by our senior leaders and supported by our core values and mission.

The day began like any other at VIBCO, Inc. It was a Friday morning and our shop floor employees were looking forward to the start of their weekend, (they worked Monday through Thursday 7:30 to 5 so they could work just a half day on Friday). Then the Customer called. He needed our vibrators on site Monday. He had called earlier in the week to make sure they would ship express by Friday. He had gone through the long process of ordering and credit card approval…