Winning Workplaces

My colleague Jason Ticus just got back from a vacation on the West Coast. While in the Bay Area, one of his stops included 2008 Top Small Workplace Jackson's Hardware. Their CEO and President, Bill Loskutoff, took time out of his day to give Jason a tour of their inviting, 50,000-square foot retail space in San Rafael.

Following are photos from his visit to this hardware store, which, through their team building and employee engagement best practices – many of which are detailed in our 2008 Top Small Workplaces Benchmarking Report – is reporting strong sales, despite a struggling economy and ever-present competition from Big Box retailers such as Lowe's.

Chief executive Bill Loskutoff (left) with one of his employee-owners

We were very happy to see how prominently our award factors into their workplace signage. Many firms that win "best company" awards display the badges on their website, but not nearly as many take the time and effort to play them up just as much, if not more, in their physical space where their customers are. In terms of customer loyalty, that seems like a no brainer best practice to me.

Jason wasn't just at Jackson's to take pictures – he was there to finish work on a Success Story on the business. Look for our March IDEAS newsletter with this article, which will contain some tips and strategies you can adapt for your retail store, later this week.