For ten years in a row, Dwight Cooper’s company, Professional Placement Resources, or PPR, has landed a spot on the top 25 “Best Small Companies to Work For” list, released annually by the Great Places to Work Institute. This year, PPR eclipsed all the other small businesses on the list, landing itself the coveted #1 spot.
“It doesn’t just happen,” Cooper says of his company’s positive environment. “Building a culture like this is very intentional.” Cooper is known for his ability to develop and execute simple strategies that engage employees at the highest level, and with PPR it shows.
PPR’s CEO Dwight Cooper’s cubicle is among his employees.
IMG: via Jacksonville.com / Photographer: Bruce Lipsky
As an employee recruiting and placement agency, PPR has to be good at finding the best people for any given position. As a company, PPR focuses on being great at one thing:
“RECRUITING… finding the right people for the right jobs. We deliver on attracting, screening, selecting, and on-boarding qualified candidates for our clients in all 50 states. At our core, we are a company obsessed with the customer experience, focusing on culture-based hiring.”
Finding employees that can both execute the job well and fit the company culture can be a difficult process, but it’s one that PPR seems to have perfected. Dwight Cooper’s unique leadership style has a lot to do with it. According to Great Places to Work, Cooper holds Monday “8:31 meetings” on the beach (which happens to be right next to the office), leads employees through beach workout sessions, and does things like encouraging employees to write thank you cards to each other and to clients regularly.
Cooper also makes sure that one month every year is designated “Employee Appreciation Month,” and employees are given thanks through a variety of potlucks parties, game nights (and days), and prizes. Birthdays and anniversaries are celebrated monthly.
As for benefits, there are some amazing ones—like unlimited paid time off for vacation or sick days, eight full weeks of 100% paid maternity and adoption leave, and profit sharing for all employees. PPR also encourages its employees to stay healthy by delivering organic fruit weekly, having health screenings, and bringing in personal trainers.
Dwight Cooper’s recommendations to employers looking to build their own super-healthy company culture include the following:
- Developing a process for communication, involvement, decision-making, and principles
- Being transparent about both successes and failures
- Engaging employees in a dialogue about what the company can improve and grow
- Hiring the right people—for the job and for the culture—and helping them connect with other employees
