Chicago may be known for its towering skyscrapers and Fortune 500 companies, but it’s also home to some of the nation’s best small businesses, according to Forbes.
The magazine said four Chicago-area business are among the nation’s best 25 small companies, a total matched only by the San Francisco Bay Area.
Retailer Abt Electronics, toy manufacturer Radio Flyer, caterers Tasty Catering and consultants Integrated Project Management were all recognized on the list published in the Feb. 8 issue of Forbes.
To be eligible, firms had to have had a healthy business model for the last 10 years, be privately owned and be small enough that frontline employees get the chance to interact with company leaders. That ruled out many of the Silicon Valley tech startups that often dominate small-employer rankings.
Each of those selected is known within its industry for outstanding performance and has rejected the chance to grow faster in favor of “being great,” according to Forbes, which said each firm also had “mojo, the business equivalent of charisma.”
Abt was recognized for bucking the trend away from family-owned, single-location electronics and appliance retailers with its 70,000-square-foot store in Glenview by delivering “great customer service.”
West Side-based Radio Flyer got the nod for introducing new lines of scooters, tricycles and other toys that mean the company’s wagons now account for just one-third of its sales.
Burr Ridge’s Integrated Project Management was included for “implementing state-of-the-art management disciplines, such as an annual planning process in which all 145 full-time employees are actively involved.”
And Elk Grove Village-based Tasty Catering — the smallest of the firms on the list, with just 90 employees and estimated revenue of $10 million — was honored, in part, because it has a 2 percent staff turnover rate in an industry in which a 50 percent turnover rate is the norm.
CEO Tom Walter describes himself as his firm’s “chief culture officer” and said he hangs on to staff by paying more than lip service to the firm’s values of quality and respect to build a “psychologically healthy workplace.” The company’s core values are read aloud at the start of any meeting of five or more employees, and “people are held accountable if they don’t live up to those values,” Walter said.
He said he revamped the firm a decade ago after his son Tim Walter and another employee, Jamie Pritscher, said they would leave unless there were changes.
Tasty Catering has invested in or partnered with a dozen companies Tim Walter and Pritscher have started since then, Tom Walter said.
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