The 25 Best Small-Company Cultures in 2015

From startups to growing businesses and established companies, having a high-performance company culture helps drive a mission, achieve goals, provides support and creates the foundation for employee growth. It provides a productive, engaged work environment that exceeds expectations and gets results.

Entrepreneur, in partnership with CultureIQ®, a culture-management software and service provider, has released its premier Top Company Cultures list. The list recognizes businesses that have successfully instilled a high-performance culture in their workplace.

For our small-company category (companies with 25-49 employees), the industries spanned across the board -- from PR to real estate and everything in between. All 25 companies featured scored above a 92, with church-staffing service Vanderbloemen Search Group taking the coveted number-one spot. Companies were scored in 10 core categories -- collaboration, innovation, mission and value alignment, agility, communication, support, wellness, work environment, responsibility and performance focus -- on a scale of zero to 100. The scores along with a Net Promoter Score were combined to create a cumulative CultureIQ Score. For the full methodology behind the list, see below.

Without further ado, we present you our small-company category for our Top Company Cultures list.

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Vanderbloemen Search Group

Church-staffing company

Year Founded: 2010

CIQ Score: 100.00/100

Hughes Marino

Commercial real-estate firm

Year Founded: 2011

CIQ Score: 98.31/100

Skuid

Company providing user-experience management platform

Year Founded: 2013

CIQ Score: 98.15/100

Rustic Cuff

Retailer specializing in cuff jewlery

Year Founded: 2011

CIQ Score: 97.60/100

Uproar PR

Full-service public relations agency

Year Founded: 2011

CIQ Score: 96.64/100

Kalos Services

Contracting company specializing in construction, air conditioning, electrical and pool heating

Year Founded: 2005

CIQ Score: 95.52/100

DMV.ORG

Business providing DMV-related content and services

Year Founded: 1999

CIQ Score: 95.43/100

Ytel, Inc

Software company helping businesses communicate with leads and customers

Year Founded: 2012

CIQ Score: 95.33/100

BetterWorks

Business providing enterprise goal-setting software

Year Founded: 2013

CIQ Score: 95.21/100

10.

Grow Marketing

Marketing firm focusing on brand experience

Year Founded: 2001

CIQ Score: 95.20/100

11.

Henson Consulting

Full-service boutique PR agency

Year Founded: 2001

CIQ Score: 95.10/100

12.

QuotaFactory

Provider of sales-acceleration software

Year Founded: 2002

CIQ Score: 95.03/100

13.

GetUWired

Internet marketing company

Year Founded: 2008

CIQ Score: 94.56/100

14.

FlexJobs

Provider of job-service platform for telecommuting, part-time and other flexible jobs

Year Founded: 2007

CIQ Score: 94.27/100

15.

Chargebacks911

Chargeback management company

Year Founded: N/A

CIQ Score: 94.17/100

16.

Capterra

Provider of software directories to help businesses find the right solutions for their needs

Year Founded: 1999

CIQ Score: 94.15/100

17.

InCrowd, Inc.

Marketing research firm for life-science industry

Year Founded: 2010

CIQ Score: 93.62/100

18.

MAVRCK

Influence marketing company

Year Founded: 2012

CIQ Score: 93.33/100

19.

O3 World

Digital-product design and development agency

Year Founded: 2005

CIQ Score: 93.20/100

20.

Clypd

Software company for television-advertising industry

Year Founded: 2012

CIQ Score: 92.93/100

21.

Bateman Group

Integrated public relations and social-media communications firm

Year Founded: 2003

CIQ Score: 92.77/100

22.

Approved Mortgage Corporation

Mortgage company

Year Founded: 1994

CIQ Score: 92.70/100

23.

Help Scout

Company providing customer-support software

Year Founded: 2011

CIQ Score: 92.32/100

24.

Lever

Business providing recruiting software

Year Founded: 2012

CIQ Score: 92.29/100

25.

Kona Ice Corporate Headquarters

Franchise of shaved ice and ice-cream truck

Year Founded: 2007

CIQ Score: 92.23/100

Click below to see what companies made our medium-sized and large-company categories.

Methodology

The full list presents a total of 75 companies categorized as small, medium-sized or large companies (25-49 employees; 50-99 employees; and more than 100 employees) broken up into three distinct lists based on company size.

The rankings for all companies were determined using CultureIQ's methodology for measuring high-performance cultures. Employees at each company received a survey of multiple-choice questions. The answers were used to assess a company's strength across 10 core qualities of culture. These quality strength scores, along with the employee Net Promoter Score were combined to create a cumulative CultureIQ Score. The companies with the highest CultureIQ Scores became the Top Company Culture list in ranking order. To be considered for the ranking, a company must have at least 25 employees, have been founded before Jan. 1, 2014, and be headquartered in the U.S. Here are more details about the methodology.

Interested in being part of our 2016 Top Company Cultures list? Sign up to receive updates about the upcoming list.