“You can treat your people very, very well and still grow, said Bob Phipps, director and co-founder of Per Stirling. “It’s better to build a great cohesive team that will stay together for years and years.”

Phipps shared other lessons learned on leading a “best place to work”:

• You can’t grow if you can’t delegate. “As a founder, it was initially hard to delegate,” Phipps said. “One of the best things we did was put together a strong creative management team.”
• Let your team speak. Believe that every employee is more effective in telling the company’s story than the management team. To this end, potential employees may call anyone at the firm at any time to see what it’s like to work there.
• Be extraordinarily selective when hiring. Paying top dollar will enable you to do so.
• Don’t encourage competition among employees. Instead, encourage them to help each other.

Phipps says clear internal messaging is also essential to ensure that every team member knows “how we define and describe ourselves as a company.”