Atlas Embroidery & Screen Printing Listed Number 2 in Best Places to Work
Counselor’s Best Places To Work Revealed
Earlier this year, Counselor set out on a mission to find the companies in the industry where employees simply love to come to work every day. We wanted to identify those workplaces that have loyal staffs, dependable and trustworthy management, solid and motivating benefits packages and overall team effectiveness that raises organizations to high levels of success.
Atlas Finished # 2 in America!
The list of 50 companies is certainly diverse. It has distributors and suppliers, Top 40 companies with hundreds of employees and small firms with only 15 staffers (in fact, to qualify for the program a company had to have at least 15 employees), organizations from east to west and north to south.
About ASI (Counselor)
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over 25,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties.
“Atlas Shines because of our Clients!”
Atlas Embroidery & Screen Printing
By C.J. Mittica
Forced out of the corporate world after 9/11, Mitchell Lombard maintained a simple motto when he began Atlas Embroidery & Screen Printing (asi/700400): “I wanted to do everything opposite of Corporate America.”
Earnings first and everything else second? Not this company.
The earnings have arrived – to the tune of 30% to 40% increases every year. So has steady growth; Atlas started off with two employees and one machine and now carries nearly 60 employees and many machines. And I still have the same two employees and the same machine we started with,
Lombard notes.
“Our employees will bleed for our company. They feel that they own it. We want them to feel that way.”
MITCHELL LOMBARD, ATLAS EMBROIDERY & SCREEN PRINTING (asi/126900)
For the president of the company, there’s no mystery behind the secret of success. “We put our employees first,” he says, “and we put our clients right next to the employees. We bend over backwards. And the money takes care of itself.”
To achieve that, Lombard keeps his workers included in the company’s decision-making process. He offers a generous benefits package where many similar businesses fall short. He gives away company shirts without charging a cent. And he holds routine design contests among the employees; the winning design gets put on a shirt and handed out to the staff during the holidays. As a result? “Our employees will bleed for our company,” he says. “They feel that they own it. We want them to feel that way.”
Lombard describes the workplace atmosphere as “fun”, with each department blaring its own music and engaging in good-natured territorial gamesmanship (being a stone’s throw from the beach in the Fort Lauderdale, FL, area probably helps too). Satisfied customers buying pizza for the staff is not an uncommon occurrence. For Lombard and Atlas, a job well done means keeping both the employees and the coffers well-fed. “If you take care of your people, they take care of you,” he says.
- CJM
Tags: best places to work