Bellmont Partners Named Inc. Magazine Best Workplace For Third Year

We are very proud to announce for the third year in a row Bell­mont Part­ners has been named one of Inc. Magazine’s Best Work­places. Accord­ing to Inc., this year’s com­pe­ti­tion was “fiercer than ever,” with thou­sands of com­pa­nies across the coun­try com­pet­ing for this hon­or. A total of 429 com­pa­nies were select­ed, just five from Minnesota.

It’s no secret that the past year and a half has been chal­leng­ing to say the least. But when our office quick­ly turned into 16 sep­a­rate spaces scat­tered across the Twin Cities, the Bell­mont Part­ners team only grew clos­er, rely­ing on each oth­er for sup­port in both work and life. Hav­ing an uplift­ing and encour­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ty cul­ture has always been a top pri­or­i­ty at Bell­mont Part­ners, and 2020 only aug­ment­ed that.

We asked our team mem­bers why this is such a spe­cial place to work – this is what they had to say:

“I love that Bell­mont Part­ners encour­ages each of us to pur­sue our per­son­al pas­sions and bring that ener­gy to the team. For me, that means I can bring my enthu­si­asm for recy­cling and com­post­ing to the office with things like an Earth Month hap­py hour or our Lean + Green Chal­lenge.”  – Johan­na Holub

“I can’t say enough good things about the flex­i­ble work sched­ule. Being able to take a break at 10:30–11 a.m. each day to help our kids with math assign­ments while the lessons were still fresh was a dream. So much bet­ter than if we’d have had to ask them to wait until after the end of a tra­di­tion­al work day when they were tired and hav­ing a hard time recall­ing the par­tic­u­lars of how to solve equa­tions. Also, I’m a night owl and feel a lit­tle sharp­er after sun­down, hop­ping back on after the kid­dos’ bed­time to tack­le some chal­leng­ing tasks with­out dis­trac­tion can be very pro­duc­tive. 😊”  – Jen Bell­mont

“For me, it’s hard to imag­ine the last year with­out the sup­port of the lead­er­ship and my col­leagues at Bell­mont Part­ners. Beyond the flex­i­bil­i­ty and care shown sur­round­ing the pan­dem­ic, the entire team stepped in on a moment’s notice to com­plete­ly clear my plate this spring when I found out my mom was enter­ing the final chap­ter of her can­cer jour­ney. They made sure client work didn’t miss a beat while also tak­ing time to check in and send per­son­al notes of encour­age­ment dur­ing an incred­i­bly chal­leng­ing time for my fam­i­ly. Bell­mont Part­ners’ lead­ers have tru­ly built a com­pa­ny and team that first-and-fore­most val­ues peo­ple, and I’m so grate­ful for that!” – Sara Gras­mon

“Our flex­i­ble work­style def­i­nite­ly helped me get through the past year. Since we could already work from home pre-pan­dem­ic, it was­n’t a major stretch to move to full time. Plus, our abil­i­ty to make our own sched­ules allowed me the time to walk my dog, do some vir­tu­al yoga class­es and just take men­tal breaks through­out the day – all of which were great stress reliev­ers. Our vir­tu­al hap­py hours were also ther­a­peu­tic – espe­cial­ly when I joined from my back­yard on sun­ny, sum­mer after­noons!”  – Megan Ander­son

“The Bell­mont Part­ners team has been an amaz­ing sup­port sys­tem through­out these ‘unprece­dent­ed times.’ Just last week when I got my sec­ond vac­cine, sev­er­al BPers reached out before I even got it to see if they could lend a hand with some of my work if I expe­ri­enced any of those pesky side effects. It’s com­fort­ing to know there are peo­ple that have your back at a stress­ful time when we all could use a break.”  – Syd­ney Schoeberle

“It def­i­nite­ly was a relief last spring when our lead­ers were all very open and com­mu­nica­tive about our finan­cial posi­tion so we nev­er had to have any doubts or fears that we may lose our job at any minute. Beyond the trans­paren­cy around job secu­ri­ty when busi­ness­es were in major flux, just the com­radery that the team had that we would all get through this time togeth­er, and the flex­i­bil­i­ty offered to every­one while we nav­i­gat­ed the loss of school, child­care, social sit­u­a­tions and more was just huge.” – Megan Derkey

“Bell­mont Part­ners has always val­ued and offered flex­i­bil­i­ty, and that was invalu­able this past year. It made the shift to work­ing remote­ly much eas­i­er, and it made jug­gling work and dis­tance learn­ing pos­si­ble. Beyond the mechan­ics of mak­ing this past year doable, though, was a team of the most sup­port­ive peo­ple out there – peo­ple who go the extra mile for a col­league or client in good times and not-so-good times, peo­ple who cre­ate a cul­ture of respect and learn­ing around every­thing from civ­il unrest to antiracism to men­tal health, and peo­ple who still found ways to cel­e­brate the good (wed­dings! babies! new hous­es!) and make work fun even in the weird­est of times (I’ll always remem­ber the Zoom hap­py hour alpaca farm vis­it).”  – Brid­get Nel­son Monroe

“I live alone, so the idea of work­ing from home full time dur­ing a pan­dem­ic was a lit­tle intim­i­dat­ing at first. But hav­ing the sup­port of the Bell­mont team to fall back on has been a god­send. Know­ing that any check in could be eas­i­ly turned into a Zoom call sim­ply for a lit­tle face time has been huge for me. I love being apart of and learn­ing from this incred­i­ble team!” – Julie Goulette

“Our team is filled with not only tal­ent­ed and amaz­ing PR pros but also the most thought­ful, sup­port­ive, gen­er­ous and col­lab­o­ra­tive peo­ple around. I’m con­tin­u­al­ly inspired by them and learn from their pos­i­tive actions. Espe­cial­ly over the past year and every­thing our nation, com­mu­ni­ty and us as indi­vid­u­als have been through, they are fierce­ly sup­port­ive of each oth­er, our clients and our com­mu­ni­ty.” – Shel­li Lissick

“Life dur­ing the pan­dem­ic has been a chaot­ic, volatile and con­stant­ly chang­ing endurance race, with the earth shift­ing under our feet threat­en­ing to knock us down over and over again. Dur­ing the past 14 months, one of the rare con­stants I knew I could always count on has been the Bell­mont Part­ners cul­ture. It wasn’t easy, but the rock-sol­id foun­da­tion we’ve built togeth­er made it pos­si­ble for our agency to make it through. This year, more than ever before, I’m extreme­ly proud of being rec­og­nized as an Inc. Best Work­place. We’ve been through a storm togeth­er, and the clouds are start­ing to part.”  – Bri­an Bellmont

 

Thank you to our clients and part­ners, who are big con­trib­u­tors to our cul­ture, as well. We’re grate­ful to get to work with so many amaz­ing peo­ple – inside and out­side of our orga­ni­za­tion. Thanks also to Inc. Mag­a­zine for this hon­or, and con­grat­u­la­tions to all the oth­er Best Workplaces!