The 2019 Best Firms to Work For: Spaulding Ridge

Spaulding Ridge offers executive-level, practical advice to scale your business. "Stated simply, we deliver best-in-cloud advisory and IT services," Laabs says.

"We believe that all business is personal. Core to our values are our relationships with our clients, our business partners, our own team, and the global community. Spaulding Ridge is dedicated to helping our clients transform their business, from strategy through implementation and business transformation."

Laabs says Spaulding Ridge is deeply committed to those values recognizing that the firm might not be a fit for everyone. "Once we are comfortable a potential consultant shares our values, then we move on to determining if they are a technical fit," he says. "This approach is very difficult when scaling with limited resources, but we believe this approach will lead to long term success for our people, company and clients." 

To that end, the firm has a very comprehensive onboarding program, Laabs says. "We sponsor multiple women's leadership retreats in the developing world. We also have a robust mentorship program that places a priority on developing our talent," he says. "Our team members willingly look forward to participating in these programs while building the greater Spaulding Ridge community."

Recent investments in Spaulding Ridge's global footprint and the expansion of its services offerings to support clients more broadly—from both a geographic and expertise perspective—provides the firm and its employees opportunities." It's exciting for our colleagues to experience new cultures and work experiences globally as we continue to evolve and that's unique for our size of firm," he says.  

Meanwhile, Laabs says his top priority—as well as the entire firm's—right now is to continue to deliver high value for clients. "Given our rapid growth, new processes, geographic and service expansion, and continually evolving technology, we need to remember that our clients pay our bills and make this all possible," he says. "We have to keep our execution level high and focus on our clients' changing needs."

As far as being recognized for the first time ever as one of the profession's Best Small Firms to Work For, Laabs says the honor "validates the impact we are having in the market, both with our clients and our people. This type of recognition adds credibility to our offerings in a crowded market of small consulting firms."

On the survey, the firm excelled in the areas of Work/Life Balance and Career Development. Why do you think that is?

Laabs: We believe we excel in these areas because of our values. We also excel in these areas because of the many resources we give to our employees.  Companies our size don't typically make the same level of investments into their staff, so that they can succeed and build their career at our firm.