MN Business awards Crux Collaborative with Bronze Award

We don’t often use our newsletter to talk about our work culture. We use it to describe nuances of our services to our current and potential clients.  We dig into industry trends, provide insight into common user experience dilemmas, and educate our audience about user research.


Today is different.  We are going to take this opportunity to toot our own horn a bit. We attended the gala for the MN Business Top 100 Best Companies to Work For and were honored to be recognized among some of Minnesota’s finest companies.

We were delighted and surprised at the gala to be further recognized with the bronze award for small business and we’re going to use this occasion to highlight two of the biggest reasons our employee responses to the anonymous survey led to a 4th consecutive year of recognition.


1. Our awesome team

It is a joy to work with each other. In addition to respecting each other’s skills and talents, we genuinely like one another. We know each other as professionals and human beings. We laugh every day at work. Whether we had fun along the way and collaborated effectively is as much a part of evaluating project success as whether we came in on time and on budget. Forgive the cliché, but we really are a little work family –  collectively, we celebrate our successes and provide support through our troubles.  We value, support, and promote diversity.


This didn’t happen by accident. Nothing grows in unfertile soil. We’re lucky to have leaders who very purposefully created an environment in which these kinds of relationships can flourish, and who allow for the time and space—in weekly staff meetings, monthly “lunch and learn” events, or quarterly staff retreats – to share our personal and our professional interests with each other. Together over the last four years, we have developed a work culture that reflects our collective values—integrity, excellence, humility, and fun.

2. Being allowed to specialize

We do work that we’re good at, in which we’re experts. There is a collective sense of pride that we’re able to work as a team to solve complex problems and deliver exceptional work.


This also means we’re valued, supported, and allowed to focus on what we do well. One of our guiding principles is: Expertise Needs To Be Fed, and we are supported in our efforts to continually learn and evolve – whether it’s a culture that encourages taking time to learn and attend industry events, or a leadership team that supports continuing education by paying for conferences and training.


While these are the key elements of course, we have all of the other perks that usually result in awards like this. Things such as:

  • flexibility with our work schedules
  • standing and walking work stations
  • beautiful, calming workspace surrounded by nature and trees
  • a monthly wellness benefit
  • employer contribution to our HSA
  • employer 401k match
  • profit sharing
  • the best coffee (and coffee maker) around
  • healthy snacks for every day and candy (in our ulab) for times of stress
  • generous PTO (including closing down the office the week between Christmas and New Year’s each year)

These benefits are great, but at the end of the day it comes down to the people and the work—and that is the real reason that Crux Collaborative is one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For.

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