Nelson Makes Top 10 List of “Best Staffing Firms to Work For” Staffing Industry Survey December 2009

View SIA Excerpt in PDF  | Visit SIA Online for Full Survey

---

Following is an excerpt of the Nelson survey.
For full article, visit SIA online.

Nelson Family of Companies

Specialties: A wide range of commercial staffing, accounting and finance, technology and legal staffing
Headquarters: Sonoma, CA
CEO: Gary Nelson
Website: www.nelsonhr.com
Phone: 866-466-3576
Number of full-time employees: 275

It's all about family at the Nelson Family of Companies, says Gary Nelson, who runs the company with his wife Marcia and their sons Craig and Chase. Not only is Nelson a family-run business, but also employees are treated like family and feel like they're working with family.

“I like working for a family company,” says Megan Lendo, who handles credit collections for Nelson and has been with the company for two years. “I really like the family atmosphere.”

Nelson strongly believes in giving back to the community in which it operates and encourages its employees to get involved in community service, Lendo points out. She's mentoring a 10-year-old girl in fourth grade through a program called Stand By Me, which is offered through the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance.

Spanish is the little girl's first language, and Lendo is helping her improve her English. “I love it,” she says. “We play games. I also help her with homework. She goes to a bilingual school, so we practice reading books in English and Spanish.”

Tim Schaefer, a field technician at Nelson, tutors at the Boys and Girls Club of Sonoma County and has also helped the organization with its IT infrastructure. “It's been one of the greatest things I've ever done,” he says. “Gary really makes it easy to go out and volunteer.”

In addition to encouraging community service, Nelson is good about recognizing and awarding its top salespeople and recruiters. The company even has a “Rookie of the Year” award for newcomers who have done an exceptionally good job. “People really appreciate feeling valued,” says Nelson. “We try to do that on a regular basis.”

Each quarter, Nelson also gives a Care Award to someone who has gone out of his or her way to help a colleague. The award is open to anyone in accounting, human resources, information technology, business process, operations and marketing.

Those who win a Care Award are eligible to be in the company's prestigious President's Club.

Since Nelson values employee longevity so much it established a group called Tenured Nelson Talent (TNT) for people who have been with the company eight years or more. Those in the group are treated to an appreciation lunch once a year.

“Gary always gets up and makes a speech and thanks us,”says TNT member Bev Abernathy. “It's one of his favorite times. It demonstrates the loyalty he has from many people.”

Abernathy joined Nelson in 1972 and has been with the company for 33 of the past 37 years. She left to pursue an interest in medicine back in 1976, but found she missed the staffing industry, and Nelson in particular, so much that she decided to come back four years later, in 1980. And she's stayed ever since.

What's kept her with the company all these years? She likes the fact that Nelson gives its employees the opportunity to explore different things and climb the ladder, she says. Abernathy, who currently serves as vice president of credit and collections management, started off as a branch manager and worked her way up.

Schaefer also says he appreciates the opportunity to grow and advance in his career. His next goal is to be a facilities manager or director, he says.

Stacey Eulberg, senior general ledger accountant for Nelson, says the people she works with keep her there. “We have some really great people who work here. They give it their all. We just have a variety of people. They'll help you. I work with a bunch of really talented people. Everybody here is very intelligent, and they're good at their job.”

Says Dawn Garzoli, director of sales for Nelson: “I admire my team members and the passion and skill level that they bring to the table. I appreciate the vision of our leadership and their challenge to continuously raise the bar. At Nelson, I am confident in the quality of our talent, our service deliverables and bottom line, our commitment to our clients.”

Garzoli adds that, “The motto at Nelson is that every person we come in contact with (whether it is a candidate, co-worker, vendor, client or prospect) will leave our meeting or our branch feeling better than they did prior to the conversation. We are large enough to support any opportunity, yet we are privately held and small enough to turn on a dime and provide flexible, innovative and customized solutions—and our chairman is only a phone call away.”

To Top    Back to Press Releases