Best Places to Work 2026

Biz 417 is recognizing the best places to work in southwest Missouri for the sixth year. This year we added a new employer category to better reflect the business community and honor more 417-land employers who meet the mark. We now have three categories based on the number of employees. With the addition of workplaces with as few as 10 employees, the categories shift to include a mid-size employer group. The winners have all participated in a rigorous evaluation process, with both employer and employee submissions, to have earned a rank on these lists.

Best Small Companies (10–50 Employees)

Achieving Your Best took the cake as the best place to work in the small business category. This came from the gym putting employees first for the company’s long-term success.

When Cassie Dimmick founded Achieving Your Best in 2007, the gym was a truly grassroots project. Dimmick had no formal business education, and the business had no building yet, so her classes were held in parking lots.

In 2017, she moved into the gym’s current location, hiring Tori Keltner, office manager, as her first employee. From there, the company expanded to 15 employees, counting Dimmick, creating a personalized environment in the process that has yielded 134 and counting five-star Google reviews.

Among small gyms, Achieving Your Best is an outlier: Employees, rather than contractors, run gym operations. Dimmick says this was essential to ensure the gym felt welcoming to patrons. “A huge barrier to people taking care of themselves physically is getting in the door of a gym, feeling like they have structure and they have people who know what they’re doing and that they can trust,” she says. “That takes a lot of the people being here consistently.”

Because of this, Dimmick and Keltner prioritized maximizing employee benefits to retain as much of the staff as possible. These include free memberships for employees and their family, a pension plan with an employer match and the company paying 100% of employees’ healthcare and dental insurance.

This is despite the financial toll that extensive benefits like this can take on small gyms. “The gym industry isn’t a big money maker; the profit margins are pretty tight,” Dimmick says. “That’s not why I’m in this.”

With time, the team environment has become tight-knit, especially as Dimmick homes in on the gym’s fundamentals through weekly meetings focused on group contribution and collaboration. Dimmick says that by building this foundation, they are indirectly boosting customer satisfaction. “We need to be thriving on an individual level and then also at a team level,” Dimmick says. “We spend a lot of time on that. That way we can help other people thrive. That kind of stuff takes us getting to know each other really well, and we take the time to do that.”

Cantrell Real Estate supports its independent agents with proven workflows and a family-like culture that keeps business running smoothly.

For most real estate firms that hire independent contractors, the onus is on the agents to ensure smooth sailing. Agents learn to become a jack of all trades—amateur photographers, marketing specialists and social media specialists on top of endless paperwork and showing houses.

That’s why Cantrell Real Estate bridges the gap between agents and agency, supplying its independent contractors with vital assistance like contract compliance, marketing listings and more. The Cantrell Real Estate office is tightly knit with Michelle Cantrell as a broker and owner; her son, Brent Cantrell, as broker and CEO; and other family members also working in the business. Outside of the office, employees find shared ground in charitable causes, volunteering at Least of These, Warriors Journey and more.

Toward the end of each year, the company selects a local location to meet at for an annual business planning clinic. Here, approximately 45 agents devise specific business, financial and personal goals. The sum of the individual goals becomes the company’s goal for the year, emphasizing the role of individuals in company success.

The end-of-year culmination of goal success is the company awards banquet, which consists of different sales levels that agents can meet and culture and staff awards.

The bottom line is that by setting up agents for success through proven networks, Cantrell Real Estate thrives. “I think it’s partially because of how we hire,” Brent Cantrell says, continuing. “We’re particular about the people we bring into the circle because that culture is so important to us.”

At Erica Lea Design Studios, shared interests and employee well-being are part of the company culture.

Erica Lea Design Studios is best known for being one of the Ozarks’ premier interior design companies, but its success lies in empowering the team by shaping benefits around associates—not the other way around.

The studio explored hybrid and flexible work schedules to support employees. With most of the team being moms, the question was not if but when they would need to be excused from work to caregive. Business Manager Beth Alvarez says she experienced the need for flexibility firsthand when dealing with a sick child during a critical workday. “We felt like it was important to give moms a space to be able to be Mom, but also if you still want to do design, come and do design with us,” she says. “We find that our team thrives better when it’s more flexible and it’s not so rigid.”

Besides motherhood, another thing that many team members have in common is music. When the team needs to take a load off, they relieve work stress with impromptu dance parties featuring songs by Taylor Swift among others, or even, in the case of Alvarez, choreographed dance routines inspired by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

Though there’s plenty of play at the design studio, there is also plenty of hard work, which is rewarded by the chance to participate, after a year’s employment, in a simple IRA plan with a 3% company match. For employees that work over 20 hours a week, Erica Lea Design Studios grants a wellness reimbursement of up to $550 annually, while also fully covering the cost of an individual monthly membership to a local wellness clinic.

Employees were rewarded in 2025 with an all-expenses-paid trip to Kansas City after hitting a major sales goal. During this time, the design studio ladies were able to tour a showroom for one of their fabric and wallpaper lines, spend time shopping and stay in a plaza hotel. “We had two cars, and we all just piled in,” Alvarez says. “It was a really fun time.”

Phelps County Bank, known for its close relationship with the communities it serves, is driven by the Five to Thrive pillars, shaping its work culture.

Phelps County Bank’s five to thrive pillars and their respective committees are the blueprint for everything that goes on behind the scenes.

The pillars were started four years ago to ensure that the bank was well-rounded, with each pillar being led by a committee and chairperson.

The bank’s first pillar, Impressive Customer Experience, ensures the front facing work of the bank is always exceptional. World Class Employee Development, chaired by Amy Skyles, ensures there is ample advertisement of employee-owner learning opportunities, as well as creates three-tier development plans. Community Champions prioritizes volunteerism.

The company sponsors employee-owners’ efforts like 5K runs through the Healthy Habits pillar, and the committee produces a website with walking and running routes near the office. Additionally, the Springfield Sunset Street location has a gym available for all local employee-owners.

Related to this pillar is the company’s extensive benefits program. For example, Phelps County Bank pays a substantial amount toward medical premiums on top of 100% of employee life and disability insurance. Employee-owners receive reduced childcare costs through a childcare program with the state, and some positions are even able to have 32-hour work weeks.

Phelps County Bank follows an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, model, encompassing the Uncommon Ownership Model pillar. Skyles says that the bank being 100% employee-owned is the number one culture driver, as it requires open dialogue between employee-owners.

When employee-owners feel motivated to see the bank’s numbers grow, what results is a community connection. “That’s something we strive to maintain as we continue with our growth, is to make sure people understand that we’re always locally owned, no matter where we go,” Skyles says.

At Summit Natural Gas of Missouri, employees are rewarded when they prioritize a culture that is inclusive, safe and kind, in line with their PEAKS values.

While safety is the crux of Summit Natural Gas of Missouri, kindness—through peer-to-peer recognition programs and a diversity-forward culture—is what sets Summit apart from other utility companies.

Summit Natural Gas of Missouri, a part of Summit Utilities, rewards its employees with PEAKS for Peers, a peer-to-peer recognition program based on cultural initiatives and the company’s core values: pioneering, excellence, agility, kindness and safety. All team members receive points each quarter to award their peers who demonstrate the PEAKS values.

The recognition points program allows employees to redeem points for a wide range of prizes, with practical, everyday items like small kitchen appliances and garden tools at the lower point tiers, and additional options available at higher point levels for those who choose to save.

Throughout the year, the company features associates who embody its values on the Summit intranet. The Community Affairs Team, in partnership with Summit Employee Resource Groups, also gives out the annual Citizen Award to those who go above and beyond in volunteerism.

Employees at Summit are empowered to do good for other employees. As with the case of giving and receiving points, Summit associates are able to positively impact those around them through the direction of employee resource groups, like the PULSE Committee, MAVS and WISE.

The PULSE (Powering Understanding, Learning, Support & Engagement) Committee fosters a respectful workplace by celebrating heritage months, hosting lunch-and-learns and supporting the studio’s diverse team. Employee resource groups like MAVS (Military and Veterans Support) help support a military leave policy while providing support to veterans and active duty military, and WISE (Women Igniting Success and Empowerment) focuses on initiatives that uplift women.

Summit also pays 100% for life insurance and long-term disability benefits for employees. Summit’s culture, built around employee support, contributes to its low turnover rate of just 9%.

“I really often have people tell me, ‘Oh man, this is the kindest place I’ve ever worked. Everyone is so kind,’” says Justina Pimentel, manager of organizational development at Summit Utilities.