4 Houston companies clock in among America’s best employers, says Inc.

happy workers

It pays to work at these four Houston companies. Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Facebook

Houston has already been heralded as a hotbed for innovation. Now, a handful of local companies are in the spotlight as the best places to work.

Four Houston companies are among 429 businesses named May 12 to Inc. magazine's 2021 list of the country's best workplaces. They are:

  • Marketing and PR firm CKP, Houston.
  • Environmental restoration company Ecosystem Planning and Restoration, Tomball.
  • IT automation platform Liongard, Houston.
  • Online recruiting service WizeHire, Houston.

"We've taken steps, especially during the pandemic, to build an amazing team and inclusive culture that is rooted in collaboration," Liongard CEO Joe Alapat says in a news release. "I am proud every day of the work this team is doing and the positive impact we're having on the managed services industry, and thrilled that our employees share our excitement and enthusiasm."

Meanwhile, 11 Austin companies receiving kudos are:

  • 9Gauge Partners, a business management consulting firm.
  • AgileAssets, a provider of transportation management software.
  • AlertMedia, an emergency communication and monitoring platform.
  • Decent, a provider of health insurance.
  • Fourlane, a provider of QuickBooks support.
  • Made In Cookware, an e-commerce startup that sells pots, pans, and other cookware.
  • Mighty Citizen, a branding, marketing, and communications firm.
  • OJO Labs, a platform for buying and selling homes.
  • Ontic, a company whose software helps companies address physical threats.
  • Q1Media, a digital media company.
  • The Zebra, an insurance marketplace.

Nick Soman, founder and CEO of Decent, says his company seeks to trust, respect, and appreciate every employee.

"This year that has meant quickly helping employees who lost power during an unprecedented snowstorm find a warm place to stay and offering unlimited time off," Soman says in a news release. "Being recognized as a top workplace is a special honor for Decent. Our people are at the heart of our company. They foster our amazing culture and drive our consistently outstanding customer service."

Lukas Quanstrom, CEO of Ontic, says his company is committed to upholding the core values, standards, and practices that contributed to the Inc. honor.

"Over the past year, the Ontic team has experienced rapid growth reinforcing how important our supportive, entrepreneurial culture is to nurturing talent and prioritizing our employees' overall welfare," Quanstrom says in a news release.

Each nominated company took part in an employee survey, conducted by Quantum Workplace, on topics including management effectiveness, perks, and employee growth. Also, an organization's benefits were audited to help determine the employer's standing.

Elsewhere in Texas, seven Dallas-Fort Worth employers, four Houston-area employers, and one San Antonio employer made the Inc. list.

Dallas-Fort Worth area

  • Staffing and recruiting firm BridgeWork Partners, Dallas.
  • Commercial real estate services company esrp, Frisco.
  • Staffing agency Frontline Source Group, Dallas.
  • PR and marketing firm Idea Grove, Dallas.
  • HVAC and plumbing warranty company JB Warranties, Argyle.
  • Technical consulting firm Stratosphere Consulting, Dallas.
  • NetSuite consulting firm The Vested Group, Plano.

Inc. highlights esrp's employee emergency fund, which offers "a financial lifeline for a range of life events, including funerals, medical emergencies, and welcoming new grandchildren. The omnipresent resource is funded through anonymous employee donations."

San Antonio

The only San Antonio company to make the 2021 list was IT services provider Mobius Partners.

------

This article originally ran on CultureMap.

It's important to rethink your startup's messaging during the time of the coronavirus. Getty Images

Houston expert shares 5 tips for brand messaging during a pandemic

guest column

Brand messaging in a world cowed by a worldwide pandemic poses a set of challenges none of us has ever faced.

The aftermath of Hurricane Harvey provides few guideposts to professional communicators as that tragedy unfolded over several terrible days in August 2017 mostly affecting Southeast Texas. While Harvey was unprecedented in the sheer volume of its onslaught, the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its global scale and seeming endlessness.

In times of crisis, our natural impulse is to lend a helping hand. With the highly contagious coronavirus spreading and social distancing guidelines in place, lending a literal helping hand is dangerous. In the days and weeks following Hurricane Harvey, Houston's civic leaders, its citizens, and its business community rallied to meet the challenge with positivity, hard work, and good humor. The circumstances today are fundamentally different, and the path forward is uncertain and uncharted.

Attempts to develop a messaging strategy in the face of COVID-19 can be paralyzing.

How do we maintain meaningful connections with our customers and communities when we're being forced apart? How do we keep our businesses vital and active when economic and public health interests are in direct conflict? How do we create normalcy and positivity in the middle of so much suffering? How do we keep our sense of humor and humanity when we need it most?

We're in this for the long haul. Here are a few tips to guide your messaging strategies so your content can do some good.

Fine tune your tone

Tone is everything in a crisis. People are frightened for their personal and economic wellbeing. Messaging under these circumstances is risky, but with a thoughtful approach, you can make a positive impact. Unless you work for a news, civic, or healthcare organization, it's unlikely anyone is looking to you to guide them through the pandemic. If that's your messaging, it'll be jarring and confusing.

Focus on providing distraction, comfort, support, and some sense of normalcy. That doesn't mean your messaging should ignore the realities of the situation, which runs the risk of appearing tone-deaf, opportunistic, or ignorant. We're all affected. Keep that top of mind, acknowledge what's happening in the world, and your messaging tone shouldn't cause you too many problems.

Feed the beast

You may have seen that clip of Welsh seniors playing a life-size version of Hungry, Hungry Hippos on NBC's Today Show. If you haven't, the smile is worth the minute and thirteen seconds of your life. Now, think of social media as the game board, your content as the marbles, and everyone else is a hungry, hungry hippo, except the hippos are hungry day and night and the game will never end.

People are lonely and bored, and instead of counting the dimples in their ceiling plaster, they're on the Internet sharing Tiger King memes. They're looking for connection and a sense of shared community. You have the opportunity to brighten their day. You alone cannot generate enough engaging content to keep the hippos full for long, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Isolation is unhealthy.

Help people keep their marbles by giving them something fun, inspiring or educational to share and experience with others while staying on brand.

Deliver the goods

Thanks to social media, home delivery has taken on new meaning. Bring your brand directly into peoples' homes and create an interactive experience that disrupts the monotony of the "stay at home" order. Miss fajitas? Of course you do. Original Ninfa's on Navigation recently launched a series of YouTube videos called "Ninfa's with your Niños," and they're delightful. The content is on brand, encourages activity, and implicitly acknowledges folks are trapped at home with their kids (note: these were clearly produced before social distancing started). Watching Chef Alex Padilla demonstrate how to make queso flameado in your own kitchen will be the best single minute of your month. That's how to home deliver a brand.

Know your role

If your organization is in a position to help your community, do it in a way that makes sense for your brand, creates a meaningful impact for those suffering, and is simple to communicate. Flattening the curve is a team effort. Big or small, national or local, organizations can do their part to help the effort. If it's a logical extension of what you do normally, it will not look opportunistic because it's not opportunistic. It's a reasonable and human thing to do in the face of tragedy.

For example, local fashion designer Chloe Dao is making washable face masks for healthcare workers and their families. The Ford Motor Company is converting a plant in Michigan to build ventilators. And Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander is donating his paychecks to COVID-19 relief organizations because he's rich and having a filthy curveball isn't helpful right now. Take what you already do and use it to help people.

Your specific contribution is needed. Figure out what that is and encourage everyone else to get on board.

Don't stick out your neck (or anyone else's)

This should go without saying: safety is the starting point for every single messaging decision you make. Whether implicit or explicit, all of your messaging, all of your community investment, and all of your community initiatives must put the safety of your employees, your customers, and your neighbors first.

No one will question why the video message you created in selfie mode is a little rough and wobbly. No reasonable person will question you for wearing a mask or gloves or waving at them from a distance. Being involved carries an unusual amount of personal risk. All of your activities and content creation should factor in the hard realities of a viral pandemic.

Project safety in your words and your actions. Slickly produced content can take a back seat for now. Be safe out there.

In the face of this crisis, every effort to create connection helps. Be careful with your words, thoughtful with your generosity, and positive with your message. And if all else fails, share that video of old people playing Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

------

Jeremy C. Little is the head of account services for CKP, a Houston-based marketing and public relations group.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Rice lands $15M U.S. Army award to launch next-gen wireless research center

defense funding

The U.S. Army Research Office has awarded Rice University $15 million to establish a new center for next-generation sensing and communications.

The five-year research center—dubbed the Center for Large Aperture Secure Sensing, Imaging and Communications (CLASSIC)—will unite researchers from universities and national laboratories to develop advanced antenna technologies for future wireless systems. Edward Knightly, the Sheafor-Lindsay Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice, will lead the center that “combines expertise in wireless networking, antennas, radar, artificial intelligence, circuits and physics to address growing demands on wireless systems,” according to Rice.

“The challenges we’re tackling require advances that span physics, hardware, communications and computing," Knightly said in a news release. “By combining those strengths in a single center, we can accelerate the development and demonstration of technologies that would not be possible through individual efforts alone.”

Joining Knightly will be Ashutosh Sabharwal of Rice, Sensen Li of the University of Texas at Austin, Hou-Tong Chen of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Danijela Cabric of UCLA, Josep M. Jornet and Tommaso Melodia of Northeastern University, Daniel M. Mittleman of Brown University, and Willie Padilla of Duke University.

Industry partners include Booz Allen Hamilton, Intel, Keysight, Lockheed Martin, MITRE, Northrop Grumman, Qualcomm and Raytheon.

CLASSIC researchers will investigate how large-scale antenna arrays (ELSAAs) can expand the capabilities of wireless systems where technology is limited.

ELSAAs use thousands of coordinated antenna elements to direct radio waves. Researchers aim to develop ways to use the technology to help maintain steady communication when signals are blocked or disrupted and to detect and generate detailed images of concealed objects.

Along with ELSAAs, the center will work to develop sensing techniques for threat detection, study wireless jamming and build resilient high-speed wireless networks. Researchers will ultimately validate the technology in labs and via drone-based field trials.

CLASSIC will also work on developing an AI-driven modeling framework that will simulate complex electromagnetic environments in real time.

“This award demonstrates Rice’s leadership in tackling complex national research challenges through collaboration across disciplines and institutions,” David Sholl, executive vice president for research at Rice, added in the release.

UH scores $18M NIH grant for chronic disease research

research funding

The University of Houston has received a coveted $18.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to launch a program to address the root causes of chronic disease.

Only 22 institutions nationwide receive this NIH award, and the 5-year process aligns with the newly established UH Health’s mission to expand healthcare innovations in Texas and beyond. The initiative will be housed in the UH Population Health department.

"This generous funding allows us to directly confront the root causes of chronic illness that place a heavy burden on so many families," Dr. Jonathan McCullers, vice president for health affairs at UH, said in a news release. "With the recent launch of UH Health, we have an unprecedented opportunity to translate scientific discovery into healthier outcomes for our communities by bringing together experts from across the university to improve health where it matters most.”

Through the program, UH researchers from different areas of expertise will work together to address the challenges of chronic illness by looking at biological, social and behavioral factors.

According to the university, chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, strokes and others are the leading cause of illness, disability and death in the U.S. They account for 90 percent of the nation’s $5.3 trillion in annual healthcare spending.

Bettina Beech, chief of population health and translational science at UH, serves as principal investigator for the program.

“Chronic disease management largely happens during the 8,700 hours each year that people are not visiting their healthcare provider,” Beech added in the news release. “While healthcare is indispensable, it only accounts for 20 percent of how health is created — genetics accounts for another 10 percent, and the other 70 percent is determined by behavior, social conditions and environment.”

With the funds from the grant, UH will also be able to expand research infrastructure, add to community partnerships, support complementary research, and invest in early-career investigators, according to the news release. UH also aims to develop solutions that could help ease the economic burden of chronic disease.

Report: Where Texas ranks among best and worst states to live in 2026

Texas Talk

After earning its worst-ever ranking last year, Texas has improved slightly on an evaluation of the best states to live, but it's still at the bottom of the pack.

Each year, WalletHub's analysts compare all 50 states using 51 livability metrics to measure their affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life, and safety. Factors that were weighed include the cost of living, homeownership rates, population and income growth rates, wealth gaps, public school system quality, road quality, crime rates, and many others.

The Lone Star State landed at No. 36 in 2026, making it the 15th worth state to live right now. That's on par with its 2024 ranking, and it's a two-spot improvement over its 2025 performance.

While Texas residents can brag about living in a state with the No. 1 highest number of restaurants per capita and the 7th best quality of life in the country, that's about it. Texas earned middling-to-poor scores among the four remaining livability rankings: safety (No. 33), affordability (No. 35), economy (No. 37), and education and health (No. 40).

Here's how Texas fared in other nationwide rankings in the study:

  • No. 27 – Income Growth
  • No. 30 – Housing Costs
  • No. 39 – Percentage of Population in Poverty
  • No. 42 – Percentage of Adults in Fair or Poor Health
  • No. 46 – Homeownership Rate
  • No. 49 – Percentage of Population Aged 25 and Older with a High School Diploma or Higher
  • No. 48 – Average Weekly Work Hours
  • No. 50 – Percentage of Insured Population

Texas has a lot of work to do to improve its livability for all of its residents, but especially for women, according to several other 2026 WalletHub studies. Texas is the fourth-worst state for women, the ninth-worst state for working mothers, and the seventh-worst place to have a baby based on limited access to maternal and pediatric healthcare.

At the very bottom of the report is New Mexico, ranking 50th overall, with Louisiana (No. 49), Mississippi (No. 48), Alaska (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46) rounding out the bottom five.

After holding on as the No. 1 best state to live for a few years in a row, Massachusetts now ranks No. 4 and was overtaken by Idaho (No. 1), New Jersey (No. 2), and Wisconsin (No. 3). New Hampshire rounds out the top five best states to live.

WalletHub's top 10 best states to live in 2026 are:

  • No. 1 – Idaho
  • No. 2 – New Jersey
  • No. 3 – Wisconsin
  • No. 4 – Massachusetts
  • No. 5 – New Hampshire
  • No. 6 – Wyoming
  • No. 7 – Utah
  • No. 8 – Minnesota
  • No. 9 – Pennsylvania
  • No. 10 – Florida
---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

View All Listings