Business NH Magazine

Best Companies to Work For: Bottomline Technologies

Employees take pride in the company's successes - it has grown from $100 million in sales three years ago to $150 million in sales this year - and share in that success with bonuses and stock option grants. Employees of the quarter receive $500, a customer delivery award comes with $2,500, a dinner for two is given for delivering outstanding customer value and an innovation award of $5,000 and a weekend trip is given for an idea that makes company products more competitive.

Best Companies to Work For: Concord Hospital

Dr. David Green, chief medical officer, sends health care providers handwritten thank you notes and gift certificates for a free latte at the hospital's cafe if they are mentioned in patient satisfaction surveys. Employee referral bonus, Special Thanks and Recognition awards, cash bonuses on milestone anniversaries, fitness center, extended illness time-off bank, shift, weekend and holiday pay differential, night shift bonus, pharmacy discount, onsite childcare center, paid time off ranges f...

Best Companies to Work For: Citizens Bank New Hampshire

Citizens also has a Suite Reward that is given several times a year to a team or department nominated by colleagues as "not your typical team" Winners receive tickets to the company suite at the Verizon Arena or Fisher Cats Stadium. Benefit Highlights: $11,650 in adoption assistance and an additional $10,000 forgivable subsidy with one-week adoption leave, $3,000 college scholarships for children of colleagues, child care subsidy, $4,000 to $5,000 tuition assistance, identity theft plan.

Best Companies to Work For: Bae Systems

The company's goal is to provide at least 40 hours of training annually for each employee from formal classroom training programs and numerous online training courses to on-the-job learning and company mentors. Spot awards, 9/80 work schedule (Fridays off every two weeks), onsite medical department, benefits for same sex partners, closed Christmas Eve to after New Year's, company wide lunches on holidays, ice cream socials, gym discounts.

Best Companies to Work For: Devine Millimet

[...] unlike many big law firms, where Walker says many associates traditionally spend their first few years "locked in the law library reviewing documents by the truckload, or other mind numbing tasks," Devine's young lawyers work with clients and go to court on a regular basis, all with the support and oversight of the senior lawyers. Onsite gym, regular paid lunches and breakfasts, match 75 percent of 401K contributions up to 7 percent of eligible compensation, mentors for all new associa...

Best Companies to Work For: Hypertherm Inc.

President Richard Couch Jr. and his wife Barbara, vice president of human resources, have carefully cultivated the culture of Hyperthemr, where everyone is called associates to avoid an us versus them connotation; everyone has cubicles, including Dick, though rooms are available for private meetings; and all employees have access to senior management. Start with three weeks vacation, profit sharing (five year average is 29% of base pay), stock ownership program, on-site gym with daily exerci...

Nh's Best Companies to Work for Know the Power of Appreciation

Businesses from across the state submit extensive applications detailing their benefit packages, company culture, communication and employee development strategies, mission statement and letters of support from employees.

Best Companies to Work For: Bittware Inc.

Here is a company where the phrase "go configure" dominates ad campaigns and "bang bits" is the in-house job description for an engineer who codes computer chips. Flexible scheduling, 50 percent 401K match up to 5 percent of salary, quarterly and year-end bonuses, "first m day of the year" ice cream outing, season tickets to Granite State Symphony, Monarchs and Manchester Wolves, 12 sick days, paternity leave.

Best Companies to Work For: Clark-Mortenson Agency Inc.

The senior management team, which includes COO Kathy Batchelder and CFO Jim Neal, makes sure to visit all the offices and periodically hosts ice cream socials and pine parties for employees. Clark-Mortensen also gives employees a paid day off annually to volunteer in the community; a choice of a turkey or a $15 gift card donated to the community kitchen of their choice at Thanksgiving; flex time during the spring and summer, allowing employees to take half hour lunches and choose a day to le...

Best Companies to Work For: Stryker Biotech

The company pays employees $1,000 for ideas that reduce costs, increase productivity, save time and labor, cut down on scrap and materials, streamline manufacturing processes, or improve customer service. Start with three-weeks vacation, flexible scheduling, on-site fitness center and yoga classes, up to $5,000 employee referral bonus, $5,000 adoption assistance, 8 hours time off for volunteer work.

Gunstock's Plans to Expand

In 2003, Gunstock invested $3.8 million to increase its snowmaking capabilities and install a quad chairlift that reduced ride time to the top of the mountain from 14 minutes to six minutes.

Best Companies to Work For: Dynamic Network Services

Company pays 100 percent of health and dental insurance premiums for employees, their families and domestic partners; break room stocked with snacks and drinks; employee shower; up to $4,000 in tuition reimbursements.

Pierce Law Invests in the Future

Soon after finishing a state-of-the art courtroom to train students, Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, the state's only law school, is now in merger talks with the University of NH in Durham.

Renewable Energy Making Inroads

Starting this month, Indeck Alexandria Energy Center in Alexandria will fire up its 16-megawatt biomass plant, producing enough energy for 16,000 homes, employing about 20 people and supporting 100 jobs in the forest industry.

Regional Roundtable: The Upper Valley

(Both are among Business NH Magazine's top 100 private companies in NH.) And as the Hanuver/Lebanon area struggles with the tension between economic development and preserving open space, communities like Claremont are eagerly and success-fully courting businesses fed up with the red tape bogging down expansion projects in the region's economic hub.

The Pain &Amp; Promise of Broadband in Rural Nh

A dispersed and small population in the rural areas combined with vast and unyielding topography, where laying fiber and cable lines or building wireless towers is expensive, makes return on investment challenging for NH's Internet service providers, or ISPs. Wreless LINC is a nonprofit group building a state-of-the-art, open-access broadband network allowing ISPs to provide wireless Internet services to businesses and residents in the three northern NH counties, as well as the Northeast Kin...