Two Wilmington companies landed on Entrepreneur  magazine’s Top Company Cultures list for 2015, which was unveiled Wednesday.  It’s the first year for the list, which “recognizes businesses that have successfully instilled a high-performance culture in their workplace,” according to Entrepreneur’s website. To determine the companies that had the most effective cultures, the magazine collaborated with Culture IQ, a culture management software and service provider.
 
Local companies N2 Publishing and nCino each ranked in Entrepreneur’s large company category, defined as businesses with more than 100 employees. The 25 enterprises on this list all scored above 86.35 on a 100-point scale, according to the website.
 
At number 8, N2 Publishing had a Culture IQ (CIQ)score of 92.89. nCino, which ranked 13th, scored 91.67 on the CIQ scale.
 
“N2’s ranking as a Top Company Culture is really humbling,” Duane Hixon, CEO of N2 Publishing, said in a news release. “Our goal with N2 is to positively impact lives. This award, in particular, is important since it’s based on feedback from our teammates and it represents the impact N2 has on their lives, both in and out of work."

According to a statement from Entrepreneur, N2 – which publishes community magazines for neighborhoods around the country – “is recognized for creating an exceptional culture that drives employee engagement, exceeds employee expectations and directly impacts company success.”
 
Company rankings were determined using CultureIQ's methodology for measuring high-performance cultures.  Employees at each company received a survey consisting of multiple-choice questions. The answers were used to assess a company's strength across 10 core qualities of culture, according to Entrepreneur’s website. Those core qualities were collaboration, innovation, agility, communication, support, wellness, work environment, responsibility, performance focus, as well as mission and value alignment.

Of those qualities of culture, the two that stand out for nCino CEO Pierre Naudé are collaboration and a supportive work environment he said the banking software company tries to create.

"We place a heavy emphasis on collaboration and, second, there is the whole culture of empowerment," he said Wednesday. "Employees are able to use their judgment, their skills and background. They feel they are respected, and it drives the result you see [in the survey]," he said.

Naudé said what makes him proudest of having nCino on the Top Company Culture list is that the input came totally from employees, not a PR company or a marketing department. "These are the opinions of employees themselves," he said.
 
The 2015 list consists of 75 companies: 25 each in the small, medium and large categories.