Video Crain’s: Best Places to Work 2012
Red Frog Events LLC is an event management/planning company that was founded in Chicago in 2007. In 2012 the company ranked 9th in Crain’s Chicago Business’ annual list of Best Places to work. In 2013 Forbes Magazine named Red Frog #18 on their Most Promising Companies in America list.
Whats their secret? Founder and CEO Joe Reynolds would accredit the companies success to their exceptional team and corporate culture. From the start Reynolds wanted to instil a “work hard, play harder” mentality into the culture of the business. Naturally one would assume an element of creativity is fundamental to any event planning company but Reynolds insisted on taking it one step further. During the first 2 years of its life the business was extremely successful and moved into a larger space which is referred to as camp red frog by its founder and employees. Reynolds claims that the costly investment into the space was necessary to achieve the culture he envisioned for the business and inspire employees to be as creative as possible. The environment makes employees want to be at work and beyond that; features several amenities that make it hard for one to leave. Things like a $100 000 tree fort conference room/ work space, a meeting room with swings instead of chairs, foosball tables, free food and alcoholic beverages and the list goes on. The real appeal of working for Red Frog is their Unlimited Vacation Day policy and exceptional health care benefits and insurance package. The companies extremely selective hiring process allows the business to remain profitable and efficient despite the obvious potential for a Red Frog’s business model to be a money pit. I believe like Zappos Red Frog has carved out a unique corporate culture model and work environment where employees want to work as hard and efficiently as possible because they truly love their job, and as a result the business’ balance sheets reflect this accordingly. Who needs a vacation when going to work already feels like a holiday?
Red Frog Events’ entrance to their unique and fun office space in Chicago.