Packer Fastener named Next Generation Best Place to Work

GREEN BAY – Packer Fastener was named Next Generation Best Place to Work at the Greater Green Bay Chamber’s Future 15 and Young Professionals Awards last Thursday, March 5.

“Our CEO (Terry Albrecht) has built such a strong culture here and it’s great to be recognized because we see it paying off,” said Drew Elam, marketing manager for Packer Fastener. “He’s put together not only your standard benefits package and wellness program, but the environment that we work in… We see it every day working here, but to get the word out and let people know has been awesome. It was a very cool recognition.”

At Packer Fastener, building that culture begins with the onboarding process.
“It starts with our intentional culture, which we have branded our swagger,” Emal said. “It’s 14 different behaviors and expectations that we kind of set as a standard for everybody as soon as they come on board.”

And once they are on board Packer Fastener takes steps to ensure employees are taken care of and that they have opportunities to care for others.

“We have many locations, but at most places we let people have free reins to create a fun environment for themselves…” Elam said. “At our headquarters we have a gym facility and those places that don’t have that benefit are given stipends to find a gym of their own… We partnered with Paramount Performance, which is a physical therapy organization based in Suamico, to develop a wellness program called The Industrial Athlete, and that’s offered to every one of our employees where they get a wellness coach and monthly check-ins and PT if necessary… Every employee gets offered volunteer time off, so every employee is offered eight hours towards going outside of work and volunteering their time to help an organization or a nonprofit. We’re just really encouraging people to get out and get involved with their communities. There’s a number of different programs that every employee is given to get outside and help their communities, help themselves and help their families.”

At Packer Fastener, Elam said a people-first mentality is what keeps customers happy and business thriving.

“Terry really believes in people,” he said. We’re a very ‘people, people, people,’ organization. Great people take really good care of our customers, and when our customers are really well taken care of, they take care of the business. It’s kind of circular and just feeds into itself. And then we want to grow people from within. Terry’s really strong on attracting great talent and then, when we do get that great talent, we’d like to retain those people. Creating a great working environment and taking care of our people keeps them around and ultimately gives us the opportunity to develop those people and for those people to develop themselves.”