GB Connections LLC has been named one of Hart Energy’s Best Places to Work for 2026, placing the 21-person energy company among the inaugural organizations recognized for workplace culture and employee experience. The recognition is notable less for the award itself than for the employee feedback behind it, with 94% of participating workers saying the company’s culture enables them to do their best work.
For a growing energy company, maintaining workplace culture can become harder as quickly as the organization adds employees. GB Connections LLC is trying to address that challenge early, after being named one of Hart Energy’s Best Places to Work for 2026.
The recognition is part of Hart Energy’s inaugural workplace program, which evaluates participating companies using a combination of employer practices and direct employee feedback. For GBC, a company with 21 employees, the award offers an unusually direct snapshot of how workers experience its culture as the organization expands.
According to employee feedback associated with the recognition, 94% of participating employees said GBC’s culture allows them to do their best work. The same percentage said they are enthusiastic about their work.
Those figures are company-reported results from the Hart Energy recognition and should not be treated as a broader benchmark for the energy industry. They nevertheless point to a growing issue for smaller employers: how to preserve employee engagement and decision-making autonomy while adding people, processes and organizational layers.
GBC has added five employees over the past year. That represents a significant increase for a 21-person organization and makes culture management less of an abstract HR exercise and more of an operational challenge.
The company says it has been working to formalize beliefs and behaviors that had previously been embedded informally in how the business operated. Rather than attempting to introduce a completely new culture, leadership has sought to define existing expectations around behavior, accountability, responsiveness, fact-based decision-making and communication.
That distinction matters for smaller companies.
Early-stage organizations often rely on shared norms and close relationships rather than extensive HR infrastructure. As headcount increases, however, those informal mechanisms become harder to maintain. New employees may not have the same institutional context, while existing employees can experience changes in communication, decision-making and management structures.
Technology can help document and reinforce workplace practices, but it cannot substitute for the behaviors employees actually experience.
GBC’s employee feedback offers several indicators that its cultural framework is being translated into day-to-day work. The company says 100% of participating employees reported having sufficient autonomy to make decisions. The same proportion agreed that GBC is committed to high-quality work and keeping employees informed about financial matters.
Autonomy is particularly relevant as employers rethink employee experience. The modern HR technology stack increasingly emphasizes self-service, workflow automation, employee listening and people analytics. But those tools are most useful when they support an organizational environment in which employees actually have authority to act.
For smaller companies, that can create an advantage. A 21-person business can potentially maintain shorter communication paths and give employees more direct exposure to leadership and business decisions than a large enterprise can. The challenge is preserving those characteristics as the organization grows.
The energy sector adds another layer to the issue. Companies operating across engineering, infrastructure and energy services compete for workers with technical expertise who may have opportunities across multiple industries. Compensation remains important, but workplace culture, development opportunities and meaningful responsibility can influence whether employees remain with an organization.
Research from Gallup has repeatedly linked employee engagement with business outcomes, although the relationship varies by organization and industry. Gallup’s 2025 global workplace report found that only 21% of employees worldwide were engaged in 2024, while global engagement declined for the second consecutive year. (gallup.com)
That broader environment makes small-company engagement results potentially significant. Organizations do not necessarily need the same benefits architecture as multinational employers, but they do need to understand whether employees feel connected to their work and able to perform effectively.
GBC’s approach centers on that connection.
The company describes its purpose as “energize progress,” extending the concept beyond customer and partner relationships to employee development. The objective is to create opportunities for workers to grow and contribute while maintaining the characteristics that leadership believes have supported the business.
That becomes increasingly difficult as hiring continues.
Culture can be weakened when new employees receive inconsistent messages about expectations, when managers interpret values differently or when decision-making becomes concentrated at the top. Formalizing cultural principles can provide a reference point, but only if leadership reinforces them through hiring, management practices, recognition and everyday decisions.
This is where HR technology providers increasingly intersect with company culture. Employee listening platforms, engagement surveys, performance-management software and workforce analytics can give leaders more frequent insight into how employees experience an organization. Yet survey scores alone cannot establish whether a culture is healthy.
The more useful question is whether employees’ reported experiences translate into measurable outcomes such as retention, productivity, internal mobility and development.
For GBC, the immediate challenge is straightforward: grow without losing what employees currently value.
The company’s five new hires represent nearly a quarter of its current workforce, making each addition potentially consequential to team dynamics. Maintaining autonomy and transparent communication will require those principles to survive beyond the organization’s original informal operating model.
The Hart Energy recognition provides a snapshot showing that employees currently perceive the culture positively. The more meaningful test will come as the company continues to expand.
For HR leaders at other small and mid-sized energy businesses, GBC’s experience highlights a broader lesson. Workplace culture is not only an employee-benefits issue. It can become a workforce strategy—particularly when organizations are competing for specialized talent and cannot rely solely on scale to attract or retain workers.
The technology may help measure culture. The harder work remains organizational: hiring people who fit the company’s operating principles, giving them room to make decisions and ensuring that leadership behavior matches the values being communicated.
Market Landscape
The workplace culture market is increasingly connected to employee experience technology, including engagement surveys, employee listening, people analytics, performance management and workforce insights.
For small and mid-sized energy companies, the challenge is particularly acute because technical talent is mobile and organizations often compete with much larger employers. Culture can therefore function as a differentiator—but only when supported by credible management practices.
GBC’s recognition illustrates the value of measuring employee experience directly rather than relying solely on leadership assessments. Its reported 94% scores for doing one’s best work and enthusiasm provide a positive snapshot, although the company’s small workforce means the underlying response count is limited.
Top Insights
- GBC’s recognition comes as the company grows, making culture preservation an increasingly important workforce-management challenge for its 21-person organization.
- Employee feedback is central to the award, with 94% of participating workers reporting that GBC’s culture enables their best work.
- Autonomy is a defining cultural signal, with all participating employees saying they have sufficient freedom to make workplace decisions.
- Formalizing culture can support scaling, helping new employees understand behavioral expectations that were previously communicated informally.
- HR technology can measure employee experience, but engagement scores ultimately depend on management behavior, communication and organizational practices.
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