Kickstart: Employees at the heart of every successful business

We all know — or at least we certainly should know — what makes a business actually successful, and it's not just the leaders in the corner office or one or two hot ideas.

It's the people who make the machines run, who track down sales leads, who find material at a competitive price when supplies run low, who make sure the bills are paid on time and everyone in between.

It's not a surprise that there's a lot of crossover between top companies in Plastics News' Best Places to Work and those companies who have been named finalists as PN's Processor of the Year. And in a year unlike any other, the ability to maintain strong employee relations even when those employees needed to be socially distanced was key.

This year, PN divided its Best Places to Work submissions into two categories: processors and suppliers. Resin distributor PolySource of Independence, Mo., took home the No. 1 spot among suppliers while injection molder Plastic Components Inc. of Germantown, Wis., topped the processors' list. Click through to read a list of this year's top companies. Profiles of the winners will run in the March 29 issue of PN.

Is your company considering ways to convince your employees to get a COVID-19 vaccination?

Our sister paper Tire Business writes that tire maker Bridgestone Americas Corp. "will provide $100 to U.S.-based employees who choose to get the COVID-19 vaccine, as a 'support payment' to remove barriers such as missing work, childcare or transportation."

Bridgestone employs 33,000 in the U.S. It says the program is voluntary. It is considering similar incentives in Canada and Latin America.

Tupperware Brand Corp.'s charitable foundation and the National Park Foundation say their joint work will divert nearly 10 million single-use plastic bottles from landfills.

In October, Tupperware pledged $1 million toward the park foundation's resilience and sustainability program, and funds are going into multiple efforts.

Tupperware's funding is supporting water refill stations at more than 65 sites, including Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Virginia, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.

Recycling stations are going Yellowstone National Park and other sites while composting infrastructure for unused and discarded food are going into place at Grand Canyon National Park and the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park.