ONE TREND IS CLEAR FROM THE COMPANIES on Newsweek’s third annual ranking of the 100 Most Loved Workplaces in America®: Policies and practices popularized during the pandemic are not fleeting trends. They are table stakes in the race to win the love and loyalty of workers, a key factor in a company’s success. ¶ Hybrid, flexible schedules? Check. So-called “quiet hiring” policies that provide opportunities for professional development, then seek to promote from within? Check. Benefits that recognize the importance of wellness, mental health and time off? Opportunities to collaborate with colleagues and give back to the community? Check, check and check. ¶ The companies in our top 100 routinely offer most or all of this and more. One burgeoning trend: help for the financial challenges many employees face in today’s economy or due to natural disasters or personal upheaval. No. 1 Marriott Vacations Worldwide, for example, raised frontline wages in all of its markets last year. No. 2 Fairway Independent Mortgage’s employee relief program awarded more than $96,000 in 2022. Greif (53) and J.J. Keller (74) also have hardship funds, Goodway Group (65) and Fogelman (79) offered stipends to counter inflation. ¶ Such policies are smart business. Research by BPI, Newsweek’s partner in producing the Most Loved Workplaces® list, shows employees are up to four times likelier to be more productive if they love the company they work for. In today’s highly competitive economy, that’s quite an achievement.
HOW WE DID IT
Newsweek’s ranking of the Most Loved Workplaces 2023® pays tribute to companies that put respect, caring and appreciation for employees at the center of their business model and, in doing so, have earned the loyalty and respect of the people who work for them.
The list was created in partnership with Best Practice Institute (BPI), a benchmark research company that studies and identifies the specific management practices that lead to employee motivation and satisfaction and has documented the strong link between worker satisfaction and productivity and performance. BPI measures five basic areas to determine how employees feel about where they work to create the Most Loved Workplaces® list: the level of collaboration at the firm; how positive workers are about their future at the company; how much employer values align with employee values; respect at all levels and career achievement. Working in consultation with Newsweek editors, BPI also gave consideration to return-to-office policies, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging and other workplace and talent development initiatives.
Altogether, more than 2 million employees were surveyed at companies ranging in size from 50 employees to more than 10,000. Additionally, several hundred company officials were interviewed.
To identify the top 100 companies for the Newsweek ranking, companies were evaluated and scored as follows: 35 percent of the initial score was based on responses to BPI’s proprietary Love of Workplace Index™ survey. Another 25 percent was derived from analysis of external public ratings from sites such as Comparably, Careerbliss, Glassdoor, Indeed and Google. The final 40 percent came from direct interviews with and written responses from company officials. Newsweek then conducted additional research into every company on the list, as well as the top runners-up, to determine the final list of 100 companies and their rankings. (The list includes both U.S. firms and companies with a strong U.S. presence that are based overseas.)
The rankings combine quantitative and qualitative analysis that was developed by BPI in partnership with The School of International and Public Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and featured in the book In Great Company (McGraw-Hill, 2019) by BPI, and Most Loved Workplace® founder Louis Carter.
