People analytics firm Great Place to Work determined the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For™ list and the Fortune Best Big Companies to Work For list by conducting America’s largest ongoing annual workforce study, representing more than 4.3 million employees this year alone.
Employees responded to over 60 survey questions describing the extent to which their organization creates a Great Place to Work For All™. Eighty-five percent of the evaluation is based on what employees report about their experiences of trust and reaching their full human potential as part of their organization, no matter who they are or what they do. We analyze these experiences relative to each organization’s size, workforce make up, and what’s typical in their industry and region.
The remaining pieces we consider include an assessment of all employees’ daily experiences of the company’s values, people’s ability to contribute new ideas, and the effectiveness of their leaders, to ensure they’re consistently experienced.
To be considered, companies submit an application documenting over 200 datapoints describing their HR programs and practices. Great Place to Work then conducts a confidential survey of each company’s workforce. To ensure surveys truly represent all employees, we require enough people in each organization to respond that results are accurate to a 95% confidence level and 5% margin of error or better. One part of the total score is based on our evaluation of company programs and policies, while three parts come from our analysis of employees' survey data.
We review any anomalies in survey responses, news and financial performance to ensure there aren’t any extraordinary reasons to believe we couldn’t trust a company’s survey results. Companies need to employ at least 1,000 US employees to be considered for the 100 Best Companies list, and at least 100,000 US employees to be considered for the Best Big Companies to Work For list. Government agencies are not eligible.
