25 June 2008
50 Best Companies to Work for in America revealed
Small and medium employers honored in SHRM’s annual list.
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Great Place to Work® Institute have revealed America's top 25 small and top 25 medium-sized employers. (“Small” being a workforce of 50-250 and “medium” employing from 251 to 999.)
The announcement was made at this year’s SHRM 60th Annual Conference in Chicago (Read about some of its key presentations on the Hub and see Figure 1, below).
2008’s winners are Dixon Schwabl an advertising firm based in New York in the small business category, and Ultimate Software, an IT company based in Florida, in the medium-sized category.
Figure 1. Shoppers at the SHRM conference and exposition 2008
Top-notch management styles
“Particularly in times of economic instability, knowing how to best manage your employees is an essential part of keeping productivity high and your organization open for business," said SHRM president and CEO Susan R. Meisinger.
Some of the strategies used by the number 1 employers include:
- Dixon Schwabl: New employees are placed in rotating teams of 5-8 employees who create fun and meaningful monthly events for the entire agency, to keep the creative culture top-of-mind. Team meetings are daily; agency meetings are weekly – so at least 6 times per week information is routinely shared, both good and bad. Staff meetings are also kept to a maximum duration of 20 minutes.
- Ultimate Software: All staff are invited to a quarterly meeting to receive status reports, updates on new products and information about success stories. Employees can be nominated by their peers for representing "the passion, dedication, personality, attitude and work ethics that everyone at Ultimate should possess". Other awards include tickets to anywhere in the continental US and Mexico, plus $500 cash.
How winners are calculated
This year, 321 companies participated in the selection process. That process included distribution of a 57-question survey to each organization’s workforce and a separate questionnaire for management. The institute then reviewed each company’s annual reports, employee handbooks and other materials.
Employee-survey responses (a total of 44,258 this year) counted for two-thirds of each organization’s score. The remaining one-third came from the institute’s evaluation of the company in five areas: credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie.
Have your say
How do you reward and motivate your employees? Do you run effective company meetings or do they run on way too long?
Discuss these issues with other comms practitioners by joining the Internal Comms Hub members' group on the Communicators' Network.
Other recommendations:
SHRM 2008 report: Understand cultural differences for clearer communication
How to be more strategic (and win awards)
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