Stand out with an award-winningProving What Employees Felt All Along: LJA Named #1 Top Workplace in the Nation
Objective
Preserving LJA’s employee-owned, family-oriented culture while scaling rapidly — and finding a credible way to showcase the workplace excellence employees experience every day.
Solutions
Workplace Survey, Employer Branding, and Top Workplaces recognition
Results
Actionable feedback from across 70+ locations and immense company pride after winning the #1 spot on the 2025 USA TODAY Top Workplaces list for mid-sized employers — an accomplishment that builds credibility and bragging rights with internal and external stakeholders.
For more than a decade, LJA has relied on Energage to help strengthen the culture that sets it apart from others. What began as a competitive push from leadership to prove what employees already knew – that LJA was one of the best places to work – has evolved into a long-standing partnership founded on listening, learning, and celebrating employees.
As the company expanded from a few hundred employees to more than 70 offices nationwide, Energage tools continue to provide LJA with the insights and recognition needed to scale its family-oriented, employee-owned culture. Today, LJA doesn’t just claim to be the best. They prove it as the number one mid-sized 2025 USA TODAY Top Workplace – something their employee-owners, candidates, and clients love to celebrate.
We sat down with Robin Mitchell, Engagement Specialist at LJA, Courtney Agbetola, Assistant Marketing Director, and Christian Garcia, Marketing Coordinator, to learn more about what the recognition means to the LJA team. Right off the bat, it’s obvious that engagement and success are contagious at LJA.
“We’re super competitive. We are one of the best places to work, and we need proof behind us. Top Workplaces gives us the credentials and visibility to make that official.”
Courtney Agbetola,
Assistant Marketing Director
Engagement and pride are contagious for employee owners
Employee-ownership is extremely important for LJA team members. The ownership structure fosters collaboration, encourages innovation, and supports shared success – key elements that drive engagement. Courtney says, “We’re all on this train together and we’re going in the same direction.”
Christian echoed the same sentiment, adding, “We’re all employee owners, so we collaborate well. We check in on each other, make sure we’re helping each other out whenever we can, which helps me enjoy my work more.”
Robin, who knows more about LJA’s employee engagement than anyone else, even said that everyone is excited to come to work every day. She added that employee-ownership also contributes to employees feeling especially proud of their Top Workplaces awards and recognition.
A monumental win for the LJA team
LJA employees know their workplace is special, and has been for some time. To them, it’s no surprise that the company has won 10 Top Workplaces awards already this year. But one win in particular really sealed the deal – #1 2025 USA TODAY Top Workplace for mid-sized companies takes those bragging rights to the next level.
“For a very long time, LJA has talked about how we’re the best. Now, this is the proof we’ve been looking for: our employees really are saying that we are the number one Top Workplace in the country. We use it as a tool in recruiting and when we’re talking to our clients. We’ve even added it to our company homepage. An accolade of this magnitude is not one LJA takes lightly, we will highlight it for as long as we’re able to celebrate the #1 workplace title.”
— Courtney Agbetola, Assistant Marketing Director at LJA
Robin added that it was super special for her to celebrate the win with the rest of her team. “When I shared the news with our team of engagement champions from 70+ office locations everyone cheered,” she beamed. “To share that accomplishment across the whole organization was really exciting. Our employee-owners are proud to work here, and now even more so.”
How LJA builds culture worth celebrating with employee survey data
LJA’s award-winning culture didn’t happen overnight. It comes from employee ownership and a continuous commitment to growth. Robin and her team of engagement champions will utilize Energage’s Workplace Survey and employee feedback to identify opportunities for improvement, particularly during periods of rapid scaling.
She adds, “At LJA, each office is a bit different. I use Energage tools to see where each office is lacking and what they need. The Workplace Survey makes it easy for me to give them what they need.”
Recently, employee-owners reported feeling disconnected from LJA’s leadership team, which is a fairly common issue. Instead of stressing about the problem, Robin used employee feedback to pinpoint exactly what her team needed. Now, LJA leadership hosts regular Coffee Talks to stay connected and discuss topics that are top of mind for employees.
Small changes like these have a significant impact on employee engagement. They don’t require major investments but are purposeful, practical, and guided by data. This story from LJA is a perfect example of how the more you act on employee feedback, the more motivated, empowered, and proud your team becomes.
