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Answers to the most commonly asked questions about Top Workplaces
Requirements vary from award to award. Generally, your organization must have at least 35 employees to qualify for Top Workplaces awards. Some awards have higher minimum employee counts and/or require an organization to be in a particular industry.
For more information about specific awards, visit these pages:
You can also connect with a Top Workplaces expert who can help you determine which awards to pursue. Start by nominating your company here.
No! A single employee survey qualifies your organization to participate in all eligible awards. Survey just once, and your results can be applied to any award in the next 12 months.
Gathering employee feedback from all levels of the organization is key to building a strong, people-first workplace culture. Employee inclusion in the survey is at the organization’s discretion. However, Top Workplaces encourages organizations to include as many voices as possible.
While surveying all full-time employees is required (a random sampling option is available for large organizations), the following categories of employees are encouraged to participate in the survey but are not required:
*The above excludes real estate and insurance organizations, which must survey all employees.
Additional considerations:
Eligibility for organizations with remote employees:
For organizations that have one or more physical locations but a concentration of employees within an area outside of the award region:
Remote employees may be counted towards an office location.
In cases where an organization would not meet the minimum employee count requirement, this may help them reach the minimum employee count.
Example: Sample Co. has a location in Austin with 40 employees. They also have 10 remote employees in San Antonio, where no office is located. The 10 remote employees in San Antonio can count towards the employee count for the Austin award and are now eligible for the Austin award because they meet the minimum of 50 employees.
If an organization has an eligible employee count that meets the minimum employee count designated by that award region, they can participate in that award.
Top Workplaces awards are determined exclusively by employee feedback. Unlike other awards, there are no qualitative components, such as essays or panels of judges. Organizations that meet or exceed the Top Workplaces benchmark, determined over 19 years of research, are awarded as winners. Competing organizations are grouped by size bands, which may vary by award.
See examples of how organizations are grouped on the Top Workplaces award pages here.
International employees may be included in the survey, but only U.S.-based employees count toward the minimum employee count for Top Workplaces awards.
The Top Workplaces national awards – including USA TODAY, Industry, and Culture Excellence awards – are open to all companies with over 150 U.S. employees. Companies must achieve a Top Workplaces Survey response rate of 35% or higher to qualify.
Top Workplaces national awards are open to all industries except real estate, local hotels, and K-12 educational institutions.
In addition to the national Top Workplaces award requirements, at least 50% of surveyed employees work primarily or remotely.
In addition to the national Top Workplaces award requirements above, participants in the DE&I Practices awards must complete a supplemental questionnaire that evaluates the practices and processes organizations have in place to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
The Nurse.com Top Workplaces award’s participation criteria differ from other national awards. To be eligible, organizations must have a minimum of 35 employees AND 35% of the workforce are nurses OR must have at least 50 nurses. All levels of nursing are eligible, including CNA’s, RN’s, APRN’s, NP’s, and LPN’s.
For Nurse.com Top Workplaces award participants, five additional statements are added to the Top Workplaces survey measuring key elements of the employee experience for nurses.
The Engineering.com Top Workplaces award’s participation criteria differ from other national awards. To be eligible, organizations must have at least 35 engineers, or 10% of the workforce must be engineers.
The Top Workplaces survey consists of 25 statements covering the areas of the employee experience most related to employee engagement. The survey can be completed by employees in less than 10 minutes.
Here is a guide to the survey statements.
The core statements of the Top Workplaces survey cannot be removed. This is how a level playing field is created for all organizations. However, you can add custom statements to your survey by upgrading to the Energage Platform if there is other feedback you would like to capture using the survey.
Yes! Once your survey is complete, the results are automatically applied to any award your organization would like to pursue within the next 12 months.
The Top Workplaces survey is available in these languages: Arabic, Burmese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French–Canadian, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Spanish – Castillian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese. Additional languages can be added for a fee.
A 35% response rate is the minimum to be considered for Top Workplaces awards. For organizations with fewer than 85 employees, 30 survey responses are required. This is required to make sure a representative sample of an organization’s culture is captured.
We have surveyed tens of millions of employees via email. We never have nor will we ever release an email address to another party or use a survey-taker’s email address for any purpose other than inviting the individual to take the survey.
Yes, Top Workplaces takes confidentiality extremely seriously. Your company’s survey results are not shared with any third party.
Additionally, your award status is only shared with our publishing partners if your organization is a winner, so there is no risk to your organization’s reputation for participating.
We also take the confidentiality of employee responses seriously. This is critical to gathering candid employee feedback to assess an organization’s culture accurately.
Most organizations distribute the online survey via email. However, we can work with you to determine the best distribution option.