How Leadership Credibility, Trust and Employee Communications Overshadow Company Benefits at Great Workplaces

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The annual 100 Best Companies to Work For® list reveals that in order to become one of the nation's top employers, companies must look deeper than their benefits and compensation packages, and into the credibility of leadership and sense of overall fairness in the workplace, announced Great Place to Work®, the research firm behind the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® list.

Now in its 15th year, the "100 Best" list yields a unique glimpse of the inner workings of Corporate America from the employee perspective. Different from your typical employee satisfaction survey, Great Place to Work®'s Trust Index© Employee Survey and organizational culture assessment taps into employees' actual day-to-day experience with their company culture.  

"The most common misperception of this list is that it is all about companies with exotic benefits.  That's not the case at all," offers list co-author, Milt Moskowitz. "Companies make this list, or fail to make it, by virtue of what their employees feel about the workplace. In effect, employees vote their companies onto the list." 

Not all of the "100 Best" offer unique benefits like free lunches, onsite healthcare, or rock-climbing walls. But, Best Companies do demonstrate a keen sense of their employees and what resonates with them.  "We see this awareness in top companies' attitudes toward employee communications, transparency in business operations, and unique opportunities for employees to develop professionally and personally and grow within the company," states Robert Levering, co-founder of Great Place to Work® and co-author of the list.  "Executives at the FORTUNE's 100 Best Companies to Work For® understand the role that trust plays in creating great workplaces." 

Five CEOs from 100 Best Companies will share their perspectives on building and maintaining their unique organizational culture during the upcoming Great Place to Work® Conference, taking place on March 28-29, at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, GA.  Jeffrey Katzenburg of Dreamworks;  John Mackey of Whole Foods;  Dr. John Noseworthy of Mayo Clinic; Clarence Otis of Darden Restaurants and Tom Folliard of Carmax are all keynote speakers at the Conference.

ABOUT GREAT PLACE TO WORK®: Great Place to Work® Institute is a global human resources consulting, research and training firm specializing in organizational trust. The Great Place to Work® Model is built on 25 years of research and data collected through our Trust Index© Employee Survey, which is taken by over 10 million employees annually worldwide.

Great Place to Work® provides leadership coaching and culture consulting services to businesses, non-profits and government agencies in 45 countries on all six continents. In the United States, Great Place to Work® produces the annual FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® list and Great Place to Work® Best Small & Medium Workplaces list published by Entrepreneur.com.

http://www.greatplacetowork.com

CONTACT:  Amy Linert, 480-529-8326, [email protected]

SOURCE Great Place to Work