OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Great Place to Work®, the global authority on workplace culture, has just revealed its 2019 ranking of the 100 Best Workplaces for Diversity, in partnership with Fortune.
The top 10 companies appearing on this year’s list are:
- Stryker
- Cisco
- Progressive Insurance
- Accenture
- Synchrony
- Mohegan Sun
- Workday
- Adobe
- ULTIMATE SOFTWARE
- Marriott International, Inc.
“Building great workplaces for all is not only the right thing to do – it’s also a critical way leaders build business value,” said Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work. “In our study of nearly 2,000 companies we found that key metrics related to equity and inclusion not only drive stronger company innovation, but also predict whether companies will thrive or stumble during a recession.”
The methodology of the Best Workplaces for Diversity list focuses on the experiences of women, people of color, LGBTQ workers, generational representation, and people who have disabilities. The ranking is based on what more than 4.8 million U.S. employees reported in Great Place to Work’s Trust Index survey about the trust, pride, and camaraderie they experience in the workplace, and how those experiences compare to their colleagues.
Great Place to Work also considered employees’ abilities to innovate, the company’s values, and the effectiveness of their leaders. In addition, the ranking measures the diversity of the company’s overall workforce as well as across management, senior leadership, and its board of directors.
As part of its findings, Great Place to Work also analyzed the data it has collected and determined that a company’s financial success is directly tied to its efforts around diversity and inclusion. The research adds to the evidence that workplace equity isn’t just the right the thing to do — it’s better for business. For example, Great Place to Work previously documented much higher revenue growth at organizations where all employees have a great experience, no matter who they are or what they do for the organization. It found that inclusive organizations enjoy more than three times the revenue growth of less inclusive peers.
Amid predictions that a business downturn could hit in the next year or two, the new study dives into what can help organizations do well during recessions.
Great Place to Work examined publicly traded companies just prior to, during, and for several years after the Great Recession of 2007-2009. The data shows that the experience of certain groups of employees—including historically disadvantaged groups—predicted whether organizations flatlined, merely survived, or thrived during the last major downturn.
While the S&P 500 suffered a 35.5 percent decline in stock performance in the period between 2007-2009, companies whose key employee groups had very positive experiences posted a remarkable 14.4 percent gain.
For that group of "Thriving" companies, the good news wasn't limited to the recession. Their gains started before the downturn and continued well past it as competitors lagged. From January 3, 2006 to February 1, 2014, the Thriving group saw their stock performance increase 35 percent, while the S&P 500 had just a nine percent gain. That's nearly 4X outperformance.
The key groups of employees are women, people of color, front-line workers, hourly male workers and long-tenured employees.
Employees in the key groups play vital roles in a business in good times and bad. They often serve customers directly and are plugged into the reality of how the business is doing. And they are a source of good ideas that many companies overlook—whether those are ideas for cutting costs or generating revenue in new ways.
The research also found it was important for businesses leaders to create positive experiences for the key employee groups in a number of particular areas: inclusivity, innovation, fairness and integrity. In effect, an inclusive culture enabled organizations to soar over the recession chasm—the deep decline most companies experienced during the recession.
The new research will be discussed in larger detail at the 2020 Great Place to Work For All Summit, scheduled for March 3-5, 2020 in San Francisco. To learn more about the list and research findings, read Great Place to Work’s article published by Fortune and click here to sign up to receive a digital copy of the upcoming report Hidden Pieces of the D&I Puzzle.
About the Great Place to Work® For All Summit™
The Great Place to Work For All Summit assembles executive leaders from the world’s best workplaces, including Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For®, Great Place to Work-Certified organizations, and companies embarking on their workplace journey. Its mission is to share best practices for creating and championing high-trust cultures that are better for business, better for people, and better for the world.
About Great Place to Work®
Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Since 1992, it has surveyed more than 100 million employees around the world and uses those deep insights to define what makes a great workplace: trust. Great Place to Work helps organizations quantify their culture and produce better business results by creating a high-trust work experience for all employees. Emprising®, its culture management platform, empowers leaders with the surveys, real-time reporting, and insights they need to make data-driven people decisions. Great Place to Work’s unparalleled benchmark data is used to recognize Great Place to Work-Certified companies and the Best Workplaces in the U.S. and more than 60 countries, including the 100 Best Companies to Work For and the World’s Best Workplaces lists published in partnership with Fortune. Great Place to Work is driven by a mission to build a better world by helping every organization become a Great Place to Work For All.
To learn more, visit greatplacetowork.com, listen to the podcast Better by Great Place to Work, and read “A Great Place to Work for All.” Join the community on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
