The Aging Services industry is excited about getting positive recognition for its great workplaces! It’s time… the work that you do is challenging yet rewarding in enriching lives and making our society better.

This month marks the inaugural Great Place to Work® Best Workplaces in Aging Services list published by Fortune, and I wanted to share 5 facts that answer the most commonly asked questions about the list and the process.

Fact #1: The Trust Index™ survey has been used for over 30 years and across industries.

Great Place to Work is a global people analytics and consulting firm that works with companies around the world with access to the assessments, data and reporting needed to build a high-trust, high-performance culture that drive better business performance.

Our work is based on 30 years of research representing millions of employees’ experience of their workplace. Our Trust Index employee survey is the most widely taken employee survey worldwide.

Our benchmarks and best practices across industries are second to none. In the U.S., a few of the publicly recognized companies who appear on one of our best workplaces lists published by FORTUNE or PEOPLE magazines include Marriott, Cheesecake Factory, Scripps Health, Wegmans, Salesforce and many more.

Fact #2: Research studies have tied great cultures to better business performance.

Our research shows companies see stronger business performance when they create a broadly shared experience of trust and a consistently shared experience of trust. In fact, they see 3 times higher year over year revenue growth. And, companies on the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list experience, on average, half the voluntary turnover of their industry peers.

And, to measure that level of trust we look at the average experience of all employees in the organization across all the statements on our Trust Index survey. We measure companies’ ability to reach the full potential of its workforce by evaluating the consistency in employees’ survey results between groups (for example gender, job level) as well as on key differentiators for each demographic. We value consistency of experience across all employees, meaning, for example, it’s just as important to have a workplace that’s positive for men as it is for anyone else.

Fact #3: Some organizations who apply get certified, but not all

The Great Place to Work Certification Program helps organizations earn positive recognition in their communities. Once certified, organizations can use this accreditation to help attract and retain talent as well as to augment sales and marketing efforts. Certification is a huge accomplishment and something that organizations celebrate.

For an organization to be certified as a Great Place to Work, they must administer our standard Trust Index employee survey and separately, a company representative must complete our Culture Brief™ application form.

To certify as a great place to work, organizations must meet these requirements:  

  • 7 out of 10 employees say on the Trust Index survey that it is a great place to work.(for senior care the minimum score is adjusted to 6 out of 10 until June 2019).
  • Employee response rate participation minimums that meet a confidence interval and margin of error threshold. This participation rate varies based on the size of the organization.
  • Participate as the entire organization, not just a single department
  • Have at least ten employees 

If an organization meets these requirements, then they are certified as a great place to work. If an organization does not meet these requirements, then they are not certified. Because this is a confidential process, no one knows if a company does not become certified.

Organizations that are Great Place to Work-Certified™ are eligible for the Great Place to Work Best Workplaces in Aging Services list, published by FORTUNE, and all our other Best Workplaces lists.

Fact #4: SOME companies get certified, not all

If an organization is Great Place to Work-Certified, they are eligible for additional recognition with FORTUNE and PEOPLE magazine. This an extremely high achievement and only some certified companies achieve this honor.

For instance, for the FORTUNE Best Workplaces in Aging Services list released on September 27, 2018, we consider all Great Place to Work-Certified companies in the industry. To determine and rank the best, we analyze the data collected from our employee survey, which focuses on the core of what creates great workplaces: whether employees trust the people they work for and whether all employees can reach their full human potential, no matter who they are or what they do. We look at these experiences relative to each company’s size, workforce makeup and what’s typical for the industry and regions. From our research, we also know that the best workplaces stand out because of their employees’ daily experiences of three areas: innovation, their company’s values and their leaders’ effectiveness, and so we also consider how consistently they’re experienced by all groups.

For each list, the top X number of companies are designated. Finalists are not officially list winners until the publication date to ensure no problems arise between data tabulation and publication.

Fact #5: The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list is very competitive

Great Place to Work has produced the annual FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list for twenty-one years. It’s our most prestigious, most competitive Best Workplaces list, and the one that every company wants to make.

Requirements include:

  • The organization must have over 1000 employees in the U.S. and be Great Place to Work-Certified.
  • The organization must have a minimum score on the Trust Index™ employee survey to be invited to submit an extensive Culture Audit© explaining its programs and practices.

Great Place to Work evaluates the Culture Audit submission based on:

  • The variety, originality, all-inclusiveness, human touch and integration of the programs and practices that support Credibility, Respect, Fairness, Pride and Camaraderie.
  • Whether you have clearly espoused values that are unique to your business and whether your programs and practices align to these values, connect to your strategy, and impact employees’ day-to-day experiences; 
  • How the company builds and communicates its strategy and involves employees in developing and sharing new ideas and better ways of doing things  
  • Whether the values guide decisions, even when it’s difficult. 

Kim Peters, executive vice president at Great Place to Work© (GPTW), leads best workplaces lists and strategic partnerships. She works closely with Great Place to Work’s senior care team, Activated Insights, and manages GPTW partnerships, including with FORTUNE and PEOPLE magazines.

More information on Kim Peters and Great Place to Work’s work can be found at: www.greatplacetowork.com