Is there a CEO who doesn’t want to know what his staff is thinking? The best CEOs put in place systems that make communication simple, direct and encouraged. And most importantly, accepted at face value with no recriminations. Progress often requires learning the inconvenient truths, no matter how painful.
The Best Places To Work special section you are reading contains mini-profiles of the four first-place winners in each of the employee-count categories, and from those you get a small window into why those companies are so valued by their employees, a fact we know is true because of the anonymous surveys that the Best Companies Group uses to rank the 60 companies that made the cut.
But for those companies that are Best Places To Work but just didn’t rank at the top of each size category, you see a series of short questions and answers. Through them, a repeating pattern emerges. These winning companies make the extra effort to learn what their employees are thinking, what the issues are in their lives, and then they go about addressing their concerns. Yes, money can be involved, but it is clear that what really matters is that managers are listening and then acting. Keep that in mind the next time you want to take the next step with your company.
In this, the 12th year of the Best Places To Work program, four companies have shown great staying power by never once falling off. Once again, we salute Edward Jones, Embrace Home Loans, Hinckley Allen & Snyder LLP, and Kahn, Litwin, Renza & Co. Ltd.
UnitedHealthcare is once again supporting Best Places as presenting sponsor. Partner sponsors are Cox Business, Pawtucket Credit Union and USI Insurance Services LLC. We thank them for supporting a program that provides so much value for its participants.
Mark S. Murphy
Editor
