The making of a Top Workplace

We all want to feel good about coming to work in the morning. Those of us in Minnesota have a better chance of that happening than most.

WorkplaceDynamics — which the Star Tribune has worked with for six years to conduct research for Top Workplaces — attempts to measure how many companies in a given region are high achievers in employee satisfaction. The Pennsylvania company ranks employers across the United States.

Those companies that meet the national standard — set after surveying more than 1.4 million employees at 6,000-plus companies — make their way onto Top Workplaces lists in publications from Minneapolis to Chicago and Atlanta.

This year, Minnesota scored the highest of 45 regions in workplace satisfaction. Minnesota is the first to have 226 companies that met the standard, enough to increase the number of ranked Top Workplaces to 150 from 100 last year.

"The Top Workplaces award is not a popularity contest. And oftentimes, people assume it's all about fancy perks and benefits," said Doug Claffey, CEO of WorkplaceDynamics. "To be a Top Workplace, organizations must meet our strict standards for organizational health."

This year, 343 companies participated in the Star Tribune's survey, a bump of almost 10 percent over last year. Those companies had 130,277 employees, and of about 105,000 who received surveys, 69,183 returned them.

Connectivity was the most important factor in work satisfaction, with 76 percent of employees rating it as important, while pay and benefits were ranked last in importance at 51 percent.

The increased number of companies also meant that more companies made the list for the first time. In total, 55 made their Top Workplaces debut, including the No. 1 business on our large company list, SPS Commerce.

Thirteen companies have made the rankings all six years that the Star Tribune has partnered with Workplace­Dynamics.

Minnesota companies scored higher than the nation on almost all factors, with values and ethics, confidence in leadership, and responding to concerns receiving the most positive ratings.

WorkplaceDynamics has employees rank 22 statements to measure the following three elements of the workplace:

• Organizational health: These statements address fundamentals of a company's values, execution, leadership and culture.

• Engagement: These measure employees' motivation, desire to stay and willingness to recommend the workplace to others.

The national standard is set from the pool of answers WorkplaceDynamics receive from across the United States.

WorkplaceDynamics started the process in Minnesota this year by contacting 2,107 companies. To qualify, companies had to have at least 50 employees and agree to allow WorkplaceDynamics to send them a confidential survey (either online or on paper). There was no charge to companies or employees, and they weren't compensated.

WorkplaceDynamics requires a response rate of at least 35 percent for a company's surveys to be tabulated. Employers with fewer than 85 employees must have at least 30 respondents. Larger employers have the option to randomly sample employees. However, Workplace­Dynamics requires company representatives to verify that they have selected a random sample.

WorkplaceDynamics ranked the employers based solely on the scores generated by the employee responses. The company lists are grouped by size because smaller employers tend to score higher than midsize employers, and midsize employers tend to score higher than large employers. The top employers in each size category were selected as the 150 Top Workplaces in Minnesota. In addition, another 76 companies scored high enough to qualify as Top Workplaces when measured against WorkplaceDynamics' national benchmark, although not high enough to crack Minnesota's top 150.