The Dirty Secret About Best Places to Work Surveys

There are 2 types of people in this world when it comes to wanting employee feedback and data:

1. Those who want to leverage the positives for PR, content, and recruiting
2. Those who want to get an accurate depiction of employee morale, culture, and engagement

Sometimes, they can work in tandem, but as with Best Places to Work Surveys seemingly popping up everywhere in the country, be careful.

You have likely seen them. Whether it’s the Best Places to Work in Boston, Best Places to Work in a state, or Best Places to Work nationally, they’re everywhere.

Telling potential job candidates you are a top workplace, throwing a badge on your website, and sharing this on your business materials sounds fantastic. But does the fact that every 3rd grader in a local soccer league gets a trophy make all 5 teams winners?

I worked on a regional Best Places to Work survey years ago and was the lead researcher in designing the scoring system and program to rate organizations. Over the past twenty years, I have learned that virtually all Best Places to Work programs are run the same way.

Issues with Best Places to Work Surveys

There are countless concerns with Best Places to Work survey programs.

Here are the top ones:

1. The name of the survey carries an inherent bias

The survey itself to fill out carries a specific intention. It’s wild. It’s right there in the title. Any reasonable market research firm would not send a customer satisfaction survey invite to a manufacturing client customer with the title of the invite/study as:

• Best Customer Satisfaction in Manufacturing - Take Our Survey
• We Are The Best - Share Your Feedback
• We Want a +100 NPS - Give Us Your Thoughts

The simple name of the invite/program creates an inherent bias in the ask. Using simple, unbiased language, such as “Employee Survey” or “Culture Survey,” can set an entirely different and accurate tone.

2. Potential push/communication from management

With Best Places to Work surveys, higher-ups or C-level HR professionals often decide to participate with a clear desired outcome in mind. The carrot that is intriguing to the higher-ups is the ability to claim their organization as the best place to work for recruiting purposes, PR, marketing, etc.

With a typical objective survey, management may announce that it will commission a third party to conduct an employee survey to gather feedback so that proper improvements can be made.

When it comes to a best places survey, the tone of the introduction and internal conversation changes quite a bit. When it's shared, there is likely some added push, bias, excitement, and/or desired result in mind. It can undoubtedly bias or push employees to respond in a certain way or intimidate those who might have criticism, leading to my next point.

3. Response bias

Because the ultimate goal is in the title and there is likely internal communication/push to respond positively, this leads to an issue evident in best places surveys and all potential surveys if miscommunicated.

No matter the organization's size—5 people, 15 people, 50 people, or 3000 people—there is an undoubtedly chance at least 1 employee is not 100% happy with their workplace.

According to this report from Teamstage, nearly half of the global workforce is unhappy at their job.

If an employee is unhappy, would they be less likely to respond at all, knowing that their feedback would likely not align with the goal communicated by management to be the best place to work? Would they risk upsetting the apple cart? Can they truly trust that their response will be anonymous and confidential in this effort?

4. Scoring system and choices of winners

One theme with the national and regional best places employee survey programs is they are often light on research details. Any good statistician and market researcher would want to understand all of the specifics that go into a research methodology.

How these organizations score winners is often hidden behind a curtain. Whether based on a single metric, a combination of metrics, weighted averages, etc. The details are murky (for a reason).

The unfortunate truth is the best places organizations never share the total universe or total pool of organizations that took part in the program. Sharing that number would absolutely throw the credibility of the best places badge into complete chaos.

What if I told you these programs might award 50 winning organizations, the best of the best, the top places to work organizations, but only 55 applied?

Would that change your perception of claiming to be a best place to work organization? Out of the 55 organizations that took part in this survey program, we were in the top 50!

Congrats, you’re fantastic.

With most, if not all, of these programs, the sponsoring company will not share the total pool of participating companies, and for good reason.

No reasonable person would say choosing 50 out of 55 organizations means the 50 could be considered best in class - more like 5 out of 55.

The program reminds me of the falsified claims made by brands worldwide, claiming various statements and awards with no or very loose backing. Things like:

• America’s Best Wireless Network! (Based on what exactly?)
• 9 out of 10 doctors recommend (Did they ask their 10 friends and family members?)
• Voted a Top Customer Service Organization (Was the CEO the single vote?)

5. The goal is to monetize (the more winners, the better - tickets, badges, etc.)

The process's lack of details and the universe of applicants are driven by the monetization strategy. The sponsoring organizations running the Best Places to Work program are often monetized by selling tickets and tables to an event for winning organizations to attend and pay to attend.

If they are not selling tickets to an event, winning a best places to work award can often open the door to great value adds that will undoubtedly skyrocket your success.

You may be able to add on great benefits and features such as:

• Free use of the Best Places to Work badge on any marketing materials, social media sites, website, etc., for the discounted today-only offer of $3,000.
• Maybe you would like to have your company featured as a Best Place to Work in a soon-to-be-outgoing press release reaching over 10,000 news organizations across the country for the low introductory rate of $5,000.

Here’s the kicker: Some of the companies that run these best places to work programs charge you to enter, too. So you pay thousands of dollars to enter a survey to almost guarantee that you’ll be named a best place to work and again be sold additional bells and whistles.

What a business model.

Ethical Market Research

All of this points to a “what are we doing” mentality. Ethnical market research practices absolutely play a role in these best places to work programs.

Unfortunately, revenues and monetization of the Best Places programs outweigh any goodness/accurate market research practices.

When it comes to a better and more accurate employee survey with a third-party research firm, here are a few points to consider when comparing a real employee survey to a best-places facade.

• Custom survey questions to address core objectives

Rather than using a blanket template sent to hundreds of organizations, a true employee survey partner will work with your team to understand your needs and customize a questionnaire to address those needs. It often includes asking unique questions for your team and leveraging the firm’s experience to bring benchmarkable questions to the table.

• Using the results to truly understand culture and make improvements

Versus misusing the system to produce a reward or badge, an ethical employee survey process uses the system to produce an accurate and unbiased overview of the culture. It includes core differentiators for recruiting and marketing, critical improvement areas that employees view as necessary, and so on.

• Badge creates delusional management (no changes needed)

These organizations that win a Best Places to Work award hurt that organization and its culture in many ways. Management becomes delusional and puts on blinders to frustration points and shortcomings, and thinks no changes need to be made. “We’re a Best Place to Work - screw raises, additional benefits, time off, etc.” Unfortunately, they fail to understand that their Best Places award is an outcome of a terrible and shaky process instead of a valid and tested method.

• Promoting anonymity and confidentiality (fear of 1 person costing us the badge)

When you work with a trustworthy third-party employee survey firm, they will have best practices and standards to protect ethical processes. Before the survey invites go out, they will often include a pre-notice sent by management explaining the who, why, and what of the process and double-down on the confidentiality of feedback. The goal is to maximize the response rate with the survey to eliminate as much non-response bias as possible. Not calling it the “Best Places to Work Survey” is a good starting point.

Process for a True 3rd Party Employee Survey

If you decide against a best places type survey and commission a third-party employee survey partner, the process is fairly simple. Here are the steps.

• Contact potential firms and provide some of your goals, number of employees, and desired outcomes
• Collect and evaluate proposals from each firm
• Make a selection
• The research firm will then:
• Assign a dedicated team and schedule a kickoff meeting
• Draft a project workplan with critical dates and deadlines
• Draft the questionnaire for review and sign-off
• Share a pre-notice for your team to share ahead of invites
• Review and proof the employee contact file
• Send invites
• Send reminders to non-responders
• Update you on the progress of data collection
• Begin analysis and reporting
• Prepare an impactful report with action items and recommendations
• Debrief with your team on the findings, answer questions, and make final edits

What is Most Important? PR or a True Assessment?

If you are reading this, you might be interested in conducting an employee survey for your organization. So, as you compare best place options to a true independent employee survey, what is most important to you?

• If you are looking for badge, nomination, and PR benefits with little value on market research best practices and a thorough process, a best places study will likely fit your needs.
• If you are looking for an ethical, accurate, and representative depiction of your employee feedback (both the good and the bad), it’s likely working with an independent employee survey partner will fit your needs.

Choose wisely.