Best Companies Group conducts a simple yet thorough company assessment.  The assessment is a two-part process designed to gather detailed data about each participating company.  In part one, the employer completes a questionnaire and in part two, employees of the company complete an employee survey.

The collected information from the two instruments will be combined to produce a detailed set of data enabling the analysts to determine the strengths and opportunities of the participating companies.  The workplaces are ranked based on this data and then the Employer Benchmark Summary is sent to each participating company upon completion of the survey process.

Part I – Employer Benefits & Policies Questionnaire (click for sample)

Each company must complete the Employer Benefits & Policies Questionnaire (employer questionnaire also known as the EQ) to be considered for the list. The employer questionnaire is where important information is captured about company policies, practices and demographics. This portion of the assessment is sent out shortly after the registration deadline and is due before the employee surveys (Part II) are sent. Please refer to the Timeline for more information.

The employer questionnaire is sent to the primary contact electronically and is completed and submitted online to aid in the functionality and ease of the surveying process.  This questionnaire must be completed in order for Best Companies Group to consider your company in the ranking process.

Part II – Employee Engagement & Satisfaction Survey (click for sample)

The Employee Engagement & Satisfaction Survey (employee survey) consists of approximately 72 statements that employees respond to on a five point agreement scale. The survey also includes 2 open-ended questions and 7 demographic questions. 

The results are analyzed and categorized according to 8 Core Focus Areas: Leadership and Planning, Corporate Culture and Communications, Role Satisfaction, Work Environment, Relationship with Supervisor, Training and Development, Pay and Benefits and Overall Engagement.

Survey Process

Online or Traditional Paper? Best Companies Group conducts the majority of the employee surveys online. However, paper based surveys are available to those companies whose employees do not have online capabilities. A processing charge will be applied to registrations that require paper-based surveys. For the online version, each employee will receive a unique Web-link via email to complete the survey. Companies choosing the online version of the survey will be asked to submit a list of their company's entire list of employee email addresses via an upload portal.  Best Companies Group will perform the random selection for online companies having over 250 employees. 

Please see our Statement of Confidentiality regarding the security of this sensitive data. All employee data is submitted anonymously.

Number of employees being surveyed

Best Companies Group will survey up to 400 randomly selected employees in a company depending on company size. The chart below lists how many employees will be randomly selected to participate.

We encourage all companies to use the free online survey process. However, if online surveys will not work for your company, we offer a traditional paper based survey option. The chart below lists the fees for the paper survey evaluation process.

Number of Employees	# Employees Surveyed	Online	Paper Fee (1)
15 - 24 (2)	All	FREE	$105
25 - 99	All	FREE	$240
100 - 199	All	FREE	$370
200 - 499	Up to 250 (3)	FREE	$445
500 - 2499	350 (3)	FREE	$535
2500 +	400 (3)	FREE	$685
(1) Fees are non-refundable. (2) To ensure the credibility of the information, companies with 15-24 employees must have an 80% (or better) response rate to be considered for the list. (3) Employees are randomly selected.

Results

The two data sets are combined and analyzed to determine the rankings. All participating companies will receive the Employer Benchmark Summary as part of the no-fee process upon completion of the assessment process. The Employee Feedback Report is available for purchase to gain more in-depth insight into the employee survey responses. To learn more about the reports click here.