How does it work?

METHODOLOGY

By Kim Chatelain

So how does a company or agency make the list of the Top Workplaces in the region? The answer lies with its employees.

For the sixth year, The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate teamed up with Philadelphia-based employee research and consulting firm Energage for an awards program that identifies the best small, mid-

size and large workplaces in the seven-parish metro New Orleans region.

Energage uses a scientifically sound and anonymous employee survey to identify the best workplaces in Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and St. Tammany parishes. This year, 100 companies and agencies, the most ever for the

Thank you to our team for making FormanWatkins a 2020 Top Workplace!

local contest, signed up. Last year, 80 local organizations competed for the accolades.

The competition is designed to highlight standout job providers and identify ways that organizations can become places where people want to work. As lagniappe, it also encourages workplace pride and boosts morale among employees.

Starting last fall, The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate welcomed anyone to nominate entities in the Top Workplaces competition. Any organization was eligible to participate, so long as it had at least 35 employees.

Combined, the 100 participating entities employed 45,291 people at the time of the survey. Of that number, 32,690 received surveys and 16,573 responded.

This employee engagement survey consists of 24 questions regarding issues relating to workplace culture:

Alignment – where the company is headed, its values, cooperation, effective meetings Coaching – managers care about concerns, are helpful, encourage employee development Connection – employees feel appreciated, their work is meaningful Engagement – productivity, retention, recruiting Leadership – confidence in company leaders Performance – execution, open-mindedness, innovation, clued-in leadership The Basics – pay, benefits, flexibility, training, expectations

To accurately compare results, employers are ranked among similar- sized competitors to create three categories: large with 400 or more employees, mid-sized with 125-399 employees, and small with 124 or fewer on staff.

Employers are ranked within those size groupings, with those scoring highly gaining recognition as a Top Workplace.

This year, eight of the 11 in the running in the large division won accolades; 27 of the 37 participants in the mid-size category were honored; and 35 small employers out of 53 made the cut.

If a participant is not on the list of winners, it could be because it chose not to participate in the survey or did not score well enough in the process. Energage sometimes disqualifies entities due to questionable results detected through statistical tests it runs to ensure accuracy.