What’s so great about the 2022 Great Places to Work?

It’s my favorite time of year: Great Place to Work just announced the 25th Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For. I look forward to reviewing the annual list and seeing what it takes to break the top 20. According to Michael Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work, this year’s winners “doubled down on what our decades of research tell us actually matters — trust, respect, purpose and community.”

Through proactive connecting and active listening, the best companies learned what people need to survive and thrive in today’s reality and made changes to give it to them. Beyond salaries and bonuses, they evolved policies to holistically support employee well-being. They boosted mental health and dependent care benefits, offered both predictable and flexible schedules, and decentralized decision-making, for example.

Bay Area has some of the best

Not surprisingly, five of the top 20 Great Places to Work are based in the Bay Area — a region known for innovation if not workplace culture. Cisco, Salesforce, NVIDIA, Intuit and Protiviti earned coveted spots by putting their people first, gathering and responding to feedback, and focusing on all aspects of wellness. Let’s take a look to see how.

Cisco

No. 1 Cisco earned high ratings from employees on all measures. But not for its nap pods and free lunches, although people appreciate the perks. What sets the company apart: frequent, honest communication with teams and deliberately educating and training managers on how to lead and behave. For example, they train managers to understand times of day when meetings might be challenging for working parents, and about being compassionate if a parent gets pulled away to take care of a child.

The company is even using its own technology to gather information and insights to help improve the employee experience. They’re tracking how often managers schedule meetings outside of working hours for people who live in different time zones and whether their meetings are inclusive. They’re using this data to continually educate and train managers on ways to improve work-life balance and build a culture of belonging for all.

Knowing they don’t have all the answers, Cisco’s leaders continually monitor indicators, listen to employees and adapt. Based on what they saw last year, the company expanded its Safe to Talk program, which provides resources and training to help employees support each other’s mental well-being. They also enhanced the manager training component with a toolkit to help managers learn how to listen, respond and support team members’ emotional health.

Leadership at Cisco isn’t afraid to get personal or talk about tough topics. Shortly after two highly publicized celebrity suicides, CEO Chuck Robbins sent an email to all employees letting them know about the mental health services the company offers. He wanted anyone who was struggling to understand they’re not alone. Doing so helped normalize mental illness and seeking out support. It also opened a door for spontaneous communication and sharing between team members, creating a grassroots community support system and further solidifying Cisco’s culture of trust and belonging.

Salesforce

No. 4 Salesforce got a lot of publicity around the grand opening of its Trailblazer Ranch. The 75-acre,140-room destination is available for company events, retreats and respite. While there, employees can participate in wellness programs like yoga, nature walks and meditation. With burnout, stress and despair at historically high levels nationwide, the ranch is being touted as evidence of Salesforce’s commitment to employee well-being.

Of course, we can’t all build idyllic ranches for our employees, but we can support and provide opportunities to destress and recharge. For example, this week, DS+CO is bringing in a yoga instructor to conduct a free yoga and meditation class, and next week, we’ve contracted the Stretch Lab to hold an on-site group stretching class followed by one-on-one stretching sessions for all who are interested.

Salesforce also scores high for listening and caring. Leadership keeps a close pulse on how employees are feeling through monthly well-being surveys that help identify triggers and sources of stress. They then share the

anonymous results and responses so people can see they’ve been heard and aren’t alone, and know leaders are listening and acting. That commitment to proactively reaching out and checking in resonates with me.

At DS+CO, our managing partners started calling every employee every week the day we shut down because of the pandemic. On those calls, we asked team members how they were doing and feeling about their work and home lives. Did they need anything we could provide? What did they think about how we were managing the business and our expectations for them? Did they have suggestions or ideas? If they were new hires, we were particularly interested in hearing about their onboarding experience and how we could make it better.

The calls were priceless on so many levels. They deepened relationships, built trust, gave us insights into how we might improve processes and provided tangible opportunities to show we care. For example, early on, I asked a team member how I could support him and he said he really missed his keyboard, printer and mouse. So, I hung up the phone, gathered the equipment and drove it to his house right away. Sometimes it’s the little things.

NVIDIA

NVIDIA, ranked fifth, is known for its generous leave policies and emphasis on human connection, and has continued to build on those practices. For example, last year, they started giving everyone the week off between Christmas and New Year’s — something DS+CO piloted a few years ago and has since made permanent — along with two prescheduled days off a quarter, federal holidays and unlimited vacation days. And they launched a well-being portal with resources for mental, physical, family and financial health, including webinars on mindfulness, work-life balance and parenting.

But here’s what really strikes me about NVIDIA: The company has had a longstanding, proud commitment to pay parity. But because of acquisitions the company made last year, the gender pay gap widened and the promotions rate for Black employees dropped. Notably, instead of trying to cover up the statistics, make excuses or spin the news, NVIDIA’s leaders acknowledged the problem and made an actionable, realistic plan to rectify both issues. If that honest response and display of vulnerable, confident leadership is any indication of the day-to-day, it’s no wonder NVIDIA earned high marks for trust.

Wegmans hits a milestone

Closer to home — and near to my heart — Wegmans is one of only four companies to have earned a spot on the Great Place to Work list every year since it launched 25 years ago. Impressive for any business and especially so for a grocery store. Even in the best of times, many positions in supermarkets are entry-level and low paying, with unpredictable schedules that include nights and weekends.

So it’s remarkable that Wegmans made the top 3 during the pandemic, when grocery employees as essential workers had to show up when customers, colleagues and the world were at a low point and stressors were higher than ever. While retail workers were quitting en masse nationally, Wegmans enjoyed normal levels of retention and attrition and exceptional scores for satisfaction. How’d they do it?

Despite the challenging times, leaders at Wegmans led with empathy and care, as always. They knew people were struggling to take care of their families. And they did what they always do: treated each other like family. Since most of the jobs at Wegmans can’t be done from home, managers work closely with team members to create schedules that allow them to take care of personal responsibilities along with their health and well-being. That includes predictability without the last-minute schedule changes that happen so often in hourly jobs.

“Always help others” is one of Wegmans’ operating principles, and it’s evident everywhere. All employees have access to a range of training and development programs, work scholarships and incentives for high school students to graduate. Team-level workers mentor and advocate for each other and nominate coworkers for “Who We Are” awards to recognize actions that exemplify the company’s values. And managers and leaders host regular Open-Door Days when any team member at any level can meet with any manager or leader, including the C-suite.

The result of that investment in employees is powerful. Team members gain deep knowledge about the company and its products, and they’re proud of it. So, managers trust and empower them to answer questions and make on-the-spot decisions. Whether you’re a customer wanting your money back on an item or a team member empowered to give it to you, it’s a win-win.

Greatness begets greatness

Perhaps it’s not that surprising after all that companies like Cisco and Wegmans have been certifiable Great Places to Work for 25 years running. Because if you have a great workplace culture going into challenging times, that culture grows stronger during the dark days. And you come out brighter and stronger on the other side.

Lauren Dixon is board chair of Dixon Schwabl + Co., a marketing communications firm, which has  been honored as a Best Place to Work.