Want Honest Feedback About Your Organization?

If the most effective way to recruit excellent employees is to become a Best Place to Work, then surely the second-most effective way to recruit them is to spread the word far and wide that your company or nonprofit is a Best Place to Work.

That’s where we come in. Each year, the cover story in Hawaii Business Magazine’s April issue lists and briefly describes all of Hawai‘i’s Best Places to Work. Then we spread the word on our website, hawaiibusiness.com, and in our twice daily email newsletter, Today’s Hawai‘i News, which has 23,000 subscribers and an open rate north of 70%.

In the latest list of Hawai‘i’s Best Places to Work, 78 companies made the cut.

Thing is, you can’t live off your reputation for long. You have to keep proving yourself. That’s why it’s important to know that Friday, Oct. 18, is the deadline to register for the Best Places to Work survey that determines the 2025 list. There’s no fee; go to bestplacestoworkhawaii.com and register if you think your organization falls into one of two categories:

• One, you think your company is a Best Place to Work or might be.
• Or two, you want your company to become a Best Place to Work.

Honest Answers Provide Insights

Few organizations start as Best Places to Work. Almost all of them become Best Places to Work over time, and a crucial step is finding out what employees really think about their workplace, through a confidential survey.

Confidential surveys – like the ones conducted for the Hawai‘i Best Places to Work – means you are likely to get honest responses from your employees. The feedback helps your leadership team know what you are doing well and where your workplace has slipped off the tracks. The answers can be heartening and brutal – but most of all enlightening. I know because I’ve reviewed summaries of surveys of our own employees.

Last year as part of the Best Places to Work program, about 20,000 employees at more than 100 companies participated in confidential surveys. That’s a huge database to draw insights from.

We Partner With the Experts

We are not experts in collecting and analyzing that data but we partner with people who are. For two decades, we have collaborated with Peter Burke and his team on the Best Places to Work program.

“Being named a Best Place to Work will have a massive impact on an organization’s brand as an employer, but simply participating in the program has another huge benefit,” says Burke, CEO of Workforce Research Group.

“Regardless of whether an organization makes the list, all participants have the opportunity to invest in the WRG Employee Feedback Data Dashboard. This portal has the results of the employee engagement survey, benchmark reports and employee comments – information that is like gold if you want to build a better workplace. Most organizations pay less than $1,000 to access this invaluable information. Plus, a report analysis call with WRG is included,” he says.

If you keep at it, that information can help build a better workplace. And when you become a Best Place to Work, the payoff is enormous.

“The average percentage of employees in the U.S. who are engaged is about 35%. For the Best Places to Work in Hawai‘i, that percentage is 89%. That is an amazing accomplishment for the winners,” Burke says.

The rewards go far beyond better recruitment and retention. “Being named a Best Place to Work will have a huge impact on not only the employees, but the employees’ families, the organizations’ customers and the communities they serve,” he says.

Want a head start? Here are the top drivers of employee engagement:

1.  Employees liking what they do.
2.  Employees believing in the leadership of the organization.
3.  Employees being treated with dignity instead of like a number.
4.  Employees knowing what is expected of them.
5.  The company is committed to producing quality products and services.

Register for the program and find out where you stand on these issues.