ABOUT THE 2021 TOP WORKPLACES SURVEY
Provided by Energage LLC, which conducted the 2021 Bay Area Top Workplaces project.
Outreach
Energage reaches out to employers with at least 35 employees in the Bay Area to participate. We use a combination of print & online ads, and direct outreach to employers using direct marketing lists (e.g. infoUSA). The Activity page shows the latest information on the number of employers invited, registered, and surveyed.
Employee survey
We survey employees at participating employers using either paper surveys or an online survey application. Each of the statements has a positivity score. The positivity score on the Positivity page shows the overall percentage of positive responses for each statement. Responders rank our statements on a 7-point likert scale, ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, so the score shown is the percentage of responders who answered Slightly Agree, Agree or Strongly Agree to each statement. Each of the statements has been tested to ensure it has a high correlation with how employees feel about their workplace, which is calculated by correlating the statement responses to employee engagement. The Statement Importance page lists the statements that were part of the survey.
Response requirements
We require a response rate of at least 35 percent for employees based in the Bay Area. In addition, employers with 85 or fewer Bay Area employees must have at least 30 responders. We encourage employers to survey all employees, but large employers can choose to randomly sample their Bay Area employees. At least 500 employees must be included in the random sample for employers 2,500 or less. For those employers over 2,500 but less than 5,000 employees, we require 20 percent minimum distributed. For employers 5,000 or more the minimum is 1,000 surveys distributed. The
Activity page shows the total number of employees sent surveys and the total number of employees who responded.
Testing for questionable results
After the survey is complete, we first run a series of statistical tests to look for any questionable results. We disqualify a small number of employers based on these tests. As the effectiveness of these tests depends on employers not being aware of them, we do not publish the details.
Selection of Top Workplaces
We categorize the employers into size bands because smaller employers tend to score higher than midsize employers, and midsize employers tend to score higher than large employers. We then rank the employers within their size band based solely on the employee responses to the survey statements. The top employers in each size band are then selected as the Top Workplaces in the Bay Area for 2021 and listed on the Top Workplaces Summary page. We also determine a list of special awards based on standout scores on specific survey statements, which are listed on the Special Awards page.