Throughout the year, in partnership with people analytics firm Great Place to Work, Fortune publishes lists ranking the best U.S. workplaces across a number of categories. In 2020, on the Best Workplaces for Diversity, Millennials, Women, and Parents lists, as well as the Best Workplaces in Technology, tech conglomerate Cisco has ranked among the top eight—and it landed at No. 4 on this year’s domestic 100 Best Companies list.
So it should come as no surprise that Cisco tops GPTW and Fortune’s World’s 25 Best Workplaces list this year, for the second year in a row.
All 25 companies appearing here received top ratings on GPTW’s surveys of their employees in at least five countries. On average, these firms have offices in 12 different countries and employ 88,000 people worldwide. About half (12 of 25) are headquartered in the U.S., including four of the top five.
As they did last year, technology companies—either in the IT or biotech and pharma industries—constitute 40% of the top 25. Dell Technologies (No. 17) is a newcomer this year, as are Daimler Mobility AG (the financial services and insurance arm of the German automaker), Cadence (electronics), Marriott International (hospitality), Volvo Group (manufacturing), and Deloitte (professional services).
For more on companies that prioritize employee satisfaction, social responsibility, and workplace diversity, please also see the Great Place to Work lists of the 100 Best Small and 100 Best Medium domestic workplaces, which Fortune published on Oct. 16.
World’s 25 Best Workplaces
| Company | Number of employees |
| Cisco | 79,304 |
| DHL Express | 104,000 |
| Hilton | 173,504* |
| Salesforce | 52,000 |
| Stryker | 40,000 |
| Mars | 67,784 |
| The Adecco Group | 45,000 |
| Mercado Libre | 13,058 |
| SAS | 13,000 |
| EY | 300,675 |
| Intuit | 9,382 |
| SAP | 95,853 |
| Adobe | 22,000 |
| Admiral Group | 11,243 |
| AbbVie | 30,000 |
| Daimler Mobility AG | 14,000 |
| Dell Technologies | 165,000 |
| Cadence | 8,674 |
| Marriott International | 176,000 |
| Volvo Group | 100,000 |
| Roche | 98,000 |
| Deloitte | 286,200 |
| Santander | 194,000 |
| Natura | 6,396 |
| Scotiabank | 97,000 |
*As of Jan 1, 2020
A version of this article appears in the November 2020 issue of Fortune with the headline, “Global giants getting it right.”