Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For
Prolonged shutdowns. Workforces that felt isolated and overwhelmed. You name it, COVID brought it. Still, these companies managed not just to muddle through, but to become role models. The takeaway seems clear: Businesses that treat employees well during the toughest of times will attract talent, even when the war for talent heats up. Here, the 100 hottest workplaces—and how they stay that way.
The Top Ten
Cisco Systems
+3 spotsInformation Technology
The company that makes much of the gear powering the Internet tops this year’s list after dealing with the pandemic better than most. When the world started shutting down, Cisco delayed already announced layoffs and extended pay and benefits for affected workers. Cisco also continued to pay hourly employees even when office shutdowns kept them from coming to work. Placing a focus on employee well-being, Cisco ramped up communications, expanded benefits and access to mental health services, and provided multiple “Days for Me” for employees to step back and recharge. Long known for its community engagement, Cisco created a website to help remote students and donated unused videoconferencing gear to bolster telemedicine offerings at local medical facilities. “The attention that the executive team pays to the health and welfare of the surrounding community is extraordinary,” one employee notes.
Salesforce
Information Technology
When the world was reeling from the outbreak of the pandemic, software giant Salesforce initiated efforts to aid people both inside and outside the company. Salesforce donated more than 60 million pieces of safety gear to health care workers and their communities. It also donated about $30 million to small businesses, marginalized communities, and schools. Within the company, Salesforce enabled parents to take up to six extra weeks off work, and offered reimbursements of $500 a month for childcare and educational resources. Most recently, the company announced that it would permanently allow employees the option to work remotely. “During this pandemic, our company has shown its true colors,” one staffer says. “It makes me so grateful every day.”
Hilton Worldwide Holdings
-2 spotsHospitality
Hospitality chain Hilton was among the hardest hit in the earliest days of the pandemic, as travel ground to a halt. The company furloughed about 45,000 members of its workforce and laid off 20% of its corporate staff. But through those tough decisions, the company treated its workers with “dignity and compassion,” says one employee, by connecting former Hilton staff to short-term jobs new to the pandemic economy and by extending hotel rewards benefits like the Hilton Honors program and eligibility for the chain’s team member travel program beyond the date when a departing worker would usually lose them. “Each decision was made to do the best the company could to help people in crisis,” the employee says.
Wegmans Food Markets
Retail
Wegmans employees became heroes to many overnight in 2020 as Americans realized the physical and emotional toll of keeping the country fed during the pandemic. Its 105 stores gained 3,500 employees over the past year; about 40% of the workforce is full-time. The New York–based grocery chain worked hard to keep those staffers safe, retraining restaurant workers to service meat and seafood counters and offering job-protected unpaid leave for those who were worried about working in person. (Wegmans has historically provided generous benefits for the grocery industry, including a month of fully paid parental leave.) “It wasn’t just employees stocking empty shelves, doing extra cleaning and sanitizing around the store [that made Wegmans a great place to work this year],” one employee notes. “It was a combination of those things that helped us get through this pandemic.”
Rocket Companies
Financial Services & Insurance
Talk about an eventful year: The Detroit-based parent company of Rocket Mortgage went public last August, while a surge in pandemic-driven demand for home mortgages more than tripled the company’s net revenue, to $15.7 billion. All 24,000 Rocket employees received shares at the IPO; as of late March, the stock was trading at 33% above the offering price. As staff transitioned to working from home, Rocket spent $14.5 million to supply them with tech and telecom equipment. (One reward for this employee-centric thinking: Rocket rose from No. 29 to No. 5 on this list.) The company gave back to its hometown, too: Rocket helped Detroit build, staff, and handle scheduling for a COVID mass-testing site, while its philanthropic arm bought machinery that makes masks and other PPE for local health care providers.
