Inc. Best Workplaces 2022

The Companies Making Work Work

TO FILTER BEST WORKPLACES BY COMPANY, SIZE, OR BENEFITS, GO TO INC.COM/BWP2022.

Тhat old business bromide People are our greatest asset” got stress-tested in 2021. Many companies discovered that their workplaces were wanting when employees started walking, as we saw during the Great Resignation. Other businesses managed to boost their people as well as their P&Ls. So what's the difference?

Over the past two decades, startups and innovative entrepreneurs have reimagined what a thriving workplace should look and feel like, from the furniture (goodbye, cubicle) to the perks (hello, free food and fun distractions). Then along came the pandemic and chucked that model right out the window of our empty offices-foosball table and all. Employees are tiptoeing back in, but there's no returning to Before Times. Something has shifted. For any business owner steering a company through a moment when anti-work is a thing, it's tricky to know how to manage employees who may have experienced all manner of novel pressures and frustrations.

One thing we can say for sure: It will take more than letting people work from home. In fact, WFH may not be that important to most employees, according to researchers Jason Schloetzer, associate professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, and Christos A. Makridis of Stanford and Columbia. “We find that employees who always work from home are no more satisfied with their jobs than employees who never do, Schloetzer says. “There's evidence that flex work is lower on the pecking order than things like feeling appreciated at work, having access to training, or being paid fairly.”