USA 
United Kingdom
Forbes has released its list of America’s 500 best startup employers for 2024 including companies such as OpenAI, Our Next Energy, and Lacework.
Partnering with market research firm Statista, Forbes identified 3,000 companies that employ over 50 people, were founded between 2014 and 2021, and are privately owned companies with headquarters in the U.S.
It then whittled down the list based on company reputation, employee satisfaction, and growth to create its final list of 500 companies, topped by energy start-up Our Next Energy (ONE).
ONE climbed from its third-place ranking in 2023. “What we’re finding is that the employees coming to ONE want to boldly go after that goal with us,” said Mujeeb Ijaz, former CEO at ONE in 2023. “They’re really on a trajectory with us trying to change the future.”
Investors seemed to agree. In February 2023, ONE announced a $300million funding round, a valuation of more than $1billion, and planned to grow to over 300 full-time salaried employees and 100 hourly workers by the end of the year, despite tough economic conditions.
It even planned to create over 2,000 jobs in the following years. “We'll be ready to grow as the market comes out of this, because our factories will be tooled,” said Ijaz.
So, how did it pan out for one of America’s best start-up employers?
Well, by the end of 2023, ONE laid off 25% of its team “in response to market conditions,” and Ijaz was replaced as CEO. Moreover, just one day before being ranked number one by Forbes, it announced a further round of job cuts, this time around 10% of its workforce.
Not so pretty for America’s best American start-up employer. This begs the question – are these lists genuinely useful for employees and employers?
Sanity or vanity - are employer rankings helpful?
Forbes isn’t the only curator of such lists. Great Place to Work, Fortune, and numerous other bodies put together similar lists of the best workplaces. They are designed to spotlight organizations that offer an outstanding employee experience, providing a valuable opportunity for third-party recognition of the outstanding work HR teams do.
They are also more sophisticated and rigorous than ever before. Publications work hard to make sure these lists are as accurate as possible. Forbes and Statista, for example, drew on millions of data points, including sentiment analysis from articles, blogs, and social media posts on each company, reviewing whether phases such as ‘corporate culture’ or ‘employee engagement’ were positive, negative, or neutral.
They combined this with data from online reviews, retention rates, company policies on DE&I and leave, website traffic, job openings, and headcount. Forbes’ list is also independent. Companies do not pay any fee to be considered.
As an HR leader or professional, you might be frustrated that you’ve not cracked the top 100 employers, have dropped several places from last year, or have been omitted altogether. Equally, you might be delighted with your ranking on the latest workplace rankings list. Whatever your response, remember to take any results with a pinch of salt.
These lists still have their limitations. ONE’s layoffs indicate how quickly promising workplaces can change and how rapidly the employee experience can evolve for the better or erode for the worse. Or take OpenAI, which ranks 55th despite all of its Boardroom chaos that has unfolded over the past few months.
Yes, these lists recognize good HR work and strong company cultures, but they are not a perfect barometer of the quality of your employee experience. They are one potential signal of the quality of your workplace among a host of other data points and reviews available online. Prospective candidates will pay less attention to whether your company is the best place to work and more attention to whether it’s the best place to work for them.
It’s not about making the list. And it’s not about having ‘best place to work’ plastered over employer branding. It’s about living up to the title of top employer through outstanding HR practices, listening to your employees to meet their needs, and continuously improving your employee experience each week, month, and year.
