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What makes an organization a great place to work?

Workforce Development, Inc is again seeking to recognize the employers that show a commitment to being a Best Place to Work in Southeast Minnesota. We partner with Personnel Dynamics Consulting, a third-party company, to run our Best Places to Work competition. They use empirical data to compare small, medium, and large companies across all sectors and industries. Organizations report on the different type of benefits they offer, how much they invest on training their team, the opportunity for staff advancement and more.

We will recognize multiple winners in each category size at our Workforce Forum on Thursday, April 27. Each winner receives a large banner to display at their business as well as use of the Best Places to Work 2023 logo on any marketing and recruiting materials they desire. Past award winners have found that using this logo helps their job listings stand out in our competitive job markets. Geoff Smith, president of IBI Data in Brownsdale had this to say about winning the award last year:

“It absolutely helps us recruit and retain people —– folks want to work at good companies with good people and showing this award on our website or social media helps them find and identify us. Once they find us, people tend to stick around IBI Data a long time.”

Many organizations report that their favorite part of participating, regardless of if they win or not, is the customized report they receive upon completion of the competition. It depicts how their company compares to like sized organizations for each question in the report. This gives a true analysis on what areas they are excelling as well as some possible opportunities for focus in the upcoming year. Finally, the end of the survey is filled with ideas from other organizations of their best practices and recruiting methods.

Previous participant Lane Powell of Harmony Enterprises in Harmonyplans on participating again in 2023. 

“Although we have not yet received the award, our participation in the Best Places To Work program has given us insight to things we can do to improve our organization to increase retention, employee well-being, and attract new talent,” he said. “Reviewing the final report each year has specifically helped us identify and remove unnecessary barriers for employment.”

The Best Places to Work program is completely free to any interested organization in Southeast Minnesota. Simply create a login at our website http://bestplacestoworksurvey.com/survey.asp and enter all the required information by Friday, March 3rd. The website allows users to save their data entries as they go, so they can stop and gather their information as needed. If you have any questions, I’m happy to help, I can be reached at mpostma@wdimn.org.