SPARTANBURG, S.C.—Fortune magazine announced that Milliken & Co. has once again been ranked on the tenth annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, coming in at No. 93. Milliken also ranked No. 36 on the Best Medium-Sized Company list. The complete list and related stories appears in the January 22 issue of Fortune, available on newsstands January 15 and now at www.fortune.com.
“Milliken’s incredibly talented workforce has demonstrated again that quality of work-life goes hand in hand with quality of product, environmental excellence, and social responsibility,” says Dr. Ashley Allen, Milliken’s president & CEO. “We will continue to work together to build a great place to work, and I am glad we can all be recognized as one of the best companies in America.”
Much has changed in the American workplace over the past decade. Back then 18 companies on Fortune’s list offered telecommuting; today 82 do. Competition to get on the list has intensified, too. This year 446 companies vied for a slot, up from 161 in 1998. And, 100,000 workers evaluated their employers, making this by far the largest simultaneous employee survey in corporate America.
List Criteria Defined
“The 100 Best Companies to Work For” list is compiled for Fortune by Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz of the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco, based on two criteria: an evaluation of the policies and culture of each company, and the opinions of the company’s employees. The latter is given more weight; two-thirds of the total score comes from employee responses to a 57-question survey that goes to a minimum of 400 randomly selected employees from each company.
More than 100,000 employees from 446 companies participated in the survey this year. It asks about things such as attitudes towards management, job satisfaction, and camaraderie within the organization. The remaining one-third of the score is based on an evaluation of each company’s demographic makeup, pay and benefits programs, and culture.
Companies are scored in four areas: credibility (communication to employees), respect (opportunities and benefits), fairness (compensation, diversity), and pride/camaraderie (philanthropy, celebrations). Companies that are at least seven years old and have 1,000 or more employees are eligible for the list. Information about applying for the next list can be found at www.greatplacetowork.com.
