FAQs

Every employer with 10 or more employees in the state of Washington automatically qualifies for the state program. Most will also automatically qualify for one local program, as long as at least 10 employees are assigned to a facility in a single locale.

As with the statewide program, to qualify for a second, third, or fourth local program an employer must employ at least 10 employees assigned to a facility in the locale to qualify.

Local contest (program) boundaries

Determining Employee Location

Size Category Criteria

Cost to Participate and Purchase Reports

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The BEST Places to Work in Washington is made up of multiple, contiguous local employer ranking programs covering the entire state capped off by a statewide ranking list of the best of the best. That's why we refer to our programs as providing "complete coverage" across a state, because there are no coverage gaps. Only after the local level winners are published do we publish our list of the best employers across the entire state.

Click image to enlarge

All State Program Websites

If you're interested in our other local or state programs in the Pacific Northwest, click on one of the links below.

• BEST Places to Work in Idaho
• BEST Places to Work in Oregon
• BEST Places to Work in Washington

Each program, statewide and local, publishes a separate employer ranking list on our website at
https://www.bestplacestoworkinWashington.com/winners.

The best parts are:

• More chances to win
• More local promotion, excitement, digital assets, and awareness
• No extra work to manage because it’s all based on a single survey
• Single vendor, single management portal, and single employee list upload
• Only one branded employer profile page to build and maintain that is linked to from all winner lists
• Only pay for reports once and they cover all employees surveyed

That's right, multiple recognition opportunities both locally and statewide with no more work than a single contest. On top of that, you only purchase one set of reports to get insightful, confidential feedback of all your employees across the entire state.

Employers are ranked using only feedback from employees in the contest geography. Many employers have a different ranking locally than they do at the state level. Feedback from all employees in the state are used for the state level program rankings.

Advantages of Adding Local Programs

1. More opportunities for employers to win, be recognized, and build positive brand awareness.
2. More impact on future employees in your local communities, where most employers find most employees.
3. More impact on current employees by building a positive image and excitement locally.
4. More Winner List Web traffic because of multiple mentions on our website.
5. Easier for great employees to find great employers in specific areas of the state.

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Local programs in Idaho

Honoree badges will be available for each program, statewide and local. Employers can decide how, when, and where to use them in their marketing and recruiting materials.

	BEST Places to Work in Idaho – East The area around and including Rexburg, Idaho Falls, Blackfoot, and Pocatello. Covers the following counties: Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Bonneville, Butte, Caribou, Clark, Custer, Franklin, Fremont, Jefferson, Lemhi, Madison, Oneida, Power, and Teton	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Idaho – North The area around and including Sandpoint, Coeur d'Alene, Moscow, and Lewiston. Covers the following counties: Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Clearwater, Idaho, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, and Shoshone	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Idaho – South (Magic Valley) The area around and including Twin Falls, Burley, Jerome, and Hailey. Covers the following counties: Blaine, Camas, Cassia, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Minidoka, Owyhee, and Twin Falls Shoshone	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Idaho – Southwest (Treasure Valley) The area around and including Boise, Meridian, Nampa, Caldwell, Kuna, Eagle, and Emmett, as well as Mountain Home and McCall. Covers the following counties: Ada, Adams, Boise, Canyon, Elmore, Gem, Payette, Valley, and Washington	Click image to enlarge

Local programs in Oregon

Honoree badges will be available for each program, statewide and local. Employers can decide how, when, and where to use them in their marketing and recruiting materials.

	BEST Places to Work in Oregon - Central Covers the following counties: Crook, Deschutes, Gilliam, Hood River, Jefferson, Sherman, Wasco, and Wheeler	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Oregon - East Covers the following counties: Baker, Grant, Harney, Malheur, Morrow, Umatilla, Union, and Wallowa	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Oregon - Northwest Covers the following counties: Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Washington, and Yamhill	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Oregon – Southwest Covers the following counties: Coos, Curry, Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Klamath, and Lake	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Oregon – West Central Covers the following counties: Benton, Lane, Lincoln, and Linn	Click image to enlarge

Local programs in Washington

Honoree badges will be available for each program, statewide and local. Employers can decide how, when, and where to use them in their marketing and recruiting materials.

	BEST Places to Work in Washington - Central Covers the following counties: Chelan, Douglas, Grant, Kittitas, Klickitat, Okanogan, and Yakima	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Washington - Northeast Covers the following counties: Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, and Stevens	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Washington - Northwest Covers the following counties: Clallam, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Mason, Pierce, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish, and Whatcom	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Washington – Southeast Covers the following counties: Adams, Asotin, Benton, Columbia, Franklin, Walla Walla, and Whitman	Click image to enlarge
	BEST Places to Work in Washington – Southwest Covers the following counties: Clark, Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Lewis, Pacific, Skamania, Thurston, and Wahkiakum	Click image to enlarge

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The benefits to participating organizations are three-fold:

• Learning what employees most value in their workplace and the impact these preferences have on overall employee satisfaction and loyalty.
• Discovering what the best practices in Washington are for Compensation and Benefits, Work Environment, Company Management, Employee Growth and Development, and Work-Life Balance and how they compare on each dimension to the top performers.
• Demonstrating to employees their commitment to creating and maintaining a workplace that strives for excellence.

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Employee Size Category and Counts **	State Contest Registration	Local Contest Registration *	Benchmark Detail Report	Value Reporting Packages ***	Manager or Custom Sub-Group (each)
Micro (10 - 19)	$100	$200	$50	$375****	N/A
Small (20 - 49)	$150	$200	$50	$950	$350
Medium (50 - 99)	$200	$200	$50	$1,150	$450
Large (100 - 249)	$250	$200	$50	$1,450	$550
Macro (250+)	$350	$200	$50	$1,950	$650

Sponsorships:

• Download our 2025 Sponsorship Flyer.
  Download 2025 Sponsorship Flyer

Chamber Members Get Discounts:

For 2025, chamber members receive the following credits to apply toward registration, curated feedback, and sponsorships.
Chamber membership must be within the local contest boundary.

• Local contest registration: $50
• Value Reporting Package: $300
• Sponsorship levels: $200 - $600

Registration includes:

• Web-based Employee Survey
• Access to actionable reports to track culture and employee engagement ***
• If honored:
• Promotion through our social media channels
• Promotion through our partners' social media channels
• Feature in each of the award celebration videos for which qualified
  (statewide and each local contest, numbered winners)
• Qualification to purchase trophy(ies) Award
  (statewide and each local contest, numbered winners)
• 1-year active Brand Highlight Page (numbered winners and Honorable Mention)
• Digital badges
• Branding References: License to use the trademarked brand the Best Places to Work in Washington™
  e.g. {your organization name}, one of the Best Places to Work in Washington™

Notes:

* Local Programs (each contest). At a minimum, each employer participates in at least one local contest and one state contest.

** Employee Size : Any organization employing at least 10 people in the state of Washington is eligible to participate.

Size Category Criteria

*** Value Reporting Package includes: Employee Comments, Sub-Group Report, and Workplace Priorities.

• Single reports are approximately 50% of the VRP price.
• To protect respondent identities, data aggregations with fewer than 5 responses are not reported.
• See an example of the Value Reporting Package report (CLICK HERE).

**** Value Reporting Package for Micro employers: Because of small sample sizes and respondent confidentiality, Micro employers are only eligible for the Employee Comments Report.

Determining Employee Location

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Yes, if you have a facility located in Washington with 10 or more employees assigned to that branch then the company is eligible to participate in the Best Places to Work in Washington program. Check how we define the location of an employee here:

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Once you've registered you can view the timeline and list of tasks in your private management portal.
POPULUS will send email reminders of upcoming deadlines to the contact person(s) added to your organization's registration.

• If your organization has already registered, click here to LOGIN
• If your organization has not yet registered, click here to REGISTER
• If you want to nominate your employer or another outstanding employer, click here to NOMINATE

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After logging in to the employer portal, click on the People menu and then select the Employee tab. This will take you to the list of uploaded employees.

From the list of uploaded employees, use the Search box to enter the name or email address of the person whose uploaded data you wish to update. Once you've located the data you wish to update, click on the data field and you can update it in place. When you're done updating the field, either press the key or the key before you leave the page.

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Work from home and virtual employees make defining the 'location' of an employee tricky. The most stable and fair definition we've come up with is as follows.

The location of an employee is the location of the job, that is, the location of the department or facility to which they are assigned. Another way to think of it is the place where the employee would go for their job if they weren't a virtual or work from home employee.

EXAMPLE: You have a facility in Oregon that employs a virtual employee who resides in Nebraska. For purposes of the survey, contest, and employee spreadsheet you upload, the employee is considered to be 'located' in Oregon.

Local contest (program) boundaries

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The registration process will help you figure this out.

The thing to remember is that each employer has just one size category regardless of the number of contests in which they participate.

The employer size category is determined by the total number of employees uploaded across all three states.

For example, if your organization employees 50 people in each of three locations, one location in each of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington for a total of 150 uploaded employees, your participation size is a Large employer (100-249) and your organization would participate as a Large employer in all three local contests and all three state contests.

Only the survey results of the employees within each contest boundary are used to determine the ranking for each contest.

You manage all the contests from a single portal. This includes uploading a single spreadsheet with employee contact information and paying a single invoice.

Also, your single report order will contain and report all employees across all states.

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Unfortunately, no.

There are many factors that impact employee perceptions outside of the employer's control. Some of these external influences are unemployment rate and general health of the economy, to name just a few.

We try to hold as many of these external influences as possible constant so the results across employers are more comparable. That's why we have all employers take the survey as close to the same time of year as possible.

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• Bad email address.  This is the most common reason.  Check to make sure the email address is correct and the employee is still active.
• Mail box is full.  Contact the employee or your IT administrator to clean out their email folder.
• Email server rejected.  Contact your IT administrator and have them whitelist our domain name and URL.

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BEST Places to Work in Washington honorees are 100% dependent upon your employee feedback in combination with the response rate to the survey.

You may be a BEST Place to Work in Washington, but if you are not managing employee perceptions and expectations by communicating often and effectively, then your organization's time, effort, and investment won't have the desired impact.

The top three things you can do as employer to ensure the best response rates, survey engagement, and most genuine feedback from your workforce are:

1. Communicate before survey launch
2. Communicate during your survey window
3. Communicate after your results are back

Promote the survey internally in the weeks leading up to the survey (you pick your launch date in your private portal after you've registered.

Also, check out our FAQ on Pre-Launch Tasks to help ensure you achieve great participation from your employees.
Pre-Launch Tasks

Make sure your leadership team is on board. This is crucial as you will need their support to encourage and motivate employees to take the survey. Employee participation will be positively impacted by encouragement from your CEO or President.

Provide company time for employees to take the survey. Most people are able to complete the survey in 10 - 25 minutes. Each employee has a single use, unique password which allows them to restart the survey at the point they left off and not have to reenter data. Because the passwords are single-use, employees cannot share their password.

Make sure to update your branded-URL profile page. A large number current and prospective employees will interact with your profile page. Make sure it represents your brand and employee experience well.

After the survey, follow up with communications and perceptible actions demonstrating to your employees their time and effort will be used to help make improvements.

If you want to be different, do different. In order to leverage the survey and your employee feedback to make a meaningful impact, you must be informed. I strongly encourage you to purchase the reporting package we build from your employee feedback so you can make informed decisions and base your follow up communications and actions on genuine gaps in your employee experience as told to you by your employees.

You won't find the kind of information and insights contained in our reports anywhere else. The reports we build from your employee feedback are unique in that we confidentially benchmark your results to other participants of similar size and location.

As with competition in any market, your relative results are far more meaningful than your absolute results.

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Here's a short list of things to do in order to minimize questions for your HR department and maximize response rates.

1. Make sure your employee list has been uploaded. No emails will be sent if there has been no employee list uploaded.
2. Select a launch date for your employee surveys.
3. Send an internal communication to all of your employees notifying them of the following:
   1. Your organization is participating in the BEST Places to Work in Washington employee survey.
   2. The survey is being administered by an outside agency, POPULUS, who ensures respondent confidentiality . It's important to stress this fact as it is critical in obtaining the most honest and candid employee feedback.
   3. Each employee will receive an email from the BEST Places to Work in Washington with their UNIQUE, SINGLE-USE PASSWORD along with a link to the survey. Survey invitations MUST NOT be forwarded because each password is unique and can only be used one time.
   4. Each employees' participation is very important, so please encourage them to take 15 minutes and complete the survey.
   5. Employee supplied comments are given to employers verbatim, which will include an employee's name if they choose to type it in.
   6. To prevent accidentally revealing a respondent's identity, reports are scrubbed to ensure columns with fewer than five (5) responses are not reported separately.
   7. All survey data are transmitted between respondents and our server using SSL encryption
4. Add the following domains addresses to your company's email spam filter white-list:
   1. bestplacestoworkinWashington.com
   2. populus.com
   3. Constant Contact URLs
      1. constantcontact.com
      2. rs6.net
      3. s3.amazon.com
      4. ctctcdn.com
      5. ctctusercontent.com
5. Ensure all employees who will be taking the web survey can access the following domain addresses:
   • bestplacestoworkinWashington.com
   • populus.com
   • sawtoothsoftware.com

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Try this step-by-step process to reset your password.

1. Click on the Log in link on the app page.
2. On the log in page, click on the "Forgot Password" link.
3. Enter your email address and click on the "Reset password" button.
   1. If you get a message saying your email wasn't found, check your typing and try again.
   2. If you're still having trouble, click on this link to send us your question.
      Contact for Questions
4. Close the browser tab or browser window containing the Reset Password page.
5. Open your email and click on the reset link in the email we sent you.
6. Enter your new password on the new screen, twice, then press the Reset Password link.
7. If everything went okay you'll now be logged in and you'll have a message on the screen that says "Your password was successfully updated".

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At the Best Places to Work in Washington, we require each employer to achieve a certain rate of completed surveys. We call this the response rate. The response rate targets vary by employer size category and are listed below.

Employer Size	Response Rate
Micro (10 - 19)	80%
Small (20 - 49)	70%
Medium (50 - 99)	60%
Large (100 - 249)	60%
Macro (250+)	50%

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We suggest four things to improve your response rate.

First, make sure all the domains on the list below have been added to the mail server white list. The vast majority of cases we deal with where employees haven't been receiving their invitations, at least one of the domains was not set up correctly on the white list.

This issue can't be stressed enough. Once you're sure all the invitations are making it through the email server, then address the next three items.

• bestplacestoworkinWashington.com
• populus.com
• Constant Contact URLs
  • constantcontact.com
  • rs6.net
  • s3.amazon.com
  • ctctcdn.com
  • ctctusercontent.com

Second, ensure all employees taking the web survey can access the following domains.

• sawtoothsoftware.com
• bestplacestoworkinWashington.com
• populus.com

Third, have a senior leader send another email emphasizing the importance of completing the surveys and that every opinion counts.

Finally, if someone still can't find their invitation or reminder email and you're sure all the domains have been white listed properly, have them check their email spam or junk folder.

There is more information on our "Tips and Tricks" flyer you can access here (Tips and Tricks).

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Your information is secure. POPULUS abides by the Council of American Survey Research Organizations’ (CASRO) code of standards and ethics regarding respondent and client confidentiality.

Throughout the enrollment, survey, and reporting processes, no individual level data for respondents will be made available to client companies. Similarly, no company level data will be made available to any other participating company or the media.

Each year we publish honoree lists with the names of ranked employers and those achieving honorable mention. There is no public mention of the names of participating employers who do not score well enough to be included in one of our lists.

The employee data you upload are removed from our server shortly after the conclusion of the survey. The innocuous data you provide as part of your organization registration is retained in your private portal. This allows us to make your registration process in years after your first year much easier and faster..

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The best way to contact us is via email either directly at: info@populus.com
or send a message via the contact us form.

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