This issue of CE News reveals our annual Best Civil Engineering Firms To Work For list, which honors firms with great workplaces. The top 50 list and in-depth looks at the top three firms, as well as details about the program, are revealed in the article.

Firms that participate in this program must invite staff to take an anonymous Employee Satisfaction Survey (ESS) administered by CE News, in addition to meeting requirements and submitting a Corporate Survey completed by management. Firms must achieve at least a 20-percent response rate to the ESS, but most firms obtain a much higher response rate; the median was 56 percent. This year, 18,997 people took the ESS, providing valuable feedback from 146 firms of various sizes and locations—an excellent sample of the private consulting firms making up the industry.

One interesting and important question we ask in the ESS is a free-answer, optional question: What do you feel is the most important attribute that a company must have to be considered one of the best firms to work for? More than 13,300 people provided a response. While I certainly don’t believe there is any one thing that makes a firm’s workplace great, which is why the evaluation of firms that apply to the program is vast, considering culture, benefits, performance/recognition, compensation, professional development, recruiting and retention, and more, learning how people answer this telling question is enlightening.

Some of the most common responses were integrity, flexibility, respect, trust, ethics, team atmosphere, family environment, work-life balance, good leadership, and communication. The following are representative of many of the comments shared:

• Integrity of leadership. Open communication. Commitment to excellence. All of these are non-negotiable.
• A positive work environment that promotes professional development and the highest quality of work; where the budget takes a backseat to quality.
• Passion for engineering excellence and client service, a high degree of integrity, and an equitable sharing of the profits of the firm.
• A company must provide growth for each employee, teamwork mentality, one profit center, and achievable goals that each person can be a part of.
• A challenging atmosphere while still helping and striving to maintain the personal life/work balance.
• It must care about its employees as much as it cares about profit. It must see the success of its employees as the benchmark for success of the company.
• Hire the best and enable them to do great work.

Even the best firms strive to improve year after year. Keeping in mind what staff believe is important is great way to ensure that your efforts are on track.