March 4, 2019

Forty-Eight Percent of 2019 100 Best Companies to Work for Have Broad-Based Ownership Plans

Executive Director

Forty-eight percent of the stock corporations on the Fortune 2019 Best 100 Companies to Work For have some kind of broad-based employee ownership plan. The percentage is just slightly less than what is has been in prior years. Twenty of the organizations on the list are not stock corporations, mostly law and accounting firms and nonprofits. The percentage is just slightly less than in prior years. Companies have to apply to the Great Place to Work Institute for the award, and the applicants skew toward technology firms, professional firms, and large nonprofits. Companies have to have at least 1,000 employees to apply.

Of the winners this year, three (Burns and McDonell, Publix, and R.W. Baird) are majority employee-owned. Two others (Sheetz and David Weekly Homes) have minority ESOPs. Seventeen of the companies have board-based equity award programs, mostly restricted stock units or stock options, and seventeen others have only employee stock purchase plans.