Attention employees: It’s time to make your company’s case for Top Workplaces 2024

What makes your company so great? More often than not, it’s the people who work there.

For the 10th consecutive year, private and public sector employees in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties will get a chance to tout their working environments in the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Top Workplaces of the Year program for 2024.

The voting will take place amid one of the more contentious labor-management climates in recent history as strikes, tough contract negotiations and stubborn inflation dominate the financial headlines.

Moreover, employers are trying to cope with a labor market where the retention and acquisition of talent is still a major challenge after the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically slowed economic growth in 2020-21. Managements and employees continue to struggle with the effects of the “Great Resignation” and “Quiet Quitting” (becoming less psychologically invested in work), which still impact the employment relations scene.

How it works

In partnership with Energage, an Exton, Pennsylvania-based human resources consulting firm, the South Florida Sun Sentinel is inviting workers from around the region to tell us about their workplace cultures, and how management prioritizes employee recognition and appreciation.

The heart of the program is an employee survey that contains 24 questions related to how and why a company merits recognition.

There are no entry fees to participate and no obligations to purchase any product or service.

Companies will be surveyed from September 2023 through January 2024, with the nomination deadline Nov. 3. The results will be published at a date to be announced in the Spring of 2024, with the winners being recognized at a dinner hosted by the South Florida Sun Sentinel and Energage.

To enter, visit SunSentinel.com/Nominate or call 954-666-0786

The program is open to any employer with 35 or more employees in South Florida. Survey results are valid only if 35% or more employees respond; employers with fewer than 85 employees have a higher response threshold, requiring responses from at least 30 employees.

Energage tabulates the survey results, with employers grouped into small, midsize and large categories in order to compare similar employee experiences.

Employers earn Top Workplaces recognition if their aggregated employees’ feedback score exceeds national benchmarks. Energage has established those benchmarks based on feedback from more than 27 million employees over 17 years. They are ranked within those groups based on the strength of the survey feedback.

A recognition record

For the 2023 campaign, 3,929 organizations were invited to survey their employees, with a record 129 employers earning recognition as Top Workplaces.

Nationally, Energage surveyed more than 2 million employees in 65 markets, at more than 8,000 organizations in the past year.

In the current job market, companies continue to focus on recruiting, retaining and motivating employees. It’s more paramount than ever for companies to be intentional about a culture that prioritizes employee appreciation and recognition, Energage CEO Eric Rubino said.

“We really need workplaces that inspire employees,” he said. “You have to really acknowledge employees genuinely and consistently.”

The top South Florida finishers in each of the three categories in 2023 were:

Large category (400+ employees):

The Intercontinental Miami, which since 1985 has hosted leisure and business hotel guests on the edge of Biscayne Bay in downtown Miami, has been a centerpiece for tourism and business events. The guests hail from all over the world.

Despite the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the 34-story hotel continued to operate, and as a result of a high level of consistency demonstrated by its staff, the InterContinental Miami finished atop the category for the fourth time in nearly a decade.

As the South Florida Sun Sentinel observed previously, “one senses that the hotel’s employees are carefully screened to ensure they possess, not just patience and eagerness to please the guests, but an instinct to help and protect each other. Encountering each other through the staff-only corridors, managers and prep cooks greet each other by their first names.”

Midsize category (125-399 employees):

Northwestern Mutual-The South Florida Group, which is based in Fort Lauderdale, is a financial planning company in South Florida with offices in Palm Beach Gardens, downtown Fort Lauderdale, downtown Miami, Coral Gables and Naples. With over 115 financial advisers, who have their own staff, and 60 full-time employees, the territory the company covers ranges from Vero Beach to Fort Myers and south to Key West.

“The mission of the South Florida Group is to lead and inspire others by aligning their vision, their values and their actions to achieve financial security, one community and one business at a time,” said M. Kevin Lawhorn, managing partner with Northwestern Mutual-The South Florida Group. “When we treat clients, we make the same recommendations that we would do for our own families.”

Small category (Fewer than 125 employees):

Century 21 Stein Posner, of Boca Raton, helps global colleagues for local buyers or sellers who want to buy or sell in, say, Paris. The firm’s mission: Treat customers and employees like your family, and the business will follow.

Today they have 90 agents, all independent contractors ages 18 to 75, who use the company’s leadership for mentoring, training and old-fashioned hand-holding. Century 21 Stein Posner conducts about 40 transactions a month, both buying and selling, according to the owners.

“Our message has always been the same: We want to make a difference in people’s lives,” co-owner Ron Posner said. “Real estate is our widget, but we are a human being company.”

To enter Top Workplaces 2024, visit SunSentinel.com/Nominate or call 954-666-0786