Being "A Best Place to Work"

I am, sadly, an underground skeptic of the “Best Place to Work” stuff, for two reasons:

• American ingenuity will always invent ways to take your money, from the endless photography contests that I sadly keep entering to the design awards everyone is doing (and which, I’ve been told, are a huge source of revenue) and the organizations that live off your attempts to win awards like these. (The “Fastest Growing” stuff fits in this category, too.)
• I’ve seen deep inside many of the firms who have won “Best Place to Work” awards, and some of them have truly been shit storms where the truth is somewhere between that and their Glass Door reviews.

Yet, even though the awards may not correlate too well with the actual places that are great to work at, I’m a massive believer in making your place something that’s life changing to your team. Chances are pretty good, in fact, that you, as a boss, may be a better “parent” and “example” than the actual people that your employee had to learn from in their growing up years.

(And just to be clear, your firm might truly deserve that “Great Place to Work” award. I just don’t think that the award itself always correlates that well with the reality.)

Defining A Great Boss

Let’s turn this around for a minute and reframe the exercise: being a great place to work really comes down, primarily, to having a great boss. Yes, benefits and pay and co-workers matter, but nothing will compensate for a bad boss.

So with that in mind, I conducted some research on a platform that I’ve enjoyed using recently. Mind you, this is quite anecdotal with a massive margin of error, but it’s still really fascinating.

I paid 75 people to give me an open-ended answer to this question:

In thinking about the best boss you've ever had, what was that one thing about how that person interacted with you that you most appreciate?

The respondents had to have a 4-year college degree, work full-time, be 30-60 years old, and be an equal split between male/female.

The answers poured in, and here’s how I would summarize them. This is my lightly edited summary of the seven themes that Perplexity Pro identified across all the responses:

1. Employees frequently mentioned being treated with respect, as equals, or as individuals rather than just workers or numbers. Managers who avoided talking down to employees were highly appreciated.
2. Many respondents valued managers who trusted them to perform their tasks independently without micromanaging. Freedom to work with minimal supervision was a common preference.
3. Open and honest communication stood out as a key trait. Employees appreciated managers who were straightforward, transparent about decisions, and clear about expectations.
4. Compassionate leaders who cared about employees’ well-being, understood personal challenges, and prioritized flexibility (e.g., with scheduling) were highly praised.
5. Employees valued managers who acknowledged their hard work, provided positive reinforcement, and showed gratitude for their contributions.
6. Managers who supported career development through training, constructive feedback, and opportunities for professional growth were seen positively.
7. Fair treatment of all employees and consistency in behavior were emphasized as important traits.

What This Means

Why write about this right now? Your team is ready for a break. But if you’re running the right kind of firm, they’ll love coming back to work, too, because they enjoy the people, they love the challenge, and they know that they’ll be better for having worked for you.

It also means that you need to protect them by throwing any bad apples overboard to reinforce the culture and correct any hiring mistakes you’ve made. That’s also what being a good boss means: setting expectations and enforcing them. If you have some corrections to make in the New Year, do them right away and ignore the consequences that your subconscious keeps using to talk yourself out of this.

Be that kind of company and you’ll do more to change the world than whatever you think you might be doing for clients.