Meet America’s Best Midsize Employers 2021

For the thousands of children who visit a Build-A-Bear Workshop each week, an essential step toward bringing their “furry friends” to life is the heart ceremony. On small, fabric hearts they bestow kisses and good wishes, placing them into bears that are stuffed and sewn before their eyes.

When Covid-19 shuttered stores across the country, premade bears could still be ordered online, but children were forced to forego the ceremony. Little did they know, each morning in Build-A-Bear’s warehouse just outside of Columbus, Ohio, hundreds of workers were hosting, on their own accord, a heart ceremony for all of the bears they would make that day.

CEO Sharon Price John didn’t even know this was happening until she was a year into her tenure at the company. “I was so touched that this had happened organically,” she says. “That’s really special. That’s when you understand the magic of Build-A-Bear. That was not protocol, that was not an edict from headquarters. That was folks that get it.”

This shared sense of purpose, as well as perks such as an annual employee chili cook-off and $100,000 employee assistance program, earned Build-A-Bear the No. 4 spot on our list of America’s Best Midsize Employers 2021. Forbes partnered with market research company Statista to pinpoint the companies liked best by employees in our annual ranking of America’s best employers. The ranking is divided into two lists: one for the top large companies with more than 5,000 U.S. employees, and another for the top midsize companies with 1,000 to 5,000. This article focuses on the latter.

Build-A-Bear was not the only retailer to land a spot in the top 10. Used-car ecommerce company Carvana ranked No. 9. Higher education also had a strong showing: the California Institute of Technology, Bowling Green State University and Brown University ranked No. 2, No. 3 and No. 8, respectively.

But it was data analytics company FICO that claimed No. 1 on the list. Though well-known for its credit scoring system, the majority of its roughly 4,000 employees work on various software applications and in 30 countries. This pre-pandemic focus on remote teams has been key to the organization’s success, says Rich Deal, FICO’s chief human resources officer.

“We get talent where we can find the best talent. We don’t get hung up on whether you need to move or you need to relocate,” he says. “Pandemics are terrible events, but sometimes they shine a bright light on the unique qualities of organizations.”

In the early days of the pandemic, FICO extended its work-from-home policy to all employees through June 30, 2021. More recently, though, the company has switched to an unlimited, or “trust-based,” vacation policy, and has started empathy training for managers on how to encourage employees to take time off. In the meantime, FICO is focused on keeping spirits high, going so far as to host private Zoom concerts featuring the likes of Grammy-winner Colbie Caillat and country singer-songwriter Jesse Labelle.

But Deal says it’s not the concerts that are responsible for employee engagement, noting that a recent company survey showed FICO workers are particularly impressed by the opportunities for professional growth and development, despite the pandemic.

“If you want to accelerate your access to learning opportunities . . . this is the kind of environment where we are a market leading company,” Deal says. “We are doing cool stuff and when you come here, you won’t be pigeonholed.” 

For the full list of America’s Best Midsize Employers, click here.

Methodology

To determine the list, Statista surveyed 50,000 Americans working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. All the surveys were anonymous, allowing participants to openly share their opinions. The respondents were asked to rate, on a scale of zero to 10, how likely they’d be to recommend their employer to others. Statista then asked respondents to nominate organizations other than their own, as well as identify organizations they would not recommend to others. The final list ranks the 500 large and 500 midsize employers that received the most recommendations.