What do employees consider “fair” when looking at compensation? For HR leaders today, offering a competitive package requires a more comprehensive approach than in years past.

“When I began my career in HR, it used to be enough to just pay really well, or have a cool culture,” says Lori Hall, director of human resources at Kimley-Horn.

Not anymore.

“You have to provide meaningful work experiences; you have to be willing to train and develop employees; you have to be cool and fun,” she says. “You have to do it all.”

Kimley-Horn knows a thing or two about creating a winning workplace culture.

The engineering consulting firm with more than 7,500 employees was No. 30 on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® List in 2024 and the No. 38 large company on the Fortune Best Workplaces for Women™.

What helps the consulting firm based in North Carolina be so competitive against the best workplaces in the country?

To start, they have a robust and thoughtful approach to compensation that ensures nine in 10 employees (91%) say they are paid fairly. To understand how impressive that number is, consider that the average across companies on the 100 Best list in 2024 is only 75%.

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What does ‘fair pay’ look like?

Kimley-Horn’s approach to compensation is guided by two principles, Hall says.

“First, we want people to live comfortably,” she explains. That means ensuring employees can retire when they want to retire and have the means to live a full life here and now.

The second principle: being competitive when offering total compensation. “We want to be fair in our base compensation,” Hall says. “We have a really robust retirement plan. We have a really robust incentive compensation plan, and we have a bunch of extras from profit-sharing contributions to our renown red envelope days.”

To ensure that this plan is fair and competitive, Kimley-Horn has been willing to make changes and bring in external expertise when necessary. As its workforce has become more specialized and complex, compensation has had to adapt.

“For a really long time, we were predominantly civil engineers,” Hall says. “Now we have civil engineers, planners, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, people with history backgrounds, people who do forensics.” 

This diverse workforce has required the company to get more sophisticated in its compensation strategy.

Different employes have different needs

What does it look like to meet the diverse needs of different generations in the workforce, for example?

Recent college grads, for example, have different needs than more established professionals with a bigger collection of assets. “They’re buying a car; they’re finding an apartment; they’re building their professional lives and their personal lives at the same time,’” Hall says. “Salary is very important to them, whereas if you’ve been around for a long time, you have more of a long-term perspective.”

To address this difference, Kimley-Horn has thoughtfully considered how to prioritize salary in the total compensation package for younger employees. The package is rebalanced over time to focus on retirement or incentive opportunities for later-career professionals.

How to build trust in compensation philosophy

It’s not enough to have a competitive total compensation package. You also must communicate thoughtfully and meaningfully with employees about their pay and your compensation philosophy.

“We talk about it regularly,” says Hall. As a built-in component of several company-wide training programs, employees can ask leaders direct questions about pay and bonus structures.

The team also regularly collects feedback from employees in exit interviews, stay interviews, and career check-ins.

To ensure equity across the company, there are formalized review layers around salary and bonus awards. Regional HR teams review a master list of all salaries in each region where the company operates and, working with the company’s affirmative action officer, the team analyzes pay parity by gender and minority status. If disparities are found, corrections are made.

For bonus awards there are four levels of review, from direct manager up to a companywide analysis, to ensure that what can feel like a subjective judgment has met rigorous standards. The process, which Kimley-Horn completes twice a year for its two separate bonus windows, takes two months.

Tips for others

How might this approach adapt to other companies? Hall and Kimley-Horn offer four lessons:

1. Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Hall says the need to bring in external experts and resources to inform their decision-making became undeniable after one annual review process four years ago.

 â€œI felt like we were just not as sharp as we needed to be,” she says. “We needed to go ask someone who knows what they’re doing for help.”

The team has gone on to engage another consultancy for additional perspective and continues to try and learn more from others.

2. Lean on your survey tools

The ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇÂŽ Trust Index™ Survey offers invaluable data for understanding the employee experience, Hall says.

The team brings together survey data with other key metrics like turnover, as well as stay interview and exit interview data to develop guidance for senior leaders to make big decisions.

3. When making change, double down on transparency

“We probably err on the side of over-communicating when something different is going on,” Hall says.

When consultants were brought in to analyze and provide guidance on Kimley-Horn’s compensation philosophy, the team was careful to communicate the “why” behind the changes it made.

“When people understand the why, even if they don’t love all of it, they understand its importance to the business and to them, they’re better able to move on,” Hall says.

4. Don’t expect perfection

When making changes to the employee experience, whether its compensation or something else, it’s crucial to continue to listen to employees.

“It’s not all going to go perfectly,” Hall says. “We’ve actively solicited feedback from lots of people around the company to say: ‘What's working? What's not?’”

When you can admit that you don’t have all the answers, but show your effort to engage on hard topics, that builds trust.

“We want feedback and we’re willing to do what we need to do to get better,” Hall says.

It’s hard to create a workplace that employees believe to be fair. Promoting fairness in the workplace means ensuring that employees at all levels feel recognized, valued, and included in growth opportunities.

In a 2023 ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇÂŽ market survey of more than 4,400 workers, only 36% of employees at an average company said they believe they receive a fair share of their company’s profits. Only 51% said promotions were fairly awarded and just 45% said their manager avoids picking favorites.

It’s a different story at the 2023 Fortune Best Small and Medium Workplaces™ Lists.

At these companies, 86% of employees believe they get a fair share of profits — 136% higher than the typical U.S. company. A whopping 91% of employees believe their manager doesn’t pick favorites, 105% higher than a typical workplace.

Research from ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ, which produced this year’s list based on more than 242,000 individual survey responses from eligible companies, shows that fairness in the workplace has a profound impact on both employee well-being and business success.

“When employees believe the workplace is fair, they put their trust in leaders and in the organization,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO of ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ. “Workers want to know that they will receive fair compensation for their work, be treated justly and impartially when considered for promotions, and given equal opportunities for growth.”

Fairness is a top driver for employees to give extra effort in their job, a key element for innovation and productivity.

“Fairness might sound like a fuzzy concept, but its presence or absence has real consequences for business performance,” says Bush. “When you crunch the data, employees who believe their workplace is fair are having a superior experience and delivering superior results compared to their industry peers.”

When employees believe people are paid fairly for their work, they are 36% more likely to say people give extra effort at their company. When they believe profits are shared fairly, they are 28% more likely.

As for the workers themselves, higher levels of fairness lead to more well-being. Employees are 2.8 times more likely to experience well-being when they say they receive a fair share of profits. When they believe promotions are fairly awarded, they are 1.3 times more likely to experience well-being.

How to improve fairness in the workplace

Here are some of the top ways to ensure your employees believe their workplace is fair:

1. Clear and transparent communication around pay

Just because your organization offers a competitive compensation package doesn’t mean your employees believe the offering is fair.

Do employees understand all the ways your benefits help them succeed? The best companies embrace pay transparency, offer financial education and well-being tools, and train managers to talk about total rewards.

And the business benefits, too. When workers say they receive a fair share of the profits, they are 28% more likely to say people give extra effort at their company and 46% more likely to stay with their company long-term.

2. Open and inclusive pathways for promotion

In the absence of information, employees often make false assumptions about decision-making that affects them. That’s why the best companies try to make the criteria behind promotions transparent.

It’s crucial to audit the “pathway to promotion.” What groups of employees are harder to find the higher you look in the organization?

When employees at small- and medium-sized workplaces believe they are being treated fairly, regardless of age, they are 1.8 times more likely to experience well-being. And when treated fairly regardless of race, they are 1.3 times more likely.

To help everyone find opportunities to advance, invest in mentorship and make criteria for senior roles explicit and available to all employees. Make sure all employees know when a job is open, and offer feedback when internal candidates don’t get selected.

3. Recognition for all employees, regardless of role.

Making sure your workers feel appreciated isn’t just good for morale; it’s good for business.

When employees say everyone has an opportunity for special recognition, they are 1.5 times more likely to say people give extra effort.

Employees at every level of the organization must feel seen and valued. When employees believe anyone can get recognition, they are 1.2 times more likely to believe their work is meaningful — a key driver of retention, innovation, and well-being across all companies and industries.

Our research shows that the best recognition programs are specific, timely, and connected to clear business goals. Make it easy for employees to get recognition from their managers and colleagues, and workers will reward you with top-level performance.

Make the list

To find out how your company can become ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ Certified™ and apply to our Best Workplaces™ lists, start here. 

When looking at “sharing” — one of the nine high-trust leadership behaviors that strengthens workplace culture — most leaders focus on pay.

However, just crunching the numbers doesn’t capture an important driver of trust in organizations: employees’ perception of fairness. You might pay everyone the same, and some employees will still feel underpaid for their efforts.

“Equity does not equal sameness,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO of ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇÂŽ. What really matters is ensuring that every employee, regardless of role, feels like they share in a company’s success.

That means clearly communicating about performance, incentive structure, and career opportunities, Bush says. “Make sure you’re truly inclusive in terms of sharing opportunities for people, as well as the resources of the organization.”  

The best workplaces also think broadly about what people value as a reward for their work at a company. Financial compensation is one example, but employees also value the ability to give back to their community and opportunities for development and career advancement.

If your company rewards employees with a year-end holiday bash to celebrate a successful year, how do you ensure all employees can attend?

How leaders can improve

Here’s how companies on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® List are building cultures that prioritize fairness and build trust:

1. Start with fair pay

Great workplaces carefully review their salary ranges, bonus plans, and total compensation programs to ensure pay is fair, and revisit their analysis regularly.

At NuStar Energy, every employee receives an annual bonus, regardless of what role they play at the company. If the CEO gets a bonus, everyone at the company is getting a bonus.

The company also boasts an unusually low CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 50 to 1, meaning that the CEO only earns 50 times the average annual salary of other employees. The gap is dramatically smaller than the average for the S&P 500, where CEOs typically earn 272 times more than workers at their company.

Great workplaces also consider employee feedback on compensation. When employees can voice concerns, they have more confidence in the compensation process and are more likely to trust that leaders consider their needs when making decisions about pay.

At Ryan LLC, a plan to adjust compensation for remote team members based on their geographic location rankled some team members, who argued the proposal created disparities within a team’s compensation bans.

Ryan leaders listened, and six months after rolling out a plan for remote worker compensation, made adjustments. Compensation is now based on the geographic region for a team’s assigned office location, rather than an individual worker’s location, ensuring fair compensation for work by members of the same team.

Great workplaces also analyze compensation across gender, racial background, job type, and more — and make adjustments when necessary. Salesforce every year as part of its annual compensation process. After groups employees into comparable job groups, they analyze compensation to see if there are unexplained gaps based on gender or race. The company also analyzes stock grants to see where disparities might exist.

2. Invest in financial well-being resources

Great workplaces think about how compensation and benefits build a solid foundation for employees to build their lives and care for their families. By taking time to understand the demands on employees’ personal lives, whether that’s inflation, the rising cost of a mortgage, student loan debt, or other costs, companies can tailor resources to address the specific needs of employees.

At Marriott International, leaders saw that offering an employee stock purchase program to save for retirement and build wealth. The hotel chain also increased its 401(k) match and saw 85% of eligible associates contributing to those accounts.

Marriott also offers webinars and resources to help associates learn about budgeting, retirement planning, and other ways to protect their finances.

3. Train people leaders to talk about pay and performance

When companies embrace pay transparency, they must ensure that people leaders in their organization are empowered and supported to discuss sensitive issues like performance and pay.

Before rolling out pay transparency and making it possible for team members to see their salary ranges, Ryan’s “Talent Effectiveness” team rolled out a series of training sessions to prepare leaders. Ryan’s compensation process had previously been a black box, and now team members need to understand the company’s compensation philosophy.

Team members received training about how pay ranges were determined, and managers learned how to articulate what individual employees needed to accomplish to move up in their pay range or into a different role.

The Talent Effectiveness team took the extra step of revamping the performance management process, moving from a rating scale of one through five to a competency-based model that outlined specific skills and abilities needed to advance through the organization.

The result was increased clarity around expectations for team members, a better toolbox for leaders to help their employees develop, and more visibility throughout the organization for employees that were overperforming in their roles.

Great workplaces also encourage their people leaders to have more frequent, ongoing conversation about performance.

At Synchrony, employees and managers receive training on how to set goals. Employees learn how to define goals that are relevant for their role and contribute to career growth. Managers learn how to embed conversations around goals into the review process and provide continuous coaching to those who report them.

4. Ensure every employee has an opportunity to develop, grow, and advance

Pay and benefits are just some of the rewards employees look for when considering a job. Opportunities to learn or build a career are extremely valuable, and great workplaces go the extra mile to help every employee have an opportunity to grow.

DHL Express uses a career marketplace, powered by artificial intelligence, to match employees with learning opportunities within the company. Inspired by LinkedIn, the platform suggests open positions aligned with the career goals employees add to their profile.

Hilton and Cadence have invested heavily in mentorship tools to pair employees with mentors inside the organization. Hilton also provides employes with virtual coaching via BetterHelp.

Great workplaces make sure that every employee, regardless of role, can develop their career. At Walmart, 75% of salaried managers in U.S. stores, clubs, and supply chain facilities started in hourly roles. The company also offers frontline workers the opportunity to train with its “Associate to Driver” program, which helps them to earn a commercial driver’s license and a position as a truck driver for the retailer, which can pay up to $110,000 in their first year on the job.

5. Be transparent so every employee can have the information needed to be a strategic partner

How is information shared throughout the organization? Do frontline employees feel like they have the knowledge to participate as a full participant in the business?

Hilcorp Energy Company stands out in how much transparency it offers employees about the inner workings of the business.

“We give every employee access to the company’s financials, share our measures of business success, and we teach them how to understand them,” says Mike Brezina, senior vice president, human resources at Hilcorp. “We open the books and share our financial measures such as cash flow, margin, production rate, lifting costs, investments, oil and gas price impacts, storage costs, and more.”

Hilcorp is particularly proud of its flat organizational structure, embodied by its “five-layer strategy” that limits the number of managerial levels between an individual contributor and the CEO of the company. What makes the biggest difference is the trust that Hilcorp leaders show to their workforce, trusting their team members to act like owners of the business.  

“Whether through identifying projects, developing a budget, or setting goals, the decisions and actions of each teams’ plans starts from the bottom-up,” Brezina says. “Decisions are then rolled up into the company-wide annual goals that are shared at every lifting cost meeting.”

6. Consider other perks that employees value as part of their employment

Work offers more rewards than just money. Many employees value how working for a great company enables them to be involved and give back to their community.

Great workplaces are thinking about how to make sure that these ancillary benefits are also equitably shared across their workforce.

At Cisco, every year since 2020 has seen more than 80% of employees participate in volunteering and charitable giving. To achieve this remarkable result, Cisco points to a few strategies:

• It provides new hires with donation credits upon joining the organization, ensuring they can immediately engage and build the habit of giving back.
• It launched a platform called “The Community Impact Portal,” which easily connects employees with opportunities to volunteer and give, and tracks participation across the organization.

Great workplaces are always asking about which group of employees might be left behind, or how to increase full participation in the benefits of being associated with the company. When employees feel like they are respected as an equal and valuable member of the team, they give more effort, and are more likely to stay in their role.

Most companies will say they value employees with an entrepreneurial mindset. That doesn’t always mean employees are given the information or authority to act like an owner of the business.

At Hilcorp Energy Company, No. 80 on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® List in 2024, there’s a careful strategy that ensures every employee can participate in decisions. It all starts with transparency.

“We give every employee access to the company’s financials, share our measures of business success, and we teach them how to understand them,” says Mike Brezina, senior vice president, human resources at Hilcorp. “We open the books and share our financial measures such as cash flow, margin, production rate, lifting costs, investments, oil and gas price impacts, storage costs, and more.”

It’s a remarkable amount of trust that company leaders show to Hilcorp’s rank and file. Information about the health of the business and financials are consistently updated in daily stand-up meetings, monthly companywide lifting cost meetings, and quarterly reviews.

“We believe that there is no such thing as over communicating,” Brezina says. “All employees are invited, and all meeting materials are made available internally. As a result, each employee understands how they can personally impact Hilcorp’s success.”

This is borne out in the data. In Hilcorp’s most recent ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇÂŽ survey, nine in 10 (93%) employees said they understood how they can positively impact company culture and 88% said they have the information and training to do their job.

The idea was implemented after Hilcorp’s founder Jeffery Hildebrand met Jack Stack, author of and was introduced to the concept of open-book management. The company quickly embraced the principle: “A company of owners will outperform a company of employees any day of the week.”

The five-layer strategy

When every employee is given the necessary information, the next step is to give them responsibility for decisions that affect them.

Hilcorp Energy Company operates under what it calls its “five-layer strategy” — a rule for the entire organization that requires no more than five levels between an individual contributor and the CEO of the company.

“The flattened organization makes us nimble, encourages the entrepreneurial mindset, and removes unnecessary barriers in the decision-making process,” Brezina says. An example of this philosophy in action is Hilcorp’s asset teams, responsible for all oil and gas assets in their geographic region. An asset team’s five layers begin with operator roles, progressing to foreman, operations manager, asset team leader, and executive.

“In our business, urgency and empowerment are essential,” Brezina says. “We want everyone to be aligned, act like owners, do the right thing with a sense of urgency, and get better every day.”

The result? Employees know what expectations leaders have for them, and feel empowered to innovate and execute.

At Hilcorp, 96% of employees say they are given a lot of responsibility, and 90% say people quickly adapt to change. In a market survey of 4,400 employees at typical U.S. companies, only 61% of respondents said people quickly adapt to change at their workplace.

“Every employee knows what we are trying to accomplish,” Brezina says. “This is how we stay aligned.”

Tips for others 

How can others implement this level of transparency?

Brezina offers some tips:

1. Make it easy to know the score

Transparency isn’t about overwhelming employees with data. Goals should be clearly defined, the factors to success identified, and data made available to employees in ways that will help them perform their job better.”

Clarity and simplicity must be part of the strategy. “When you walk into a baseball game, mid game, what do you want to know?” Brezina explains. “What’s the score? Who’s batting? What inning? Et cetera. This is no different for a business.”

2. Get everyone to participate in every step of the process

At Hilcorp, almost every employee participates in developing and setting the annual plan that outlines goals for the business — nearly 90%.

“Whether through identifying projects, developing a budget, or setting goals, the decisions and actions of each teams’ plans starts from the bottom-up,” Brezina says. “Decisions are then rolled up into the company-wide annual goals that are shared at every lifting cost meeting.”

As a result, nearly eight in 10 (78%) employees at Hilcorp report that they’re able to influence decisions that affect them, compared to just 51% at a typical U.S. company.

3. Ensure everyone gets a fair share of profits and rewards

Every department at Hilcorp participates in its generous annual bonus plan and incentives are tied to business metrics to which every team contributes.

“No team or department is pitted against each other,” Brezina says. “We all work as a team towards our shared goals, enabling us to fully align to our business and our work.”

Every employee gets the same bonus percentage, regardless of their role at the company.

“There is no individual component, no team component, and no differences by role or level,” Brezina says. “The bonus plan is tied to business metrics that we can control and is communicated at every lifting cost meeting.”

4. Use surveys to measure your culture

How are Hilcorp leaders sure that these efforts are paying off? It shows up in their ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ survey, the only engagement survey Hilcorp uses each year.

“Once we receive our results, we generate reports for each department showing the historical trends of their data and highlight the areas of strength and improvement areas,” Brezina says. “The teams review their data, create action plans, and implement their plans. These plans become the team goals by which they are measured and held accountable.”

The survey asks employees whether they have the information and resources they need to do their job, whether leaders make their expectations clear, and whether employees can participate in innovation — all experiences that build trust and contribute to business performance.

“ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ has been a critical partner in building our survey and providing great analytic tools, allowing us to get better and better data,” Brezina says. “We are able to home in on the specific themes of the feedback we receive from our employees that result in meaningful improvements.”

Benchmark your workplace

Discover what employees value about working at your company, and how you can boost retention rates and increase productivity and performance with ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ °äąđ°ůłŮžą´ÚžąłŚ˛šłŮžą´Ç˛Ô™.

In this panel discussion with Fortune Brand Studio moderator Tracey Ferguson, DHL’s Fadzlun Sapandi and Dow’s Alveda Williams share how their global organizations are investing in diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging as a core part of their business strategy.

This video was created in partnership with FORTUNE Brand Studio.

Learn from the experts

Get strategies from the leaders in workplace culture at our For All™ Summit, May 7-9 in New Orleans.

Tina Jones, SVP, global human resources at Cadence and Gloria Chen, chief people officer and EVP, employee experience at Adobe, share insights from their work creating cultures that made the Fortune Best Workplaces for Women™ List in 2023.

Fortune Brand Studio’s Tracey Ferguson moderates a discussion around what tactics are working in the workplace to elevate and empower women and drive business success.

This video was created in partnership with FORTUNE Brand Studio.

Learn from the experts

Get strategies from the leaders in workplace culture at our For All™ Summit, May 7-9 in New Orleans.

How do employees feel about the path to promotion at your company? Measurement mistakes can obscure the picture.

Even leaders that are heavily invested in fairness and equity can make unconscious mistakes that disadvantage groups of employees. When executives focus only on targeted programs designed to increase equity and inclusion, they can miss other factors that have a profound impact.

“Leaders think: ‘We’ve got this program, this career page, and we’re doing everything fairly’ — but everything outside of those activities is having a negative impact on employees’ experiences,” says Marcus Erb, vice president, data and innovation at ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇÂŽ.

Erb shared insights from The Great Transformation, a multi-year research program into practical strategies to improve diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging in the workplace.  

Attend our annual company culture conference May 7-9, 2024

The research has revealed the importance of Four Equities, a powerful framework that helps companies diagnose and response to hidden bias in their workforce.

Erb shared four of the common mistakes that ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ has found when analyzing a lack of fairness in promotions:

1. You don’t account for individual relationships.

The hiring process or promotion evaluation system might be identical for all employees, but still misses important relationships that can skew the results.

“The way you get assigned to a project, which is what determines your pay and career path, and your network, can be very different across roles and individual identities,” says Erb. “It’s one of those things that can be an invisible.”

To combat bias, organizations must be very intentional in how they foster relationships between management levels.

“Are you bringing people in and connecting them with advocates and mentors and sponsors in an equitable way?” Erb asks.

2. You have unnecessary, or irrelevant job requirements.

Does every role in your company require a college degree? How should a 4-year bachelor’s degree weigh against four years of service within the company or company-offered training?

When college degrees are required for making the jump from the frontline into management roles, that barrier can hamper diversity and undermine workers’ investment in a future with the company.

“A default requirement for a college degree might prevent people who’ve been in a part-time hourly role from moving up — even though they’ve earned the same experience and insights while working at the company,” Erb says.

3. You don’t measure horizontal movement.

You might be carefully tracking how many individual contributors make the jump into frontline manager roles each year. You might know how many of your C-suite once held a position in the mailroom. It’s much less common to track how horizontal moves enable some employees to climb the ladder while others can’t advance.

What are the fast-track lanes for advancement in your company? If joining a specific team or participating in a special project opens important career doors, those opportunities should be carefully measured.  

Great workplaces should also measure how many employees are taking new roles in different departments, even when those moves are not a promotion. Those moves might clear the way for future advancement, and often play a significant role in overall equity across the organization.

Again, it often comes down to manager discretion, says Erb. “If there’s no system for decisions on lateral moves and opportunities, managers will rely on instinct and personal preference, and bias will remain invisible.”

4. You don’t ask employees about their experiences.

An external auditor can help evaluate hiring practices and the path to promotion — but you have to ask employees directly about their experiences or you will miss an important piece of the puzzle.

“You can do really complicated math to prove you’re being equitable, but the voice of the employee doesn’t sugarcoat anything,” says Erb. If employees are having an experience that contradicts the math, it’s time to reconsider your strategy.

“It’s not always bad news, either,” Erb says. “Sometimes employees say, ‘This is working for us; we’ve made improvement here.’”

When you find something that works, you can formalize the practice and scale it to the rest of the organization.

Get more insights

Learn more strategies from our workplace culture experts at our For All™ Summit, April 8-10, 2025 in Las Vegas, NV.

Diverse, inclusive organizations aren’t just better for employees — they have stronger business performance and higher stock market returns.

Leaders looking for a competitive edge must ask: “Is my organization equitable?”

ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇÂŽ research has found that diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging (DEIB) is best measured using the framework of the “Four Equities.”

“A lot of organizations want to build a truly equitable and empathetic workplace, but don't know how to start,” explains Marcus Erb, vice president, data science and innovation at ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ. “This is really complex work, but if we focus on these four things, suddenly it clicks.”

The four equities were developed as part of The Great Transformation, a three-year research initiative with 11 companies to crack the code of DEIB.

What are the Four Equities?

Each equity represents a vector of the employee experience that affects efforts to improve equity and inclusion throughout organizations.

1. Equity of representation

According to ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ research, there isn’t a prescriptive number that a company must reach to have the adequate representation of minority voices across the organization.

Instead, companies should ask themselves: “Does your workforce reflect the communities and clients you work in and serve?”

That representation should be reflected across all demographics, roles, and leadership levels.

“What does your leadership look like? Your boards, your CEO, your executives — do they reflect those communities as well?” Erb says.

2. Equity of compensation

Pay equity doesn’t mean equality, but organizations must do a careful audit to understand where they might be overlooking qualifications and skills in some of their workers. For example, does your organization pay a recent college graduate more than someone who has five years of experience working for your company?

Overemphasizing college degrees and traditional career paths can lead to disparity in your workforce.

Companies should also consider external factors that impact employees’ financial well-being. “How can we consider the full economic background of people — not just the work?” Erb says. “Are we rewarding employees in a way that allows each person to experience financial security and be able to pursue their life goal?”

For example, companies might want to offer additional support to neurodiverse employees who might be living on their own for the first time and need additional support navigating financial decisions. Other companies might consider additional ways to support people managing student loans or the costs of caring for a family member.

3. Equity of opportunity

Does every employee in your company have the opportunity to grow and develop? Who is the most likely to be promoted?

Who gets the plum assignments that lead to one-on-one time with top leaders, development of new skills, and opportunities to change job roles?

It’s important to collect hard data, not just about who gets promoted, but also who gets access to training and development, Erb says. Analyze any gaps across different identities, including gender, ethnicity, age, caregiving responsibilities, and more.

Hard data should then be matched to how employees say they feel. Do they feel promotions are handled fairly? Is everyone confident that the company and their manager are invested in their professional growth and development?

“Once you get that picture, you’ll identify the areas where you can improve,” Erb says.

4. Equity of well-being

Well-being has become an essential consideration for DEI&B, particularly as belonging plays a crucial role in employee well-being. Do all employees in your company consistently experience inclusion, belonging, social support, and a sense of purpose?

“You need to feel that you belong there, that you’re accepted for yourself,” Erb says. “If not, you’re going to experience assimilation, burnout, all these other terrible things.”

One particular area where employees often have inconsistent experiences compared to their colleagues is around purpose and meaning at work.

“We saw in our research that folks don’t experience an equal sense that their work matters,” Erb says. Equity of well-being requires employers to consider the whole employee, the lives that shaped their journey to the organization and the burdens they may face outside the company’s walls.

“The goal is for employees to show up and bring the best version of themselves to their work,” Erb says.

Starting with opportunity

All the equities are interrelated, but a focus on equity of opportunity has been found to quickly impact the other three equities.

“They’re all important,” Erb says, “but I would say the most critical is equity of opportunity.”

Employees who have equal opportunity to grow and develop are more likely to have higher levels of well-being and are more likely to be promoted into roles with higher salaries.

“If you focus on equity of opportunity, you’re going to promote leaders who can help you create a more diverse workplace, and address equity of compensation,” Erb says.

What are some ways organizations can improve the equity of opportunity for all workers? A simple, but often overlooked example is requiring all people leaders to have a one-on-one meeting with their direct reports.

“If you’re not having one-on-one conversations with your folks about what’s important to them, their performance, what they want to grow into, they can’t grow,” Erb says “And fundamentally, they’ll never experience a fair sense of growth.”

When managers don’t build relationships, employees are left to rely on luck, politics, manipulation, and other unsavory behaviors to get ahead. One-on-one meetings can also alleviate other issues within the organization, such as a broken promotion pipeline.

When managers have development conversations and build relationships with their direct reports, promotions become more merit- and performance-driven.

“You can connect with the human that you’re working with because you start to care,” Erb says. “And as soon as you have that care, as soon as you have that empathy, the growth just happens.”

The power of data

The four equities provide the framework, but employee data is what informs leaders about the performance of their organization.

“You can be doing great things and employees are telling you, ‘No, it’s not actually working,’” Erb says. “There’s a truth in people’s experiences that you don’t get externally.”

It’s not always bad news, either. Sometimes employees will tell you about something that is making a positive impact that you can formalize and scale to the rest of the organization.

It all starts with an assessment, Erb says.

“Get some data. Look at your company and figure out where you really are — and then think about where you want to be and articulate those goals.”

The right kind of goals for your organization will be both realistic and a bit of a stretch.

The good news is that progress on the four equities are tied to stronger employee recruitment and retention, and improved overall business performance. When employees experience the four equities, they are more likely to advocate for their company, to become brand ambassadors, and stay with their employer long-term, Erb says.

“They demonstrate more agility and effort — all the metrics we look at just start to jump off the page.”

Benchmark your workplace

Get the data you need to measure the four equities at your workplace via ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ °äąđ°ůłŮžą´ÚžąłŚ˛šłŮžą´Ç˛Ô™.

The typical workplace is getting better for women, but there is still a big gap between a typical U.S. workplace and companies that offer best-in-class experiences.

More women at typical workplaces report fair pay, fair promotions, psychological healthy workplaces, and meaningful work in 2023, according to a ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇÂŽ market survey of 4,400 employees in the U.S.

The gains could be due to increased workplace flexibility in the post-pandemic era, with the gender gap shrinking to a . However, the incremental gains for women at typical workplaces are dwarfed by the gains women find when working in high-trust workplaces.

ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ analyzed over 600,000 survey responses from employees at ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ Certified™ companies to determine the .

For the large companies on the list, Hilton takes the No. 1 spot this year:

1. Hilton
2. Marriott International
3. Cisco
4. Aya Healthcare
5. East West Bank

For small- and medium-sized companies on the list, Roth Staffing Companies moved up from third to the top spot this year:

1. Roth Staffing Companies, L.P.
2. Highlight Technologies, Inc.
3. Paramount Software Solutions
4. Cribl
5. Basis Technologies

For companies that made the list, a much higher percentage of women reported being paid fairly, having fair promotions, and experiencing a psychologically and emotionally healthy workplace. The gap shows that while increased flexibility has made the workplace better for many women post-pandemic, there is a big difference between the marginal improvements for women in typical workplaces and the experience of women in a healthy, high-trust culture.

“Best companies offer women increased flexibility, equitable pay, and career support and these women are much more likely to thrive and stay at the company a long time when compared to other workplaces,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO of ŇÝß[ŠĘ˜ˇłÇ. “These companies ensure these great people practices are extended to all and this rising tide lifts all boats. They trust that these companies will implement technology that will continuously monitor what they need and assure that equity adjustments are not a one-time event.”

How to support women at work

What experiences build better workplaces for women? Here are some of ways the best companies are helping women thrive:

1. Offer fair pay and promotions

The best companies conduct transparent pay audits while also helping managers have constructive conversations with employees about compensation. Pay equity doesn’t mean that you pay everyone the same, and the Best Workplaces™ ensure everyone is equipped to discuss total rewards, from salary and bonus plans to benefits and stock options.

It’s also important that employees receive recognition for their efforts. When managers show appreciation for the hard work of their employees, women are 70% more likely to say their pay is fair.

Recognition isn’t a substitute for fair pay, but rather a crucial element of a high-trust culture. When companies set clear expectations and then reward and celebrate employees for meeting them, employees are more likely to feel their manager understands and values their contributions to the organization.  

2. Support mental and emotional health

At the Best Workplaces, 87% of women report having a psychologically and emotionally healthy workplace, compared to just 55% of women at a typical U.S. company. When encouraged to balance work with life responsibilities, both men and women at winning companies are more than two times as likely to report psychological health.

Yet, flexible work policies can be undermined by bad management. A UKG study found that managers have a than doctors or therapists.

For both men and women, employees were more likely to report positive mental health when they said their manager was approachable. The best companies heavily invest in managers, ensuring people leaders receive training and resources to support employees’ mental health.

3. Ensure meaningful work

At winning workplaces, more women believe they can “make a difference” in their workplace (90%) compared with women at typical companies (70%). Meaningful work is an important driver of retention for all employees and has a positive impact on innovation.

The Best Workplaces ensure that employees feel included in the decision-making process as strategic partners, helping every employee feel connected to a higher purpose for the organization. Both men and women are 30% more likely to say their work is meaningful when their manager involves them in decisions that impact their work.

The results for both genders underscore one of the more interesting findings from this year’s list: The Best Workplaces for Women offer superior experiences for men at the same organization. The results prove that helping women thrive at work helps every employee have a better experience, too.

How to make the list

Think your company deserves special recognition? Get started here to become eligible for next year’s Best Workplaces honors.

I often get asked what it takes to create a great workplace. The short answer: trust.

High-trust cultures help employees thrive, which fuels company performance in all areas — from referrals and retention to productivity and revenue. 

It’s impossible to create a great workplace for all employees without trust. That’s what our 30 years of research about company culture has told us. And that’s why our survey that measures employee experience is called the Trust Index™.

Trust is woven into our daily interactions at work, just as it is outside of work among family and friends. It’s built on many moments — moments that our research has broken down into nine behaviors that can build or break trust. It’s a list I keep on my desk and check-in on how I’m doing as a leader.

Every leader should work on and improve these behaviors; if you’re not a people leader, you might be thinking, “What does this have to do with me?”

Leaders affect , but the other 30% comes from our teammates, how we work with others, and the actual work that we’re doing. It takes everyone in an organization to create a great workplace for all.  

Here’s where to begin: 

1. Listening

This is the most important behavior of all and what I focus on the most. If you’re not a great listener, you can’t model the other behaviors well.  

Listening is not just making sure you’ve accurately heard the words coming out of someone’s mouth. It’s also not just waiting for someone to stop talking so you can speak. It is choosing to empty your mind and set aside your opinions while someone else is talking.

True listening requires humility, vulnerability, and empathy.  

You may have a lot of opinions, but to be a for-all, inclusive leader, you must put those opinions aside. If you’re having a conversation and you’re not willing to consider other points of view, what’s the point of having the conversation at all? Letting go of your assumptions can be described as a meditative mindset, and that’s what makes a great listener.

How do you know you’re doing it right? You’ll find yourself asking questions because you’re learning something from the person you’re talking to. People will tell you that you’re a great listener because it’s rare to have a conversation with someone who’s deeply listening.  

Listening might sound reactive, but it should be proactive. Make yourself available and seek out chances to listen.

Think about who you haven’t heard from lately — and then go ask them questions with a learning mindset. Schedule informal meetings like brown-bag lunches and Q&A sessions. Use surveys and focus groups to regularly elicit employee opinions — and follow up with feedback and action.  

"Listening is not just making sure you’ve accurately heard the words coming out of someone’s mouth. It’s also not just waiting for someone to stop talking so you can speak. It is choosing to empty your mind and set aside your opinions while someone else is talking."

2. Speaking

This is what we do all day. But there are many layers to what might seem like a straight-forward behavior. 

Speaking is about clarity, frequency, transparency, and sharing information fully in a variety of ways. That includes regularly sharing company news with employees through all your channels — video, intranet, email, print, etc. Be sure to share that news (both the facts and feelings around it) internally before you do externally.

It’s not just about what you share, but who you share it with. Be mindful of those who haven’t heard a message and need to know what information is being shared.  

Speaking is more than what you say and who you say it to, it is how you share information. Communicate thoughtfully and with care, and in easy-to-understand styles. Set up regular meetings to discuss what’s happening and personally share news to encourage a culture of transparency as much as possible.

Lastly, speaking is an opportunity to communicate how a person’s job — and how doing their job well — is essential for your organization to achieve its purpose. 

Consider your receptionist, for example — a role that is often overlooked. Whenever you speak with them, reiterate, emphasize, and clarify how important their job is. When someone walks in a building or contacts a receptionist on the phone, that’s a connection to the brand. In a few seconds, a caller or visitor either feels cared for, important, and listened to, or they don't.

Speaking is the ability to talk to every warehouse worker, every receptionist, every salesperson, every executive, every teammate in a way that they feel that doing their job is important for the organization to achieve its purpose. And if you’re not sure what someone does, this is your opportunity to build trust by getting to know them.

"Speaking is more than what you say and who you say it to, it is how you share information."

3. Thanking

If you’re listening to people in the way that I described earlier, you’ll learn things about them. That helps you thank your colleagues in ways that are personally meaningful. Acts of gratitude let people know you’re listening in a way that shows they’re important and essential.

Create a culture of appreciation by recognizing good work and extra effort frequently.

Opportunities to do this are endless: Encourage peer recognition, present employee awards, write personal notes, appreciate mistakes as learning opportunities, and recognize employees who demonstrate company values in person and in front of others.

Creating a culture of thanking will positively affect people’s sense of value and willingness to do their best work because they feel seen.

4. Developing

Listening and speaking helps you learn how someone can further develop personally and professionally.

It’s your job to help employees grow as people, not just performers. Nurture their talents and interests through courses (job- and non-job-related), tuition reimbursement, and personalized development plans and training, for example. Connect employees with mentors and inform them of internal job postings.

Try and give feedback in a way that’s measurable, so they know they’re improving, and with a sense of care, so they’re open to what you have to say. 

When people know you care — even if they don’t always like hearing where they need to improve — they’ll take it as a gift. Everybody wants to get better. Yes, they know it leads to more money, more compensation, and more responsibility in the company. But, at a base level, they want to know they’re making a difference.  

"It’s your job to help employees grow as people, not just performers."

5. Caring

This is the secret weapon. Great work happens when people care. And people care about their work when they experience being cared for. That shows up when you take time to understand and listen to people’s experiences, inside and outside of work.  

Support their personal lives by discussing options for flextime and personal leave policies. Help them cope with family and personal crises as they arise, and organize support through sick leave or monetary donations. Encourage work-life balance and remind them to take time off to recharge.  

Do you know what makes an employee check an algorithm two or three times, or proofread an email six or seven times? It’s because they care about the purpose of the organization, they care for others, and they feel cared for.

Caring is what unlocks people, and it is key to maximizing a human’s potential.  

"Great work happens when people care. And people care about their work when they experience being cared for."

6. Sharing

Distributing profits, compensation, bonuses, and incentive plans fairly creates an equitable workplace. If you’re building trust for all, every employee needs to share in the company’s success and understanding how their performance relates to compensation.

Equitable and inclusive sharing also shows up in philanthropic activities. If you’re organizing community activities like a cleanup at a local school, or picking up plastic off a beach or park, make sure that everybody has the opportunity to participate.

If you’re doing those things between eight to five, what about the night shift worker? Make sure you’re truly inclusive in terms of sharing opportunities for people, as well as the resources of the organization.  

Equity does not equal sameness. A picnic for the day shift doesn’t also have to be a picnic for the night shift. What is the purpose of the picnic? To bring people together, to show them their value, and create opportunities for them to interact in informal ways with their leaders.

So how can you create this same experience for this night shift without recreating the same event?

7. Celebrating

The most important things to celebrate are the values of the organization and how people help the organization achieve its purpose.  

It’s important to be specific:

“We want to thank John for the work he did in helping a customer through a sticky problem. We wanted John to do that in seven minutes, but John took 20 minutes because the customer needed it at that time. At our company, we’re willing to do whatever is required to make the customer’s problem our problem, and we’re willing to do what’s required to solve it. I also know that John was late for getting to a soccer practice for his kid. I hope John doesn't have to do that again, but I want to appreciate the fact that he did that for us.”

If you find yourself celebrating, recognizing, and rewarding the same person, communicate to everyone what it takes to be celebrated and recognized so they don’t feel there’s bias or favoritism. They’ll know if they work hard in some measurable way, they too will get celebrated, recognized, and rewarded one day.

"The most important things to celebrate are the values of the organization and how people help the organization achieve its purpose."  

8. Inspiring

You don’t have to be a great public speaker to inspire people. You can inspire people with the questions you ask and the way you listen.

You can inspire them by reaffirming the difference your organization makes in the world and why the work is important. Help your workforce understand how their work relates to the company’s higher purpose and business success.

You can do this by telling customer or client stories, sharing the vision of where the company is headed, pointing out behaviors that exemplify company values, reinforcing company values, stressing your company’s contribution to your industry or society, and showing links between employee efforts and achieving your goals.

"You don’t have to be a great public speaker to inspire people. You can inspire people with the questions you ask and the way you listen."

9. Hiring and welcoming

When someone joins your organization, you should make sure that they know you were expecting them — and that you couldn’t wait for them to get here.

You need to make sure that they have a workplace, can access the systems they need to connect with their work and their colleagues, and have the equipment to be successful. Their laptop is ready, their uniform is ready, their steel-toed boots are ready, their safety goggles are ready.

This goes beyond hiring; it’s what we call welcoming. You can email or send new hires a note in the mail before they start, announce them to other employees in advance, take them to lunch their first week, and help them get integrated into your culture.

When a person joins an organization that has shown that they’ve been thinking about them for a few weeks before they started, they will go home and say, “It was a great experience today. They expected me, my name badge was ready. Everybody was kind, and they seemed to know who I was and what I was going to do.” These actions build trust on their first day.

If someone gets to work and those things aren’t true, trust dips a bit. Self-confidence drops. They wonder if you really want them there, or if they’re an afterthought.

And the worst case — they feel like they’re just an employee and not a person who’s important, because if they were important, they would’ve had a much different experience when they arrived. 

Whether or not you manage people at work, I encourage you to put this wheel of nine high-trust behaviors in a place where you will see it every day.

Trust takes work and conscious effort. And it’s required to create a great place to work for all.

Become great

Ready to learn more about your employee experience? Benchmark your organization using °äąđ°ůłŮžą´ÚžąłŚ˛šłŮžą´Ç˛Ô™ and see how you stack against the very best.