Top 100 Places to Work winners give employees solid footing in shifting times

Today is our day to celebrate North Texas’ finest employers — The Dallas Morning News’ Top 100 Places to Work 2022.

They don’t have to toot their own horns. We’re doing it for them.

Rising to the top meant thriving despite another year of high expectations and dashed hopes. Every time we thought the pandemic was in our rearview mirror, it jolted up like Freddie Krueger in front of the windshield.

Yet our winners maintained their composure, wrestled with ever-changing times and gave their employees as much terra firma as they could put in place.

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The record 383 entries — up nearly 20% from pre-pandemic boom year of 2019 — employed a total of 153,793 workers.

So what propelled these 100 winners past the other 283 companies that entered our most hotly contested competition since we began it in 2009?

In many ways, it was all of the mainstay criteria. Employees told us they work for mission-driven organizations where they feel appreciated and aptly rewarded. They saw avenues for advancement, got the training they needed and felt like they belonged.

In a world starving for fun, our winners showed us the importance of dialing down the seriousness quotient at work.

But this year, there was another decisive advantage — flexibility.

“9 to 5″ is a catchy song, but the concept is outdated.

Terry Gottberg, president of Merit Energy, likes to say, “We’ve formalized our flexibility policy.” He isn’t really joking.

New York Life Insurance is embracing the possibilities of a permanent hybrid environment, managing partner Mike Scovel said. “The future of business is a mix of Zoom for efficiency and in-person meetings to maintain our culture and foster a sense of community.”

‘Labor of love’

You can read more in-depth coverage about our winners and what made them standouts in our Top 100 Places to Work 2022 magazine that’s included in this Sunday newspaper and online at dallasnews.com/top100.

“Our Top 100 competition is a perennial labor of love in the hopes of enriching the workplace landscape of North Texas,” said Grant Moise, publisher and president of The News and CEO of its parent organization, the DallasNews Corporation.

If you’re looking for greener employment pastures, you don’t want to miss the list of the most fertile fields in town.

If you want ideas to make your company better at keeping and attracting top-notch employees, this is a playbook.

You’ll learn leadership tips from the three CEOs who scored highest with their troops: Mark Edwards, Halff Associates Inc., among our large companies; Paul Driscoll, Hill & Wilkinson General Contractors, in the midsize category; and Matt Tresidder, Leadr, among the small companies.

Simply put, employees loved coming to work, whether it was face-to-face or screen-to-screen.

Who made the cut?

Our winners had at least 50 employees and an office in one of 10 North Texas counties — Dallas, Tarrant, Denton, Collin, Ellis, Johnson, Kaufman, Parker, Rockwall and Wise. They agreed to give our research partner, Energage Inc. of Exton, Pa., access to survey their workers without their interference or coaching.

Energage surveyed the North Texas market from early March to early June.

In addition to our Top 100 winners, we’re honoring 102 companies that barely missed the cut because our competition is so tough. These National Standard Winners probably would have made the Top 100 list in any of the other 60 media markets where Energage conducts its surveys for such media partners as The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune.

So who made the top grade in D-FW?

Our list of large winners — those with 500 employees or more — is an eclectic cohort that includes restaurants, hotels, software developers, auto dealerships, health care companies, insurance, consulting, engineering, construction, payment services and even a pest-control service.

One of them is Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, our only 14-time winner.

For the second straight year, all of our top three large companies are tied to the housing market: Monument Realty, Fannie Mae and Century 21 Judge Fite Co.

But the reasons for their successes went beyond an unprecedented year for homebuying. Employees told us that they want to be part of a higher mission than making money, and that their companies made them feel that way.

Our 36 midsize winners — organizations with 150 to 499 employees — are a mixture of perennials, newcomers and everything in between. Thirteen are mainstays that have made the Top 100 at least half of the 14 years that we’ve held our competition, and a half-dozen are first-timers. It’s not the first tango for the remaining 17.

They make metal products, construct buildings and homes, provide health care staffing, detect break-ins and security breaches, explore and operate energy fields, lease automobiles, lend money, sell life insurance and operate in a slew of other types of businesses.

Our top three winners are Embark, Republic Title of Texas and Century 21 Mike Bowman Inc.

Our small company category — organizations with 50 to 149 employees — has the most new blood this year, with half of them first-time winners.

At the top of the small list are Copper Mobile Inc., The Vested Group and Texas Collision Centers. All have crafted cultures that employees embrace. All are led by guys who see their roles as anything but top-down-driven.

The littles also include a downtown Dallas megachurch, eye surgeons, HVAC experts, an advertising agency and a virtual health care provider. CBD Kratom, the largest privately owned retailer of CBD and Kratom in the United States, is one of our most offbeat winners — ever.

If you missed out this year, it’s not too early to start planning for Top 100 2023.

We will begin taking nominations in March.