Q After
I register my company to participate, what happens next
and when?
A Please refer to the Timeline for a detailed list of important dates and deadlines for
the program. All registered companies will be notified
regularly via email of upcoming deadlines.
Q Our
parent company is located outside of Central Florida.
Are we still eligible to participate?
A As long as you employ at least 15 full- and/or
part-time permanent employees in Central Florida,
you are eligible. Only employees working in Central Florida
are eligible to participate.
Q We
have several companies operating in Central Florida
under one parent holding company. Each company has its
own EIN and each has its own set of benefits and working
environments. Do I need to register each company?
A Yes. Since each company is its own entity
with its own benefits and working environment, we will
treat each company as a separate employer and send each
location a separate set of surveys, etc. Each subsidiary
company must have at least 15 full- and/or part-time permanent
employees to be eligible.
Q We
have several offices/facilities in Central Florida that
operate using the same EIN and same set of employee
benefits and procedures. Should I register each company
separately?
A No. If you are one company with multiple locations,
facilities, factories, stores, etc., you should submit
only one registration for all locations. We will then
conduct a survey of employees that are randomly selected
from the various business units that you operate in Central
Florida, up to a total of 400 employees.
Special exception for hotels: We understand that hotels
have unique ownership and management scenarios. Therefore,
hotels may enter as individual locations. However, the
number of US employees that you will report will be the
number of employees who work for the same company your
employees do. In most scenarios, the company used to determine
the US employee count will be the company whose name appears
on the employees' paychecks and from whom the employees
derive their employee benefits. If you have further questions
about this, please contact Best Companies Group.
Q Our
company has employees throughout Florida. Will I need
to survey all employees throughout the state?
A No, only those individuals employed in Central
Florida will be surveyed. If you employ more than 250
employees throughout the region, a random sample of all
employees will be asked to complete a survey.
Q My
company has employees working in Central Florida but
we do not have a physical office location. Are
we eligible to participate?
A Yes, as long as you have employees working
in Central Florida and are able to provide an in-county
mailing address for your business, you are eligible to
participate. Only employees working in or directly reporting
into Central Florida are eligible to participate in the
survey.
Q Our
company has employees that work for our operations within
Central Florida but technically do not reside nor perform
the majority of their duties within Central Florida.
Are they eligible to participate in the survey process?
A For remote employees to be eligible to
participate, the individuals must report directly into
an office in Central Florida. If the remote employees
report to a remote regional manager, the employees would
not be eligible to take part in the survey process.
However, the regional managers are eligible to participate
if they report directly to an office within Central
Florida.
If you are uncertain about any employee’s
eligibility to participate in the survey we encourage
you to contact Best Companies Group for a final determination,
as surveying ineligible employees may lead to disqualification
from the competition.
Q We
are a personnel placement company with associates who
are technically our employees, but they work for other
companies. Are we still eligible to participate?
A Yes. However only those "in-house" employees
will be counted and surveyed. The employees who are "placed"
with other companies are not counted and will not be surveyed.
There must be a minimum of 15 "in-house" employees to
be eligible.
Q Our
company employs seasonal, temporary, per diem and independent
contractor employees. Should they be included in the survey?
A No. Seasonal, temporary, per diem, independent
contractors, interns, volunteers or consultants should
not be included in the survey process. We only want to
survey the permanent full- and part-time employees.
A No. Participation in the Orlando Sentinel
Top 100 Companies program is free for the online survey
process. If your company should need paper surveys for
your employee base, there is a nominal paper survey fee
to cover printing, shipping and processing. Please see
the Assessment
Process for the paper fees.
Q Should
the paper survey fee, report fee or survey translation
fee be submitted with our registration?
A If your company chooses to purchase the Employee
Feedback Report, needs survey translation or paper surveys,
you may either pay online with a credit card at the time
of registration, or you may choose to receive an invoice
following your registration.
A If you have 250 or fewer employees in your
company, then the answer is yes. If you employ more than
250 associates throughout Central Florida, a random sample
of up to 400 employees will be asked to complete the survey.
Please see the Assessment
Process for more information.
Q We
have more than 250 associates to be surveyed. Who decides
which employees will receive the surveys and how they
are distributed? Do we have to give you a list of who
is being surveyed?
A The random selection will be conducted
by Best Companies Group for the online survey process.
Companies choosing the online survey process will be
asked to upload a list of all employee email addresses
into an online portal. Best Companies Group will
then randomly select the appropriate amount of employees
(based on company size) to receive the survey. Companies
will be asked to upload the employee email addresses
via an online upload portal sent shortly after registration
has closed. Companies choosing the paper survey process
will be required to tell Best Companies Group how they
conducted the random selection of their employee population.
Please see the Timeline for dates surrounding the portal.
A Yes. All employees will be asked to complete
a survey unless the company has more than 250 employees.
At companies employing over 250 associates, a random sample
will be chosen, and even then, managers are not excluded.
Q How
long will it take to complete the employer questionnaire?
Will it require a lot of research?
A The employer questionnaire may take between
8-10 hours to complete, depending upon how easy it is
to retrieve your company's information regarding policies,
practices and demographics. Some research may be necessary.
The Employer Questionnaire is completed and submitted
online. You are able to save and go back while the questionniare
is open.
A Best Companies Group will send your company
a box of paper surveys and postage-paid return envelopes
that must be distributed to employees. Employees complete
the survey, place it in the envelope, seal it and then
drop the completed surveys in the US mail. Completed surveys
are mailed back to our processing facility by each employee.
Q What
does the employee do with the paper survey once it's
completed? Will the return envelopes be postage paid?
A The employee will put their completed survey
in an envelope (provided), seal it and place the envelope
in the US mail back to our processing facility. The return
envelopes are postage-paid.
Q What
if not all of the employees complete and return the
surveys? Is there a minimum response rate?
A We like to see response rates as high
as possible but a minimum of 40% is what we need to
receive from organizations having 25 or more employees.
Therefore, it is not absolutely necessary that all who
receive a survey fill it out. Companies that have not
reached 40% likely will not be considered for the Top
100 Companies list. Response rates are taken into account
during the analysis process. The higher the response
rate the more representative it will be of your company
as a whole and the more valuable your company’s
data will be at the end of the process.
Companies with 15-24 employees must have an
80% (or better) response rate from their employees filling
out the survey.
A To conduct the online survey process, companies
submit a list of employee email addresses. Best Companies
Group will perform the random selection of survey recipients
for companies having over 250 employees. Employees are
then directly sent an individual survey invitation via email containing
unique access information from Best Companies Group. The
invitation directs employees to a unique Web page where
they can submit their confidential responses. We can only
send email invitations to company email accounts.
Q Not
all of our employees have company email addresses. Can
we still utilize the online survey?
A Yes! You can still use the online survey
provided that at least 70% of your employees have company
email. If you have some employees without email addresses,
they will still be included in the survey. We can provide
access codes for those employees, if they represent
30% or less of your employee population. Click to learn
more about Access Codes.
In order to maintain the
integrity of the survey process, if fewer than 70% of
your employees have company email addresses, you will
have to utilize the paper survey process.
Q I
am concerned about the confidentiality of the survey
responses.
A We will
make every effort to maintain the anonymity of the employees
completing the survey as well as protect the summarized
data of all participating companies. Please note, that
in order to maintain respondent anonymity, we do not report
any response data for less than five (5) individuals in
any one demographic category on the Employee Demographic
Report. Please see our Statement
of Confidentiality for more information.
Q Can
the job role and department demographics on the employee
survey be customized to more closely align with our
organization?
A Yes, for a fee, the job role and department
demographic categories can be customized. Please call
Best Companies Group for more information or select the
"Customization" option on the registration form and you
will be contacted with more information. What's this?
Q What
information is included in the Employee Feedback Report
and when will we receive it? What is the benefit of
purchasing this report?
A The Employee Feedback Report comes via email
and contains large spreadsheets detailing and summarizing
your employees' responses (percentages) to the 78
survey questions as well as the employee comments. It
will also include detailed instructions on how to interpret
the results. The reports will be emailed to each company
shortly after the companies are notified whether or not
they have made the list. Regional benchmarking is also
included so companies can compare themselves to the OrlandoSentinel
Top 100 Companies list-making companies and non list-making
companies. The benchmarking portions will be sent
after the rankings are revealed. Purchasing
the Employee Feedback Report will allow you to gain valuable
insight into what your employees are thinking.
A The Employee Benchmark Report will represent
the average employee responses for each of the 78
statesments for both the list-making and non list-making
companies. This information will allow your company to
compare itself to the Orlando Sentinel Top 100 Companies
list-making and non list-making companies. The Employer
Benchmark Summary offers a sample of company averages
on standard employee benefits and best practices -- for
both the list-making and non list-making organizations.
The benchmarking reports will be sent after the rankings
are revealed.
Q How
do I order my company's Employee Feedback Report?
A An Employee Feedback Report can only be ordered
once you have registered to participate in the Orlando
Sentinel Top 100 Companies program. To register click
here. If you have already registered please call Best
Companies Group toll free at (877) 455-2159 or visit the
Order
Your Reports link.
Q When
will we find out if our company made the Orlando Sentinel
Top 100 Companies list and where we rank?
A You will receive a notification letter informing
your company whether or not you made the list. If you
make the list, the top 10 companies in each size category
(small, medium, & large) will be revealed in a special
publication. See Timeline for details.
Q A
portion of our employees do not speak English. Do you
offer employee surveys in alternate languages?
A We offer employee surveys in a variety of
languages. Additional languages are available at $205 per survey translation. If you need alternate language
surveys, please select the "Languages" button on the registration
form and you will receive additional information.
Q How
much is the fee to translate the employee survey into
another language?
A To translate the employee survey into another
language, the fee is $205 per language. The surveys can
be translated into both the online and paper versions
of the survey.
Q How
will my company be notified throughout the survey process?
Will I receive regular updates?
A Yes, you will receive periodic updates regarding
the survey timeline. Best Companies Group primarily works
through email. It is important that you read all instructions
and details sent to you from Best Companies Group.
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