What makes a company a great place to work: Lessons from 3 top employers

Great places to work understand that their success hinges on one core asset: their employees.

People are the true building blocks of any successful company, and cultivating an innovative, high-performing environment requires a dedicated capacity for attracting and retaining a high-quality pool of workers.

So, what makes certain companies the absolute best to work for, and what common ideas and activities do they share in building their magnetic employer brand? 

For HR leaders, this is the crucial question that distinguishes a high-performing, engaged workforce from a disengaged one.

This article explores the defining traits of these organizations, lists top-ranked workplaces, and provides actionable insights on how your organization can adopt similar ideas to enable your employees to thrive.

What makes a company a great place to work? Google, Intel, and Amazon offer a clue. The best workplaces start with employees: deploying employee surveys, listening to employee feedback, and using that input to shape culture and performance.

To understand which employers people are most excited to work for, we partnered with Fortune and surveyed 13,882 adults from our pool of more than 3 million daily respondents on SurveyMonkey’s platform. Their answers point to a clear theme: the best companies to work for earn that reputation by treating employee feedback as a strategic advantage.

So which companies rise to the top? What do great workplaces have in common? And how can your organization use the same practices to build a positive culture where people do their best work? Let’s take a look.

When we asked 13,882 adults which employers they were most excited to work for, the same names surfaced again and again—across gender, generation, and political identity. Microsoft, Walt Disney Company, Apple, Boeing, Intel, HP, Cisco Systems, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, and Amazon appeared frequently among men, women, Millennials, Trump voters, and Clinton voters.

But three companies stood out with unusual consistency: Google (Alphabet), Intel, and Amazon (bolded below). These employers appeared on nearly every list, regardless of whom we asked or how they identify. That level of cross-segment agreement is rare, and it tells us something important about what makes a company a great place to work.

Great workplaces share one pattern: they use employee feedback to shape culture, strengthen leadership, and improve the employee experience. 

In our study of 13,882 adults, Google, Intel, and Amazon emerged as standout examples because they appeared consistently across demographic groups and because each invests heavily in listening to employees. These companies run structured surveys at key moments in the employee journey to understand what people need, track how sentiment shifts over time, and act on those insights in ways employees can see.

Across their different approaches, the throughline is the same: employee feedback is treated as a strategic input, not an afterthought. That shared mindset is what makes these organizations some of the best companies to work for. 

Next, we’ll look at how each of them uses surveys to build a positive culture and support their workforce.

Google’s workplace culture is built on what it often describes as “employee-powered data.” The company invests heavily in understanding the employee experience, drawing on industrial-organizational psychologists, behavioral economists, and statisticians to analyze how people work and where improvements are needed.

Surveys are the backbone of that effort. They run at key moments in the employee journey, each designed to reveal specific insights into culture, leadership, or the candidate experience.

Google focuses on three core areas: manager effectiveness, broader culture trends through its annual Googlegeist survey, and candidate experience through its Vox Pop interviews. Together, these signals help Google spot opportunities to strengthen leadership, improve processes, and maintain a culture that supports high performance.

Google’s survey strategy gives employees and candidates a meaningful voice in shaping the workplace. Managers get clear, actionable feedback; culture teams track trends with rigor; and hiring teams continually refine the candidate journey. 

By acting on what people share, whether it is improving manager support or fixing a cumbersome interview process, Google builds trust and reinforces the hallmark of great workplaces: a culture shaped by listening and follow-through.

Intel treats organizational health as a measurable, trackable part of running the business. Its survey program provides leaders with a clear view of how employees experience work and where the company can improve.

Intel uses surveys to understand key drivers of organizational health, including employee satisfaction, confidence in the company’s direction, emotional commitment to work, trust within teams, and preferences for benefits and perks. These signals help leaders see how employees are feeling and where support or change may be needed.

Intel’s consistent survey cadence gives the company a clear view of organizational health and the ability to act on trends quickly. Employees see their input reflected in policy updates, perk adjustments, and clear commitments from leadership, which builds trust and contributes to a more positive workplace experience. 

Intel’s practice of listening regularly, comparing results over time, and taking visible action is a hallmark of great workplaces and helps explain why the company consistently stands out as a place people want to work.

Amazon takes a real-time approach to understanding the employee experience. In response to concerns about its workplace culture, the company introduced a daily check-in system to gauge employees' feelings about their work and identify issues before they escalate. This model gives leadership a steady stream of insights they can act on quickly.

Amazon tracks daily workplace sentiment across roles, including signals related to safety, workload, trust, and process friction. These short, focused questions surface where employees feel supported and where immediate intervention may be needed.

Daily feedback enables Amazon to detect problems early and course-correct quickly. Employees see that their concerns are acknowledged and addressed, which supports psychological safety and contributes to a more responsive, stable workplace. This rhythm of listening, reviewing, and acting is a defining trait of great workplaces and strengthens Amazon’s standing as a company many people want to work for.

Google, Intel, and Amazon show that the best companies to work for are not defined by perks or slogans. They are defined by how well they listen to employees and how consistently they follow through. Each company uses feedback differently, but the intent is the same: understand what people need and use that insight to guide decisions.

Semiannual manager surveys, organizational health tracking, and daily check-ins are all examples of this mindset in action. These feedback rhythms help leaders pinpoint what is working, identify where support is needed, and refine the employee experience over time. Small improvements made consistently can have a meaningful impact on culture and retention.

You can apply these ideas by setting a predictable survey cadence, sharing what you learn, and taking visible action after each cycle. These habits build clarity and trust, which are core elements of what makes a company a great place to work.

If you need help designing effective surveys at any stage of the employee journey, explore our employee feedback questionnaire templates. They include research-based questions created by in-house survey methodologists to help you understand and improve the employee experience.