Search Economist Enterprise
How the world's top employers are winning on culture
The companies that made the Best Practice Institute’s 2026 ranking of the Top 100 Global Most Loved Workplaces® are not treating culture as a compliance exercise
By Louis Carter, founder and chief executive of the Best Practice Institute and creator of the Most Loved Workplaces certification and annual rankings
Organisations across the world are discovering that competitive pay, flexible work and modern benefits are no longer enough to retain talent. A 2026 report from HR nonprofit WorldatWork found that despite nearly 70% of employees reporting satisfaction with their pay and 77% with their overall benefits, 75% were still looking for external opportunities.1
The Best Practice Institute’s annual ranking, the Top 100 Global Most Loved Workplaces, sheds light on what top employers are doing to engage and retain talent. The 2026 list is based on independent surveys of more than 2.8m employees across more than 20 industries. The companies on this list have stopped treating culture as a programme and started treating it as an operating system.
These companies respond to employee feedback with visible, measurable action and embed their values directly into performance reviews and promotion decisions. They invest in skills that make their employees more valuable everywhere, not just within the business. And they share information with employees across the organisation directly instead of filtering it through layers of management. The companies profiled in this piece all operate in this way, and reap the rewards when it comes to workplace satisfaction.
Inside this year’s top-ranked company
Consider this year's top-ranked company: Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN). DFIN is a leading provider of financial regulatory and compliance software and has a voluntary turnover rate of less than 6%. This is not the result of any specific programme or initiative, but a specific set of operating decisions designed to engage and develop employees and respond to their feedback.
For example, DFIN rebuilt its internal communications function and launched "In the Loop”, a company-wide session covering finance, artificial intelligence (AI) and service topics. Attendance regularly exceeds 600 employees per session. The company also runs "Leadership Loop", a forum in which VP-level leaders engage directly with executives on strategic direction. Unlike scripted town halls, these forums are designed to move information in both directions.
After aligning its internal awards with the company’s "Win as One" philosophy (which sets a clear objective shared by employees, shareholders and clients), peer-to-peer nominations reached record numbers. This illustrated how creating a shared company vision can lead to new ways of recognising and rewarding achievement.
DFIN also sent 70 people through a finance leadership programme at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and set corporate-level goals tied to AI tool adoption, not to cut jobs, but to make employees' jobs easier.
Most organisations treat collaboration and performance as competing priorities. DFIN has built systems that pursue both as interwoven objectives.
Top 100 Global Most Loved Workplaces®
Turning feedback into action
DFIN is not alone in soliciting employee feedback and keeping its workforce informed about business decisions. The highest-scoring companies on the Top 100 Global Most Loved Workplaces list do this consistently.
O2E Brands, the parent company of home service brands including 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, shares revenue numbers with employees in a daily seven-minute huddle. The practice eliminates the information asymmetry that erodes trust in most organisations.
Specialty packing company Veritiv takes a direct approach. In order to understand what employees across North America actually wanted changed in the business, chief executive Sal Abbate convened more than 600 employees in small-group live-video roundtable sessions and listened to their concerns directly. The feedback produced concrete outcomes: a revised dress policy and a profit-sharing programme that extended bonus eligibility to thousands of employees who had previously been excluded. When asked why they stay, Veritiv employees consistently name the people and the community, not the benefits.
The companies with the strongest scores have stopped treating values as buzzwords for internal communications and started treating them as performance criteria.
At IDEAL Industries, a manufacturer with a 100-year operating history, every annual performance evaluation includes explicit cultural goals. Culture improvement is a measurable responsibility for every employee at the company. Its Unsung Hero award programme recognises employees quarterly for specifically demonstrating the company’s values, culminating in an annual awards ceremony hosted by the chief executive and chairwoman of the board. When making hiring and promotion decisions, IDEAL Industries considers whether leaders have demonstrated the company’s cultural goals and values.
#2 Global Most Loved Workplace® 2026: Kyndryl
90%
of employees say they are treated with respect at work
87%
say they can be themselves at work
Investing in talent and trust
Another common characteristic of high-ranking workplaces is their investment in employee capabilities that are valuable outside the company. This approach seems counterintuitive for leaders who worry that developing portable skills creates talent that competitors can recruit. However, the data from the 2026 Top 100 Global Most Loved Workplaces list suggests otherwise: when you invest in someone's future, they invest back.
IDEAL Industries sent close to 200 leaders through a two-year enterprise-wide leadership training programme focused on emotional intelligence and team management, and extended LinkedIn Learning access to all employees. Kyndryl, one of the world's largest IT infrastructure services providers, developed a company culture, called the Kyndryl Way, that defines expectations of how employees should work together and deliver value. This focus on culture and continuous development supports strong employee engagement and contributes to positive workplace experiences. It has resulted in 90% of Kyndryl employees reporting that they were treated with respect at work and 87% saying that they can be themselves at work.
Synopsys, a chip design software maker, invites the whole company—not just engineering teams—to participate in innovation. It hosts Pitch Fest, an annual competition where employees from any function develop new ideas and compete for funding to bring them to market. This approach is shared by the highest scorers on the list: they don’t treat capability-building as the responsibility of a single part of the organisation.
The new rules of retention
The lesson from this year's list is clear: the companies that retain and attract the strongest talent are operating differently.
They close feedback loops so employees see the impact of their voices. They embed their values into performance systems, with real consequences. They invest in skills that make people more competitive and they treat the flow of information as a strategic asset.
Explore the Top 100 Global Most Loved Workplaces list and company profiles at bestpracticeinstitute.org/top-100-global-most-loved-workplaces-2026