The process involves the following steps.
Jump to a section:
1. How the Survey Works
2. Benefits of Company Participation
3. Employee Survey Rules and Guidelines
4. Employer Benefits Survey Guidelines
Ready to participate? Click here to be notified when the next survey period opens.
If you have any further questions about the surveys, please contact Craig Peebles, 100 Best Project Manager, at [email protected] or 503.445.8824.
1. How the Survey Works
An easy process that gives you critical insight into your company’s strengths and weaknesses along with the chance to rank among the 100 Best Companies and the 100 Best Green Workplaces in Oregon lists.
A company representative must submit the online form in order to register for the survey. Click here to be notified when the next survey period opens.
Interested in customized, supplemental survey questions?
Are you interested in the opportunity to customize questions to add to the traditional 100 Best survey? Is there a new policy or procedure on which you want employee feedback? Do you want additional feedback from your employees? Customized supplemental survey questions may be right for you. Click here for more information.
Invite employees to participate:
The survey is open from mid August to November. After signing up, 100 Best contacts will be emailed a survey access code and a link to the employee survey. Employers can use a template for inviting employees to complete the employee survey online. Employees may take the survey on any computer or mobile device with Internet access. Invite all Oregon employees to participate. Senior executives and/or owners may not participate. Employees that own 10% or more in the company are also exempt. For employees without computer access, you may request a hard-copy survey. The survey is also available in Spanish .
Complete the Employer Survey of Benefits:
A representative of management, usually an HR professional, will need to submit a separate survey, accessible with a unique survey link, detailing your benefits policies as they apply to most employees.
Meet participation requirements:
A minimum of 15 employees or 10% or your workforce, whichever is greater, must complete the survey by the November deadline. Your Employer Survey of Benefits must also be received by this deadline. 100 Best contacts receive weekly updates on employee participation.
Get survey results:
Following completion of the survey, all companies that meet participation requirements will be able to order survey reports detailing strengths and weaknesses of their workplaces based on survey results. Companies are strongly encouraged to complete the feedback loop by communicating survey results back to employees.
Recognition:
The 100 Best Companies list will be published in the March issue of Oregon Business. Companies will be informed whether or not they made the lists in advance. Opportunities to celebrate your achievement will be made available at the conclusion of the survey period.
Benefits of Company Participation
Here are some great reasons for your company to sign up for the 100 Best survey: it’s free, easy to facilitate, provides honest feedback and can boost workplace morale.
Free:
There is no charge to take part in the survey.
Easy and convenient:
Employees may take the survey online from any computer or mobile device with Internet access or on paper in English and Spanish. One management representative, often the HR director, coordinates communications with employees and Oregon Business magazine.
Dialogue with employees:
Employees get a unique chance to voice their opinions confidentially about a wide variety of workplace aspects and are impressed when it’s acknowledged.
Honest feedback:
Employers gain valuable insight about the business from those on the front lines. All participants can order reports on survey results that detail workplace strengths and weaknesses, employee comments and benefits analysis.
Higher morale and efficiency:
Survey reports provide opportunities to further the dialogue with employees and set priorities for workplace improvement.
Recognition:
We will release the actual rankings of the 2026 100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon in the Q2 issue of Oregon Business and online at www.oregonbusiness.com. Opportunities to celebrate your achievement will be made available at the conclusion of the survey period.
Employee attraction and retention:
Highly qualified job candidates seek out openings at 100 Best Companies and it reinforces the pride and satisfaction of current employees to work for a 100 Best company.
Employee survey Rules and Guidelines
The employee survey consists of 31 statements divided into six workplace categories. Answers to the first five categories count for 5/7 of the overall score used to determine the 100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon list. The sixth category, Sustainable Practices, is used to help determine our 100 Best Green Workplaces in Oregon list, published in the Q3 issue of Oregon Business. Employees rate the statements in terms of satisfaction and importance. The survey has six optional demographic questions, and two open-ended questions for written comments. Companies are scored based on average satisfaction ratings.
Rules and guidelines
- Do invite all permanent full-time and part-time employees of Oregon locations to participate. Senior executives and owners may NOT take the survey. Employees who own 10% or more in the company are also exempt.
- Do not invite any employees working outside the state of Oregon to complete the survey.
- Do not select a sample or subgroup of employees to take the survey.
- Do not demand that employees take the survey, or imply in any communication with employees that they should provide positive responses, nor suggest that company’s inclusion on the 100 Best list is important or necessary to an employee’s success.
- Do ensure that employees know the survey is entirely confidential and anonymous.
- No data is saved until the final page, so employees that quit the survey midway through should retake it.
- Temporary employees and contractors are not permitted to take the survey. Staffing firms should only invite internal staff to participate.
- Each employee may complete only one survey.
- Encourage employees in all departments and compensation levels (hourly, supervisory, senior management, etc.) to participate.
- A minimum of 15 employees or 10% of your Oregon workforce, whichever is greater, must complete the survey. We reward companies that achieve a high participation rate in the employee satisfaction survey. Companies that achieve a higher than average participation rate for their size group will receive more points than those employers that have a lower than average participation. Please encourage all Oregon employees to participate but do not coerce them into completing the survey if they do not wish to. This participation score will account for 1/7th of your overall score.
- We will email companies weekly updates regarding the number of employees that have completed the survey.
- We reserve the right to discard surveys that show anomalies or inconsistencies.
- Submit all online and hard-copy surveys by the November deadline.
Employee Surveys via the Web:
Encourage employees to complete the survey online from any computer or mobile device with Internet access, at work or home. If they do not normally have access to the Internet, consider setting up computer kiosks and providing breaks for them to take the survey.
The steps:
- Distribute via email, bulletin or employee-only Intranet site the survey code and link provided in your 100 Best instructions to all Oregon employees. Do not reveal your survey code outside of your company.
- You may customize the sample e-mail/memo text (see below) to distribute to employees, informing them about the 100 Best survey.
- After accessing the link and entering your company’s name and code, the survey will take employees about 10 minutes to complete.
- If an employee quits the survey midway through, he/she should retake it.
- You will weekly email updates indicating the number of employee surveys that have been successfully completed from your company.
Sample E-Mail/Memo to Participation Company Employees:
TO: All Oregon employees
SUBJECT: Rate your job satisfaction in the 100 Best Companies survey.
We want to know what you think!
[COMPANY NAME] is taking part in the survey for Oregon Business magazine’s 2026 list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon.
We encourage you to express your thoughtful, honest opinion on a comprehensive set of workplace qualities in the 100 Best employee survey. Your participation and the answers you provide will be strictly anonymous and confidential. We hope that all employees from every department and location in Oregon voice their candid views in this survey.
Each employee may complete just one survey. It takes about 10 minutes, and can be completed from any Internet-connected computer or mobile device — at work or home.
Go to [SURVEY LINK] and enter our survey code: [COMPANY CODE]. Please note: your responses are not saved until you reach the last page of the survey. The deadline is [DEADLINE].
After the survey is complete, in December, we can obtain survey results that may help us find ways to improve job satisfaction, productivity and performance throughout [COMPANY NAME].
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Surveys for Employees Without Web Access:
We urge all employees with Web access to take the survey online. Both English and Spanish versions are available online. However, employees who do not have access to a computer, or cannot access the Web, may complete a hard-copy printed version of the employee survey.
The steps:
- E-mail your request for hard-copy employee surveys to: [email protected].
- We will e-mail you an PDF version of the survey to print, copy and distribute to any employees who do not have access to the Web.
- Provide employees with pre-stamped envelopes or collect surveys anonymously and return them to:
Craig Peebles, 100 Best Project Manager
Oregon Business
12570 SW 69th Avenue
Suite 102
Portland, OR 97223
Rules about hard-copy employee surveys:
- Employee surveys that you collect and return to Oregon Business are strictly confidential. Do not read them or write any identifying information (such as employee name, etc.) on surveys before distributing them or after collecting them.
- Because hard-copy surveys entail data-entry cost, organizations that submit more than 100 hard-copy surveys will be charged a handling fee of $50 for every 50 surveys processed beyond the initial 100.
- Please encourage as many employees as possible to complete their surveys online.
- All hard-copy employee surveys must be received by November deadline.
Spanish Language Survey:
The survey is available in Spanish in hard-copy form. Spanish-speaking employees should not refer to it as they complete the survey online because the online survey is randomized. Instead, have employees fill it out it according to the rules listed above for the English hard-copy survey. The survey is not currently available in any other languages but feel free to suggest other languages that would accommodate a large number of your employees.
The steps:
- E-mail your request for Spanish employee surveys to: [email protected].
- We will e-mail you an PDF version of the survey to print, copy and distribute to Spanish-speaking employees.
- Provide employees with pre-stamped envelopes or collect surveys anonymously and (by November deadline) return them to:
Craig Peebles, 100 Best Project Manager
Oregon Business
12570 SW 69th Avenue
Suite 102
Portland, OR 97223
Click here to see all Employee Survey Questions.
Employer Benefits Survey Guidelines
A company representative familiar with your organization’s employment and benefits policies should complete the benefits (or employer) survey. It takes about 30 minutes. To access the Employer Survey, the representative will need the unique survey link sent to your company’s 100 Best contact in the survey instructions.
Below is a checklist of topics covered in case your representative needs to gather information prior to taking the survey:
- Health, dental, disability and life insurance coverage and whether employer or employee covers most of the cost
- Percentage of health plan premiums or health savings account dollars paid for employees and their family members.(If your company pays a dollar amount or different percentages for various plans, estimate the average percentage for the typical employee.)
- Number of holidays, vacation and sick leave or days paid-time-off (PTO) days after one year’s service and maximum
- Flex-time and community service policies
- Benefits for maternity/paternity leave, adoption, child and elder care
- Section 125 flexible-spending plan policies for dependent care and medical expenses
- Transportation benefits
- Incentive plan details
- Percentage of employees eligible for profit-sharing and stock option/purchase programs
- Retirement plan details, including employer contributions to 401k, 403b or pension plans
- Tuition reimbursement and sabbatical policies
- Percentages of senior managers worldwide who are women and ethnic minorities
- Non-discrimination policy
- Organization’s charitable and community service practices
- Organization’s sustainable and environmental business practices (Used for 100 Best Green Cos. List)
Rules and Guidelines
- Answer each question as it applies to the greatest percentage of full-time equivalent employees in Oregon.
- The employer survey counts for 1/7 of a company’s total 100 Best score. The Sustainable practices section counts for 1/3 of the 100 Best Green Workplaces score.
The steps:
- Review the benefits survey checklist above and gather necessary information.
- Access the survey online with the unique link provided in the survey instructions email. This may be done from any computer or a mobile device with Internet access.
- Answer all applicable questions until you reach the final page thanking you for taking the survey.
- Within a week after submission, you will receive an e-mail confirming receipt of your completed survey.
- The benefits survey is due by the November deadline.
Click here to see all Employer Survey Questions
Ready to participate? Click here to be notified when the next survey period opens.
If you have any further questions about the surveys, please contact Craig Peebles, 100 Best Project Manager, at [email protected] or 503.445.8824.
