4 VA Companies Among 2021 Best Companies To Work For: Fortune

VIRGINIA — The businesses ranked among this year’s 100 Best Companies To Work For have at least one thing in common: They treated employees well during the pandemic.

The 24th annual list, compiled by Fortune and Great Place To Work, honors the “most heroic companies supporting their people and communities in the U.S. during this historically challenging year,” according to a release by Fortune.

Two companies from McLean made the top 10. Hilton ranked third for the best place to work, a drop from its first overall place ranking last year. Capital One Financial ranked ninth in the annual list, compared to the 24th spot in the previous year's ranking.

Here are the four Virginia companies on this year’s list:

Hilton

• Headquarters: McLean
• Industry: Hotels, casinos, resorts
• Rank: 3
• Employees: 141,000
• Percentage of women: 52.4
• Revenue in 2020 ($M): $4,307

Hospitality chain Hilton was among the hardest hit in the earliest days of the pandemic, as travel ground to a halt. The company furloughed about 45,000 members of its workforce and laid off 20 percent of its corporate staff. But through those tough decisions, the company treated its workers with “dignity and compassion,” says one employee, by connecting former Hilton staff to short-term jobs new to the pandemic economy and by extending hotel rewards benefits like the Hilton Honors program and eligibility for the chain’s team member travel program beyond the date when a departing worker would usually lose them.

Capital One Financial

• Headquarters: McLean
• Industry: Commercial banks
• Rank: 9
• Employees: 51,985
• Percentage of women: 52.5
• Percentage of minorities: 49.5
• Revenue in 2020 ($M): $31,643

The pandemic posed an immediate conundrum for bank branches that needed to provide services while keeping employees safe. Capital One, like other banks, implemented safety measures, but the firm also temporarily increased hourly wages, boosting pay by $10 an hour for branch and Capital One Café employees and adding $5 an hour for call center agents. U.S. nonexempt hourly workers, meanwhile, were still paid for all their hours even if they had to pare down their schedules or couldn’t work remotely. That has all helped the credit card titan, based in McLean, jump 15 spots on Fortune’s list this year.

CarMax

• Headquarters: Richmond
• Industry: Automotive retailing, services
• Rank: 36
• Employees: 25,000
• Percentage of women: 25.9
• Percentage of minorities: 51.1
• Revenue in 2020 ($M): $19,865

When closures led to furloughs of some employees, it wasn’t just hourly workers who felt the squeeze. “I appreciated that executives took a pay cut and that the board of trustees did not receive any compensation,” one employee writes. (Indeed, CEO William Nash took a 50 percent cut.) The company covered health insurance premiums for furloughed workers, and an associate disaster relief fund enabled employees to apply for help if they became ill or experienced a qualifying hardship. By the end of July 2020, CarMax no longer had any associates on furlough, and positions had been made available for approximately 99 percent of impacted employees.

Navy Federal Credit Union

• Headquarters: Vienna
• Industry: Diversified financials
• Rank: 59
• Employees: 18,668
• Percentage of women: 66.1
• Percentage of minorities: 41.4

The world’s largest credit union is on the list for the 11th year. Navy Federal Credit Union, which dropped from 11th to 59th on the list, boasts a strong leadership team that puts the extra effort into caring for employees, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The company, from management on down, understands the concept, ‘Take care of your workers and they’ll take care of your customers/members,’” says one employee. The company also took extended steps to ensure its workers have continued to receive sufficient health coverage throughout the pandemic.

Cisco, based in San Jose, California, topped this year’s list. The company, which makes network and other communications equipment, employed 36,374 people as of March 2021. Cisco, ranked fourth last year, has been on the list every year since its creation.

Rounding out the top 5 were Salesforce, based in San Francisco; Hilton, based in McLean; Wegmans, based in Rochester, New York; and Rocket Companies, based in Detroit, Michigan.

To compile this year’s list, Great Place to Work surveyed more than a half-million employees on issues including how trustworthy, caring and fair the company is in times of crises; employees’ physical, emotional and financial health; and the company’s overall impact on its community.

Companies also need to employ at least 1,000 employees to be considered for the list.

The results: A strong link surfaced between positive employee opinion and how senior leaders and direct managers responded to the COVID-19 crisis. In fact, 71 percent of workplaces on this year’s list scored better than in pre-pandemic years.

In a typical year, 75 percent of a company’s score is based on confidential employee feedback, while the remainder is the company’s response to an essay question focused on programs and practices. This year, however, the essay question focused on actions taken in response to the challenges of 2020.

These companies managed “not just to muddle through” the pandemic, according to Fortune’s release, but also to become “role models” for other businesses.

Read more about the 2021 methodology.

See this year’s full list of 100 Best Companies To Work For.