Minnesota Top Workplaces deadline extended

The deadline for the Star Tribune 2022 Top Workplaces program has been extended.

Nominations are now due by March 18 at startribune.com/nominate or 612-605-3306. Winners will be publicly announced at a June event and featured in a special section.

Any organization with 50 or more employees in Minnesota can participate, whether they are publicly traded, privately owned, nonprofit or government agencies.

The workplaces must allow their employees to participate in a 24-question survey conducted by the Star Tribune's partner, Pennsylvania-based Energage. The companies will be surveyed through the end of March.

Energage partners with media companies in 61 markets across the country to administer the program and in the past year surveyed more than 2 million employees at more than 8,000 workplaces.

In Minnesota last year, 396 companies employing 175,176 people participated in the survey. Of those, 297 met the national Top Workplaces standards, including the 175 ranked companies.

So far this year, more than 400 companies have signed up to participate in the 2022 awards program.

Many companies have undergone transformations, pivots or reorganizations as they tried to deal with new economic and workplace realities caused by the coronavirus pandemic. How they went about changing can be the difference in employees' engagement levels.

The Energage surveys measure the kinds of skills needed to elevate a company's culture. They cover cover seven areas, including these organizational health factors that measure how well employees are working together toward a common cause:

• Alignment: Where the company is headed, its values, cooperation.

• Effectiveness: Doing things well, sharing different viewpoints, encouraging new ideas.

• Connection: Employees feel appreciated, that their work is meaningful.

• My manager: Cares about concerns, helps me learn and grow. In addition, the survey asks employees about other factors:

• Employee engagement: Loyalty, motivation and referral of the company to others.

• Leader: Confidence in company leadership.

• The basics: Pay, benefits, flexibility.

This is the 13th year for the Minnesota Top Workplaces program.