Saudi Arabia made it again to the top of the 2019 list of Worlds Best Workplaces

RIYADH/DUBAI — For the first time, tech giant Cisco tops the list in this year’s ranking of the 25 World’s Best Workplaces, replacing Salesforce which drops to No. 3, and global hospitality giant Hilton taking second place.

This year’s ranking of the 25 World’s Best Workplaces has been published by leading global workplace culture authority Great Place to Work, in partnership with Fortune.

Beside Cisco and Hilton, multiple companies with presence in the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia made it once more to the 2019 list, including DHL Express who moved up from the 6th position in 2018 to the 4th position in 2019 and SAS also moved up from the 10th position in 2018 to the 9th position in 2019; AbbVie maintained their 16th position from last year.

Michael C. Bush, the CEO of Great Place to Work Inc., celebrated the winners on this year’s list of the World’s Best Workplaces. “Congratulations to the World’s Best Workplaces,” Bush said. “It is a big challenge to build a high-trust culture that is great for employees in many countries across the globe. These organizations have bold leaders who have risen to the challenge--they are the vanguard showing millions of organizations worldwide that is possible and desirable to create a great place to work for all.”

To qualify for consideration in this year’s ranking, companies must appear on at least five of Great Place to Work’s national Best Workplaces lists, which are published with media partners in 58 countries and territories, and also must employ more than 5,000 workers globally. More than 8,000 organizations participated in the survey, representing the voices of more than 12 million workers worldwide.

Michael Burchell, CEO, Great Place to Work Middle East said: “We are very proud with the efforts put in by our partners and the regional teams of these international companies, who made it to the global list once again with some noticeable improvements; our objective is to evolve the work culture in the GCC countries and the Middle East via empowering employees and accelerating performance, to reach their full potential.”

In a separate Global Pulse Study, Great Place to Work surveyed more than 9,400 workers in 23 countries to learn more about the work experience at a diverse sample of companies across many industries. The results of the report, Determining the World’s Best Workplaces, can be downloaded here.

Some findings from the study:

• The top 25 World’s Best Workplaces employ more than 300,000 people globally, and recent employee comments indicate that their work experience has increased more than five percent since Great Place to Work first began compiling this list nine years ago, with more than 85 percent saying that their company is a great place to work.

• 46 percent of the global workforce say they do not experience the behaviors of a great workplace.

• The World’s Best Workplaces are seeing stellar results, with 86 percent of their employees saying they intend to stay a long time, 88 percent say they are willing to give extra effort at their job, and 86 percent of workers say they can count on their colleagues to collaborate.

• Among the employee comments from global companies not appearing on the World’s Best Workplaces list, only 56 percent say they are willing to recommend their employer to friends or family, 59 percent are willing to give extra effort, and only 59 percent say they can quickly adapt to changes at work.