To be eligible for consideration, organizations must:

• Be a publicly or privately held business
• Be a for-profit, not-for-profit business or government entity
• Have a facility in Central Valley (Merced, Stanislaus, Sacramento, Sonora or San Joaquin counties)
• Have a minimum of 15 full-time or part-time employees working in Central Valley (Merced, Stanislaus, Sacramento, Sonora or San Joaquin counties)
• Must be in business a minimum of one year

Winners are categorized based upon the number of U.S. employees, but only employees based in the program area of Central Valley (Merced, Stanislaus, or San Joaquin counties) will participate in the survey. For example, an employer with a sufficient number of U.S. employees to be categorized as a Large Company that only has 15 employees in the program area will be categorized as a Large Employer. Only the employees in the program area will be surveyed. Companies surveying 15-24 employees must meet a minimum of 80% participation on the employee survey to be eligible for list consideration. Companies with over 25 employees must meet a minimum of 40%.

How to enter your organization

All organizations will participate in one of three ways:

1. As an individual organization possessing one Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN).

2. As the parent/holding company of multiple organizations with one FEIN for all subsidiaries. The parent/holding company must register with all eligible employees working for that parent/holding company.

3. Subsidiaries of a parent/holding organization may register separately for each location that they are in for the Central Valley. However, you must specify the location in your company title, for example, ABC Company – Sacramento. Only supply the emails for the Sacramento office if you are entering each company by location. If the Sacramento office is eligible for the list, only the Sacramento office will be listed.

Which employees to include

Include all current, full- and part-time Central Valley employees in the survey process, from the CEO, partners, all the way to line-level employees, including remote employees. Remote employees are defined as employees that work from home or on the road who directly report to a supervisor in Central Valley.

Exclude all temporary, seasonal or per diem employees, PRN, 1099 employees/independent contractors, volunteers, interns, outside consultants or staffing employees placed by other organizations.

Common industry-specific eligibility questions

Consulting: Include full- and part-time employee consultants working at client sites.

Hotels: Please keep the following in mind when providing your U.S. employee count: What company owns and operates your hotel? What company name is on employees’ paychecks? Do you share the same FEIN as the large hotel corporation? If the name is the same for all these questions, please enter the U.S. employee total of the hotel corporation. If not, please enter the U.S. count of your location only.

Real Estate: Real estate agents are independent contractors (1099) and are therefore not eligible for the survey.

Staffing: Include only full- and part-time employees of the staffing agency working in-house. Exclude employees working at a client site.