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 Chicago (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake (Ill.), Lake (Ind.), McHenry, or Will County)
• Have a minimum of 25 full-time or part-time employees working in Chicago (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake (Ill.), Lake (Ind.), McHenry, or Will County)
• Must be in business a minimum of one year

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 if each subsidiary organization possesses a separate FEIN. If the organization has multiple facilities, branches, factories, offices or stores, all locations must be included in the survey if they operate under the same FEIN.

Which employees to include

Include all current, full- and part-time Chicago (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake (Ill.), Lake (Ind.), McHenry, or Will County) 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 Chicago (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake (Ill.), Lake (Ind.), McHenry, or Will County).

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.