Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Please see the Best Places to Work in Horticulture program requirements below.

This program is open to organizations that provide products or services in the horticulture industry as a wholesale greenhouse grower, nursery grower, retail garden center, and/or produce grower. The eligibility requirements to participate are:

  • Be a publicly or privately held business
  • Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business
  • Be based in the US or Canada
  • Must have a minimum of 10 full or part-time employees working in the US*
  • Must be in business a minimum of one year
  • Be willing to be featured in GIE Media Horticulture Group publications in print and online, which include Greenhouse Management, Garden Center, Nursery Management and Produce Grower.

1. Greenhouse growers: plants grown under cover can include annuals, perennials, plugs and liners, foliage/tropicals and/or bulbs

2. Nursery growers: includes trees, shrubs, perennials and/or bare root

3. Retail garden centers must have at least one brick-and-mortar location

4. Produce growers: includes companies growing in greenhouses or indoors using controlled environment agriculture to grow vegetables, fruit, leafy greens, herbs and mushrooms

5. Can enter multiple businesses if you operate both retail and wholesale greenhouse facilities, for example. If your organization has a combination of the different types of horticulture operations eligible, you must enter your operations as one registration and indicate which industries you fall under. Awards will be presented in each category. If you fall under multiple categories, please be sure to select every category that applies to you on the registration form.

*To ensure credibility, organizations having 10-24 employees must have an 80% or better response rate on the employee survey.

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 United States 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 the United States and/or Canada. Employees physically located outside of the United States and/or Canada are not eligible.

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