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/municipality(1)
• Have a facility in the 417 Region(3)
• Have a minimum of 15 full-time or part-time employees(2) working in the Southwest Missouri region(3)
• Must be in business a minimum of one year

(1) Major departments of government entities and municipalities such as Departments of Transportation, Parks & Recreation, or Police may enter separately. For additional eligibility information or clarification, please contact Best Companies Group at [email protected].
(2) To ensure credibility, organizations with 15-24 employees working in the Southwest Missouri region must have an 80% or better response rate on the employee survey (40% for employers with 25 or more employees). Temporary, per diem, PRN, seasonal, 1099 employees, independent contractors, non-employee real estate agents, consultants, interns and volunteers are not counted in the number of Southwest Missouri region employees or included in the survey process. For staffing companies, employees that are placed with other organizations are not eligible.
(3) The Southwest Missouri region includes the following counties: Vernon, Barton, Jasper, Newton, McDonald, St. Clair, Cedar, Dade, Lawrence, Barry, Hickory, Polk, Greene, Christian, Stone, Taney, Dallas, Laclede, Webster, Wright, Douglas, Ozark, Texas, Howell, Shannon and Oregon.

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 417 Region 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 in the United States who directly report to a supervisor physically working in the 417 Region.

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

For List Category Sizes:

The Best List will be broken out by size categories. A Small Employer is considered any organization that has 15-99 employees and a Large Employer is an organization that has more than 100 employees.