The difference between a good workplace and a great workplace often lies in the opinions of the employees, those closest to the daily operations of a functional workplace.
Employees spend many, if not most, waking hours engaging with their workplaces and becoming experts in how those workplaces operate.
For the seventh year, the Orlando Sentinel partnered with employee survey firm Energage to determine the best places to work in Central Florida. Not all can be winners, and the chosen few are selected based on a comprehensive survey process that covers 26 factors and takes a few minutes to complete.
The survey asks employees to offer feedback about work factors such as pay and benefits, direction, leadership, meaningfulness, and appreciation. Energage crunches the feedback data and scores companies based on the responses.
The award is open to any employer with 35 or more employees in Central Florida. Survey results are valid only if 35% or more employees respond, and employers with fewer than 85 employees have a higher response threshold, requiring responses from at least 30 employees.
Employers are grouped into similar sizes to best compare similar employee experiences and earn Top Workplaces recognition if their aggregated employees’ feedback score exceeds national benchmarks. Energage has established those benchmarks based on feedback from about 30 million employees since 2007 and organizations are ranked within those groups based on the strength of the survey feedback.
“Top Workplaces awards are a celebration of good news,” said Eric Rubino, CEO of Energage. “They exemplify the significance of a people-first workplace experience, reminding us that employees are the heart of any thriving organization.”
For 2025, a total of 5,072 organizations were invited to survey their employees and 165 agreed to do so. Based on the survey feedback, a record 130 have earned recognition as Top Workplaces in Central Florida. Of those, 35 are newcomers to the list, including Chapters Health System, Costa Farms, Galileo School for Gifted Learning, Hudson’s Furniture Showroom, Orange County Property Appraiser, Pinnacle Home Care, Randall, Rosen Hotels & Resorts, Seminole County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, and Tri-City Electrical Contractors.
The surveys also provide employers with valuable insight regarding their strengths and weaknesses, and how they compare nationally.
Despite Orlando’s reputation as a low-wage market, Central Florida employees gave positive scores for their pay, with 66% saying they are fairly paid. That’s well over the national average of 60%. But that satisfaction drops when employees were asked about their benefits. Just over half, 51%, felt their benefits package was good compared to others in their respective industry.
Positivity about job loyalty was also low on the list for employees, with benefits as the only other response statement that saw a decrease in positive scores compared to last year.
For the second straight year, Central Florida employees had the most positive responses for their company’s values, with 86% answering that their company has strong values, up from 85.2% last year. According to the survey, 56.6% of employees responded that they had not considered searching for a better job in the past month. That figure is down about 2 percent from 58.6% last year.
Central Florida also scored well in interdepartmental cooperation compared to the national average, highlighting companies that communicate and work well together between departments within a workplace. About 72.6% of Employees in Central Florida responded positively that cooperation between departments is good at their workplace, well above the national average of 68.8%.
To participate in the 2026 Top Workplaces awards, or for more information, go to the nomination page at https://www.orlandosentinel.com/nominate.
