Best Companies to Work For: Meet the 2026 Leaders in Employee Experience

For a company’s workplace experience to be truly great, employees need to feel heard, not just seen. 

At Cox Enterprises, a company that operates a multinational portfolio of brands spanning the automotive, cleantech and agricultural industries, Senior Director of Employee Engagement Strategy Kristyn Brennan and her teammates take this truth to heart. Her team has made listening a core component of the employee experience, which is why they created the Voice of the Employee feedback program to ensure leaders have an honest understanding of what’s happening across the company.

“They can then use that insight and feedback to strengthen what’s working, protect the parts of the culture employees value most and address any challenges that arise,” Brennan said.

By listening to their people, HR leaders cultivate a company culture that makes everyone feel supported and empowered to do their best work. For instance, at freight brokerage Arrive Logistics, employees are acknowledged through milestone anniversary celebrations, holiday parties and sales competitions, all of which makes them feel more connected to their work — and each other. 

“Combine that with active ERGs that drive connection and community impact, and Arrive feels more like a community than just another job,” Events and Engagement Manager Samantha Mascorro said.

Read on to learn how HR leaders at Cox Enterprises, PNC Bank, Arrive Logistics and 10 other companies create impactful workplace experiences by listening to employees’ needs and implementing unique cultural initiatives. 

A UnitedHealth Group company, Optum offers a platform that enables individuals to find nearby doctors, schedule appointments, request medication, manage their health savings account, and more.

 

What defines a great employee experience at Optum?

A great employee experience starts with purpose. We want employees to understand how their work contributes to our mission of helping people live healthier lives and helping make the health system work better for everyone. We strive to create an environment where people feel supported by their leaders, connected to their teams, respected for who they are and empowered to grow and do their best work. Our culture is grounded in our values of “Integrity,” “Compassion,” “Inclusion,” “Relationships,” “Innovation” and “Performance.”

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Employee feedback plays a critical role in how we shape the workplace experience. We gather insights through surveys, listening sessions and ongoing feedback channels, giving employees multiple opportunities to share their perspectives. Just as important, we focus on turning feedback into action. We use what we learn to identify priorities, strengthen leadership effectiveness, improve communication and enhance the employee experience at both the local and enterprise level. We believe listening is most meaningful when employees can see how their feedback informs change.

 

“We gather insights through surveys, listening sessions and ongoing feedback channels, giving employees multiple opportunities to share their perspectives.”

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

Our culture is built around a shared mission and a common set of values that guide how we work together and serve others. What makes our workplace unique is the emphasis we place on connection, listening, recognition and service. Across the organization, employees engage in opportunities to learn, collaborate, give back to their communities, share feedback and recognize one another’s contributions. These experiences help bring our values to life and reinforce a culture centered on purpose, teamwork and continuous improvement.

 

 

Headquartered in Atlanta, Cox Enterprises operates a multinational portfolio of brands spanning the automotive, cleantech and agricultural industries. The company’s brands include Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book, BrightFarms and Mucci Farms. 

 

What defines a great employee experience at Cox Enterprises?

The employee experience is shaped by what employees live every day, including the clarity they receive around priorities, the trust they feel in the organization, the support they get from their leaders, the quality of their team relationships, and whether they believe they are valued. It’s not just the programs and benefits Cox offers, but also the environment that leaders and colleagues create that shapes how employees feel about the organization and the extent to which they feel proud, supported and connected.

That’s why listening is such an important part of our approach, because we want to understand what employees are actually experiencing, not just what we assume they’re experiencing. Our Voice of the Employee feedback program helps create an ongoing conversation between employees and leaders, so leaders have a true understanding of what’s happening within their teams and across the organization. They can then use that insight and feedback to strengthen what’s working, protect the parts of the culture employees value most and address any challenges that arise.

 

“Our Voice of the Employee feedback program helps create an ongoing conversation between employees and leaders, so leaders have a true understanding of what’s happening within their teams and across the organization.”

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Our Voice of the Employee program is more than a survey or reporting mechanism; it’s designed to give leaders timely, meaningful insight into the pulse of the organization and what employees are experiencing so they can lead more intentionally. As leaders, it can be difficult to fully understand all the factors that contribute to employee engagement through one-on-one conversations, skip-level meetings or team discussions alone. This ongoing check-in helps us identify what may need attention and what’s working well. Survey results are available to leaders with sufficient team participation while protecting employee confidentiality. We recognize there is no one-size-fits-all approach to listening or responding, and often the people best positioned to act are those closest to the employee experience and the work itself. We also offer listening sessions, focus groups, stakeholder interviews and other feedback channels to better understand employee experiences. Many of the insights we uncover relate to specific periods of change, such as new technology, processes or leadership. Staying attuned to how employees are navigating those changes helps leaders provide the right support and guidance.

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

We are a very broad, mixed and dynamic workforce, but we’re united by a shared set of values and principles. That’s what sets Cox apart in terms of the things we collectively believe in and the way we work together, regardless of where we sit within the organization or the type of work we do day to day.

At Cox, we’re grounded in our purpose and our commitment to our communities, our people, our customers and our planet. What makes that commitment distinctive is that it’s reflected not just in what we say, but in what we do — from the programs we support to the ways we empower employees to be part of the solution to the challenges facing our planet. 

We also place a high level of trust in our employees, and that trust is reinforced through transparency, honesty and open dialogue. Whether through Voice of the Employee, town halls, one-on-one conversations or skip-level meetings, we create opportunities for meaningful communication and feedback. The whole idea is to truly know, see and value the people who are bringing Cox’s culture to life every day and are making a difference in the world that they want to make.

 

 

PNC Bank provides banking services for individuals, small businesses and corporate and institutional clients.

 

What defines a great employee experience at PNC Bank?

At PNC, a great employee experience is one where employees feel supported, valued and empowered to grow. Our employee value proposition, Brilliant Thrives Here®, reflects our belief that when our people thrive, PNC thrives. That experience comes to life through meaningful career development, strong manager support, comprehensive benefits and programs, recognition opportunities and a culture where employees understand how their work connects to our customers, communities and business priorities.

We also believe a strong employee experience is built through clarity, connection and trust. As PNC continues to grow and evolve, we focus on helping employees navigate change, build new skills, collaborate across teams and feel recognized for the impact they make every day.

 

“As PNC continues to grow and evolve, we focus on helping employees navigate change, build new skills, collaborate across teams and feel recognized for the impact they make every day.”

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

PNC measures employee engagement through several channels, with our annual VoiceEX survey serving as a key tool for understanding how employees experience the workplace. Three core indicators help us assess engagement: employees’ likelihood to recommend PNC as a great place to work, whether their work gives them a sense of accomplishment and whether their manager inspires them to do their best work. Together, these measures provide insight into overall engagement, connection to meaningful work and confidence in leadership. Beyond VoiceEX, PNC gathers feedback throughout the employee lifecycle through PNC Pulse surveys, recruiting and onboarding feedback, and exit surveys, providing a comprehensive view of the employee experience.

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

PNC’s culture is grounded in long-standing values that guide how employees serve customers and support one another and our communities: “Customer Focus,” “Diversity & Inclusion,” “Integrity,” “Performance,” “Quality of Life,” “Respect” and “Teamwork.” What makes the workplace unique is how those values are embodied and championed through employee networks and engagement opportunities. This includes our 13 unique Employee Business Resource Groups, which are open to all employees, with over 130 chapters across our footprint, cultivating belonging. There are also Line of Business Councils activated to strengthen feedback loops, inclusion and innovation in business verticals. Employees have access to our Growing Forward Mentoring Program twice a year for engaging one-on-one support. We offer 40 hours paid volunteer time per year to support community and economic development priorities, including early childhood through our PNC Grow Up Great program, as well as economic opportunity and housing affordability. The PNC Spotlight program, our all-employee, on-demand recognition platform, elevates and celebrates employee wins, contributions and values-based behaviors and is a core part of PNC’s culture.

 

 

Rubrik is on a mission to secure the world’s data. With Zero Trust Data Security™, the company helps organizations achieve business resilience against cyberattacks, malicious insiders and operational disruptions. 

 

What defines a great employee experience at Rubrik?

A shared purpose is the foundation. Our team members do the best work of their careers here because they know the problems we’re solving truly matter to the world. We’re helping secure and accelerate the world’s AI transformation, protecting the data that powers hospitals, schools, governments and the institutions people depend on every day. When your mission is that meaningful, the experience has to match it. For us, that means giving Rubrikans real room to grow and the support to reach further than they thought they could. It’s anchored in our values, which we call RIVET: “Relentlessness,” “Integrity,” “Velocity,” “Excellence” and “Transparency.” Transparency is the one I’d underline. We’re open and honest with each other, and Rubrikans have the information they need to do their best work. Everyone operates from the same context, which means everyone can contribute at full strength and in alignment. Bring the right ambition into that environment, and there’s almost no limit to what you can accomplish.

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Feedback is only impactful if it changes something, so that’s the bar we hold ourselves to. Ongoing surveys give us a baseline, but what makes feedback powerful at Rubrik is that it actually shapes things. We’ve also stayed intentionally flat as we’ve grown. A great idea or a critical piece of feedback reaches the people who can act on it, which is how leaders stay close to what’s really happening across the company. When people know their voice carries real weight, they use it, and we listen. The point isn’t only to measure how people feel. It’s to act on it and to keep building an extraordinary culture.

 

“A great idea or a critical piece of feedback reaches the people who can act on it, which is how leaders stay close to what’s really happening across the company.”

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

One thing that truly sets Rubrik apart is what we call maximal thinking. Maximal thinking is a philosophy our CEO and co-founder, Bipul Sinha, champions and encourages all Rubrikans to embrace. Bipul challenges us to take bold swings and stretch beyond expectations, and we’ve built a place where that’s genuinely safe to do. At Rubrik, you’re far more likely to be challenged for not taking the shot than for a mistake made in pursuit of something ambitious. That’s how we’ve kept the energy and conviction of a startup, even as we’ve gone public and grown to more than 3,000 employees. The culture today feels near-identical to what it was when I first joined Rubrik’s team of around 800, because we’ve scaled the company without diluting how we operate or who we are. People here are driven by what’s right for Rubrik and our customers. We won’t always agree, but we never question each other’s motives. That kind of trust is rare, and it’s the thing I’m most proud of.

 

 

Arrive Logistics’ digital tools are designed to help shippers and carriers manage processes more easily.

 

What defines a great employee experience at Arrive Logistics?

High energy and a team that genuinely has your back. At Arrive, a great experience means you’re never coasting — you’re growing, winning and celebrating every step of the way.

Whether you're hitting sales targets, building tech solutions or leading a team, you always know where you stand and what your next move looks like. Throw in a fast-paced environment with healthy competition, constant recognition and events that actually make people want to come into the office, and you get a place where people don’t just show up to work — they thrive.

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Feedback isn’t just something we collect — it’s how we build. Our biggest pulse check is our bi-annual anonymous employee survey, which gives everyone a direct, honest platform to provide input on our workplace culture, resources and overall experience.

Leadership dives deep into the feedback to map out concrete action plans for the year. But the real key is the follow-through: when we put feedback into practice, we share it with a clear “You said it, we built it” approach. Between our bi-annual surveys, town halls and direct touchpoints with our leadership team, every voice drives real, visible change.

 

“Between our bi-annual surveys, town halls and direct touchpoints with our leadership team, every voice drives real, visible change.”

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

We work hard, win as a team and make sure to celebrate along the way. Our core values, like “Relentless Pursuit,” aren’t just slogans. They show up on the floor every day in how our teams push for results and through major recognition like our annual President’s Club trip. Instead of standard corporate mixers, our engagement team plans milestone anniversary celebrations, holiday parties, snack days and high-energy sales competitions. Combine that with active ERGs that drive connection and community impact, and Arrive feels more like a community than just another job.

 

 

Globe Life offers life and supplemental health insurance. 

 

What defines a great employee experience at Globe Life?

At Globe Life, a great employee experience is defined by intentionality and that intentionality shows up in everything we do. It means actively listening to and acting on the employee’s voice, ensuring every individual feels heard and valued. It means recognizing that each employee brings a unique background and set of lived experiences to the table and deliberately creating space to celebrate and honor those differences. And it means thoughtfully curating opportunities for employees to learn, grow and thrive in their respective fields. Taken together, these efforts reflect Globe Life’s deep commitment to making every stage of the employee journey meaningful.

 

“It means recognizing that each employee brings a unique background and set of lived experiences to the table and deliberately creating space to celebrate and honor those differences.”

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Measuring and acting on employee feedback is a structured, multi-step process. Twice a year, in partnership with McLean & Company, we conduct comprehensive employee experience surveys designed to capture the authentic voice of our workforce. 

Once responses are collected, the process moves with purpose:

1. Survey results are first reviewed with executive leaders, giving them a clear and candid picture of what their employees are experiencing and expressing.
2. Insights are then cascaded to people leaders across the organization, ensuring awareness and accountability at every level of leadership.
3. Finally, the feedback directly informs action; new programs and initiatives may be developed and launched in response to what employees share.

This approach ensures that employee feedback doesn’t just get collected; it gets heard, shared and translated into meaningful change.

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

One of the values that truly sets Globe Life apart is our commitment to celebration. We take that seriously! From recognizing employees who embody our shared values in their everyday work, to cheering on the brave souls who show up in the scariest or funniest Halloween costumes, we believe that taking time to celebrate is not a luxury — it’s a priority.

Celebrations are a cornerstone of our culture, and they happen at every Globe Life location. These moments go beyond just having fun. They create genuine opportunities for employees to connect, collaborate and build relationships that carry back into the workplace. Whether the occasion is big or small, Globe Life makes space for it because we know that a team that celebrates together may be more likely to stay together.

 

 

Best known for its Smart Water Coolers®, Bevi has grown into the leading connected beverage platform, combining hardware, data and beverage innovation to deliver premium still, sparkling, flavored and enhanced drinks on demand.

 

What defines a great employee experience at Bevi?

For me, it’s one thing: Your time at Bevi should be a defining chapter in your career, not just a job you had. In practice, that’s three things: You do work that actually matters (we’ve kept over a billion single-use bottles out of landfills, so the mission is real), you’re surrounded by people who are serious about the work but not about themselves, and you get to own something real. We’re a fast-growing company and a category leader, so the chance to own something big is there for anyone who wants it.

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Our backbone is a twice-a-year engagement survey — anonymous, so people can be honest. We review the results at both the company and the team level, because a great company number can still hide a team that needs attention, and that’s where the real action happens. Between surveys we run regular roundtables to hear directly from people, and we have the Bevi Council — internal voices from across our teams who come together to work through the topics that matter and drive solutions across the business. The thing I care most about is the loop: If we act on something, it shows up in the next survey and the next roundtable, so we can see whether it actually moved the needle. That’s “Get Better Every Day” — one of our values — in practice.

 

“The thing I care most about is the loop: If we act on something, it shows up in the next survey and the next roundtable, so we can see whether it actually moved the needle.”

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

Our three values do real work here; they’re not words on the wall. You see “Stay Humble” when someone says, “I don’t know, but this is how we will figure it out,” into a room full of people and it lands as strength, not weakness. You see “Own It” when someone spots a problem that isn’t in their lane and just picks it up instead of waiting to be asked. And you see “Get Better Every Day” in the person who shares what didn’t work in a project so the next team doesn’t hit the same wall. What makes it different is we use these values to hire, promote and give feedback — they show up in how people treat each other day to day, not just on onboarding slides. Underneath it all is a shared pride in Bevi’s mission that connects us: We’re all building for the same goal of eliminating single-use plastic and making beverages that are better for people and the planet.

 

 

Mirakl’s platform is designed to help e-commerce businesses grow, enabling them to expand and digitize product assortment through marketplace and dropship solutions, streamline supplier catalog onboarding, connect with the right marketplaces and more.

 

What defines a great employee experience at Mirakl?

A great employee experience isn’t defined by perks or polished programs. It’s defined by whether people can do their best work, be honest about what’s hard and grow while they’re here.

At Mirakl, that starts with transparency. People know what’s expected of them in their role, they get real feedback in the moment (we’ve moved away from traditional performance improvement plans toward a culture of caring, direct feedback in the moment), and managers are equipped to coach, not just manage — because we treat developing people as the job, not a side task. This is something that is not only felt in day-to-day work, but shows up in numbers. Eighty two percent of employees at Mirakl report that their manager is a great role model. 

Across our regions, the context differs, but the fundamentals hold: psychological safety, ownership and the trust that leadership will tell you the truth. It comes down to this: Someone can raise a challenging piece of feedback and be met with respect and action. That’s the experience we’re building together.

 

“Across our regions, the context differs, but the fundamentals hold: psychological safety, ownership and the trust that leadership will tell you the truth.”

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Measurement is the easy part. Action is where most companies fall short, and it’s exactly where we put our energy. We run engagement surveys and pulse check-ins, but what matters most is the 30 days after results land. If we surface something and don’t move on it, we’ve made things worse, so we treat closing the loop as part of the respect we owe our people.

So after every survey, my team commits to three things: discuss the results honestly, including what’s uncomfortable; name the two or three things we’ll actually do, not ten aspirational ones; and close the loop publicly when something ships.

We also read regional signals carefully. What resonates in North America may land differently in the Asia-Pacific region or Latin America, and treating a global average as truth misses the point. Small, visible wins from feedback beat big promises every time. This is how trust compounds over time.

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

Our culture is anchored in our core values, and this year we did something many companies talk about but few actually do: We refreshed them to reflect the AI transformation we’re living, not just the one we sell. 

AI fluency is becoming part of how we evaluate performance across every function, including mine. It isn’t a training initiative sitting on the side of the business. Using AI to work smarter is simply the standard. What makes it meaningful is that it applies to everyone, including leadership. I won’t ask my team to be measured on something I’m not being measured on myself.

That’s the culture I’m proud to protect: values that hold leaders accountable before anyone else, and criteria that evolve as fast as our business does. In a 750-person company across more than 40 countries, that alignment is what actually holds culture together, and it’s what makes Mirakl a place where ambitious people want to build a career.

 

 

Cleo’s platform is designed to give organizations visibility into critical end-to-end business flows happening across their ecosystems of partners and customers, marketplaces, and internal cloud and on-premise applications.

 

What defines a great employee experience at Cleo?

At Cleo, a great employee experience is built on three things: meaningful work, continuous growth and genuine flexibility. We believe people do their best work when they understand how their contributions connect to the company’s mission, have opportunities to learn and evolve, and are trusted to manage their work in a way that fits their lives.

As a company transforming supply chain orchestration through AI, we challenge employees to solve complex problems that have real impact for our customers. At the same time, we invest heavily in development through ongoing feedback, leadership growth opportunities and exposure to new technologies and ways of working. We encourage curiosity, experimentation and a mindset of continuous learning.

What makes our culture unique is the balance between high performance and human connection. We celebrate wins together, recognize people who embody our values, and create space for employees to bring their authentic selves to work. Whether someone is early in their career or a seasoned leader, we want them to feel valued, supported and empowered to make a difference.

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

We treat feedback as a metric, not a mood. Our employee net promoter score is tracked quarterly through employee surveys, and our scores have trended very positive. We share the results at every all-hands because transparency is the point, not just the good quarters. From there, we implement initiatives as a team, and we run on a simple motto: progress over perfection. We’re not waiting for the perfect program; we’re acting on what the data tells us and iterating from there. Survey data is only half the picture, though. We back it up with weekly one-on-ones and quarterly check-ins where open dialogue is genuinely encouraged and it’s not just a box to check. That combination matters: a quarterly score tells you what people are feeling, but it’s the ongoing conversations that tell you why, and that’s where the real action items come from.

 

“We’re not waiting for the perfect program; we’re acting on what the data tells us and iterating from there.”

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

What makes Cleo’s culture unique is the balance between ambition and adaptability. We’re a company that sets high expectations and moves quickly, but we’re equally committed to learning, evolving and challenging ourselves to find better ways to work. Several traditions help reinforce that mindset. Recognition programs like Cleo Crushers celebrate employees who make an extraordinary impact and embody our values. Weekly and quarterly talent and development conversations encourage continuous growth rather than limiting career discussions to once-a-year reviews. 

We also place a strong emphasis on transparency through companywide updates and open dialogue between leaders and employees. More recently, our focus on becoming an AI-native organization has become an important part of our culture. We’re encouraging employees at every level to rethink processes, experiment with new technologies and continuously increase the value they bring to customers and each other. Cleo’s culture is built on empowering people to take ownership, innovate boldly and support one another while delivering meaningful results. That’s what makes Cleo a place where people can do some of their best work.

 

 

Monte Carlo’s data and AI observability platform is designed to help enterprise teams reduce risks, improve data and AI health, and promote trust at scale. 

 

What defines a great employee experience at Monte Carlo?

For me, it comes down to this: People do the best work of their careers at Monte Carlo AI, and it’s my team’s job to protect that. We’re a scrappy global company building a brand-new category (for the second time), so the experience is all about speed and focus, our two operating principles. We measure in minutes, have the freedom to make big bets, fail and learn — with real ownership of our work. But moving this fast only works if people stay connected and honest. We’re big on candor (i.e., say the hard thing directly, with good intent) and on the idea that company > team > me. When I ask people why they stay, it’s rarely a perk. It’s that their manager has their back, their work obviously matters and they’re growing faster than they would anywhere else. My job is to keep that bar high and keep it human.

 

“When I ask people why they stay, it’s rarely a perk. It’s that their manager has their back, their work obviously matters and they’re growing faster than they would anywhere else.”

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

A few ways. An annual engagement survey gives us the trend line, but the signal I trust most is qualitative — one-on-ones, skip-levels and exit conversations — and the everyday back-and-forth in Slack, where people are pretty candid by default. Our Regional Culture Leads in each hub are close to their teams and surface how people are actually feeling, often well before a survey would. But the part that matters most is what we do with all of it. If we ask for feedback and nothing changes, people stop bothering. My favorite forum for this is our monthly “AMA” with leadership — cameras on, anyone can ask anything, and we talk openly as a group about what we’re changing and what we’re not, and why. That’s where the loop actually closes, in the room.

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

We all describe ourselves as recovering perfectionists (I had to learn to ship at 80 percent instead of 100 percent so I get some early results), and we don’t shy away from hard things. 

For example, Monte Carlo went all in on AI in 2026. It was a bold reinvention that asked a lot of everyone, and it wasn’t easy. What’s carried us through is facing the hard stuff together, out loud, and trying to see the humor along the way. 

It started with one challenge: In a single week, everyone in the org had to build and ship a live AI agent. It was a spin on our long-standing “Week 1 Ship” that every new hire does in their first week, and a great leveler. We’re all new to this and all in it together, and it was amazing to see how everyone is transforming their work.

To keep this change grounded, we also spun up channels like #claude-says-the-darndest-things and #claude-fails, where we trade what broke as openly as what worked. I laugh at something in that channel every day. We love a good fail!

 

 

Kepler is developing technology to ensure the information AI platforms provide is verifiably correct.

 

What defines a great employee experience at Kepler?

The simple answer is that the best experience is letting our team work on genuinely hard problems with as little nonsense interrupting as possible. The team here left exceptionally strong and stable jobs because they wanted to work on something fascinating and challenging — making an AI tool people can actually trust. That’s the draw. My job is to keep it that way and get everything else out of the way from between a person and the interesting version of their job.

In practice that means engineers sit in customer calls instead of getting handed specs. Titles are flat, so nobody’s optimizing for a promotion cycle. If you notice something broken, you own it, and you don’t need permission to go fix it.

It also means paying for the boring stuff properly. Health insurance is 100 percent covered for employees and their families. The expense policy is one sentence. Nobody here should lose a Tuesday afternoon to an approval workflow.

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Less measuring than you’d expect. If you’re running a survey to find out what’s wrong at our size, you’ve already built a company where people don’t just tell you.

What we’ve actually built is the expectation that changing the company is part of everyone’s job. Nothing here is load-bearing just because a founder said it. Process, tooling, how we scope work, what meetings exist — all of it is up for renegotiation by whoever is closest to the problem. If something is slowing you down, you don’t file a ticket about it. You change it and tell people afterward.

Our offsite is the loud version of that. We put every complaint on the board, including the ones aimed at the founders, and rewrote a chunk of how we work off the back of it. But it only worked because it wasn’t unusual. It was the same conversation we have on a normal Tuesday, with a whiteboard and better snacks. The signal I actually watch is whether people are still pitching how to change things. They stop only if they watch several go nowhere.

 

Edmunds’ marketplace enables consumers to shop for new and used vehicles, discover their vehicle’s value and read reviews to guide their car-purchasing decisions. 

 

What defines a great employee experience at Edmunds?

The Edmunds experience is rooted in trust, transparency and individual empowerment. Our president, Seth Berkowitz, sets the tone by embracing sincere and transparent communication. By regularly sharing strategic roadmaps, business milestones and our financial results, he provides employees the full picture they need to understand our business and see the direct impact of their contributions.

 

“By regularly sharing strategic roadmaps, business milestones and our financial results, he provides employees the full picture they need to understand our business and see the direct impact of their contributions.”

 

This transparency fuels ownership over micromanagement. We give our teams the autonomy to solve complex problems and execute on their specific goals. Whether leading cross-department initiatives or representing our brand as “Edfluencers” — our internal community of brand ambassadors dedicated to sharing “Life at Edmunds” — our employees are trusted to take the wheel. This trust also extends to where we work. Our flexible, hybrid work environment allows employees the choice to work wherever they feel most productive. 

To help employees do their best work, we maintain a proactive focus on holistic well-being. We support physical, mental and financial health through fitness stipends, Headspace access and financial coaching workshops.

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

Edmunds regularly measures engagement and captures quantitative and qualitative feedback through our bi-annual employee pulse surveys. While employee surveys aren’t unique on their own, what sets us apart from other companies is how fast we turn feedback into meaningful action. For instance, past survey results have directly inspired unique development opportunities like sponsoring our TEDxEdmunds speaking platform, hosting our upcoming “Driver’s ED” all-day learning event, and launching our Navigator Mentoring Program. 

Our feedback loop extends well beyond our pulse surveys. During our annual goal-setting process, “FUEL Your Potential”, employees map out both business-related and personal developmental goals. This year, after learning there was a collective interest to expand our AI capabilities, we created “AI Ignite!” which was a program that combined online training with in-person sessions where employees could share their practical learnings, tips and tricks.

Whether it’s through employee focus groups, surveys or FUEL, we continually keep a pulse on employee sentiment to ensure our programming genuinely reflects what our teams need to thrive in a timely manner.

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

Our culture is anchored in our T.R.U.S.T. values: “Transparency,” “Resourcefulness,” “Urgency,” “Simplicity” and “Togetherness.” These values were created over ten years ago by our employees and they are still relevant today because they aren’t just words painted on a wall in our office; they are simple and memorable guideposts that are brought to life through company traditions that blend technical proficiency with genuine personal connections.

Take our SYNAPSE Hackathon, for example. This is a four-day, all-company hackathon event where employees from across the organization work together to build new consumer products using Lovable, a vibe coding tool, and “Edmunds Mind,” the company’s comprehensive data and AI platform. 

While events like SYNAPSE build cross-functional energy, keeping that momentum alive requires consistent connection and intentional rituals. We host bi-monthly Cadillac Meetings, where our president shares business updates and celebrates milestones like service anniversaries, “Together Tuesday” lunches to bring us face-to-face every month, and virtual activities like Star Wars Trivia provide all employees with similar opportunities to connect.

 

 

Product.ai helps consumers decide when not to buy products by leveraging axiomatic intelligence, a proprietary adversarial reasoning methodology that stress-tests product claims against physics, economics and engineering constraints. 

 

What defines a great employee experience at Product.ai?

A great employee experience gives people more capability and agency than their job title implies. Product.ai is 20 people, no outside capital, competing with organizations ten times our size, and we keep that pace by putting serious AI infrastructure behind every person, whatever their role. Agents grind through the research, the reporting and the first drafts. People spend their day on judgment and building. Our writers run their own analytics. Our recruiters build their own tools. We also give everyone the freedom to choose how they will meet their goals. Nobody is assigned busywork. People select their work from a shared list of company outcomes and own what they pick. The work you choose is different from the work you were assigned, and at Product.ai, we can feel that difference every day.

 

“People select their work from a shared list of company outcomes and own what they pick.”

 

How do you measure and act on employee feedback?

All of our work at Product.ai resides in GitHub text files instead of a database owned by another company. We capture everything we do there — bug fixes, our recruiting pipeline, employee feedback, all of it. So when someone has feedback or an idea for doing something better, they open a pull request and tag whoever should act on it. From that moment, the idea is on the record in GitHub’s version history, where it can’t be ignored or forgotten. In many cases, we respond to feedback the same day. And we’re also able to analyze trends in feedback over time to better understand organizational trends and what tools and processes are most useful for our people. Of course, we have Slack DMs and other more traditional channels for when feedback touches anything sensitive or confidential.

 

What cultural values or rituals make your workplace unique?

Our main value is one I’ve written about publicly: “Amplify, don’t automate.” Every AI system we adopt has to make a specific person more capable. None of it goes in to shorten the payroll, and the team can tell the difference. Nobody at Product.ai is training their replacement. The daily ritual that grew out of that value is a short morning brief that replaced our status meetings. It’s a few paragraphs that each person reads every day covering what happened in the company overnight, what touches their work and what’s waiting on them. Then, they go build. There’s also a companywide feed where people share what they shipped and the reasoning behind it. If you shipped it, you get the credit. Posting to that feed is voluntary by rule; nothing appears unless its owner put it there, which is why people trust it. Somewhere along the way, meetings became rare at Product.ai. Nobody has asked for them back.