The Boston Globe and Boston.Com Reveal Top Places To Work For 2010

The Boston Globe’s annual Top Places to Work magazine honors Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Hill Holliday, and Associates for Human Services as the top employers in Massachusetts according to their most important constituency: their employees. The 40-page magazine, which ranks the top 100 workplaces, will be published November 7 in the Boston Sunday Globe, and is also featured today on Boston.com.

The 3^rd annual Top Places to Work magazine stands out for how it ranks the 100 winning organizations. This year, the Globe split the list into three categories – small, midsize, and large – so that employees can easily compare workplaces of similar size. As a result, three number one companies were crowned: Bright Horizons in the large category; Hill Holliday in midsize; and Associates for Human Services in small.

"The Globe’s Top Places to Work is designed to determine which companies are treating their workers right, and the number one organizations in each category this year all say their bottom line depends on satisfied employees,” says Globe business editor Shirley Leung.

Bright Horizons, the Watertown daycare chain, won top honors in the large employer category because it cares as much about its employees as it does about the children it cares for. Bright Horizons has also built a diverse workforce and scored among the highest for offering opportunities to workers of all backgrounds.

Boston advertising agency Hill Holliday came in first in the midsize category. Not only do employees get to choose from a host of in-house career development programs, including peer-mentoring, but the firm also provides an unusual perk: an on-site beauty room complete with hairstylists and masseuses.

Associates for Human Services – a Taunton not-for-profit that provides support for adults, children, and seniors in need – stood apart from other organizations and landed number one in the small employer category. Employees here say the deep appreciation the company has for their efforts, combined with a cheery work atmosphere and many opportunities to grow, make this a terrific place to work.

In addition to the lists of the winning, Top Places to Work 2010 will include profiles of the number one organizations and features such as the best company perks. For instance, if you want to enjoy a cold brew in the office instead of going out after work, then TripAdvisor may be the employer for you. The travel review site distributes beer from a kegerator every Friday and gives an iPod to every new employee. Workers at HubSpot can travel whenever they like – the company has no vacation policy, allowing employees to take off whenever they need a break.

The Top Places to Work magazine also includes online extras such as videos of the No. 1 employers, sortable rankings, photo galleries, and more data on each of 100 companies on the list. All can be found at www.boston.com/topworkplaces.

To compile the ranking, each employer was measured according to six factors: direction, execution, managers, career, conditions, pay and benefits. All of the participating companies were placed into one of three size brackets, based on their number of employees in Massachusetts. Small companies were defined as those with 100 to 249 employees; medium companies as those with 250 to 999 employees; and large companies were companies with 1,000 or more.

About The Boston Globe and Boston.com

The Boston Globe and Boston.com are wholly owned by The New York Times Company, a leading media company with 2009 revenues of $2.4 billion, which includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company’s core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6499976&lang=en