Trust Index™ Survey
Turn employee trust into business performance
Great culture doesn’t happen by accident. It thrives when companies apply the same data-driven approach to culture that they do to other key drivers of their business success.
Great Place To Work’s Trust Index Survey measures more than just engagement — it captures the full employee experience, delivering detailed, reliable data and unlocking meaningful insights about your employee experience.
How culture impacts your bottom line
There’s a clear, tangible relationship between your culture and your company’s performance. At companies that embrace the Great Place To Work Model™:
Stock performance is higher
Stocks at publicly traded Certified companies outperformed the market by 19% over the four-year period ending in 2023.
People work harder and adapt faster
Employees at Certified companies are 46% more likely to say they give extra effort and 34% more likely to say they adapt quickly to change.
Employees stay longer
Employees at Certified companies are 38% more likely to say they plan to stay at their company for a long time.*
Your Culture GPS
Identify your culture strengths & opportunities
Once Certified, you’ll be automatically considered for placement on our famous Best Workplaces™ lists, such as:
- Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For®
- World’s Best Workplaces™
- PEOPLE® Companies that Care
- 20+ lists in all — see them here
See how your culture evolves over time
Culture isn’t static — it responds to economic pressures, workforce changes, and events like mergers and acquisitions.
As you continue to survey employees over time, the Trust Index Survey shows you how your culture shifts in response to these changes.
Seeing the data helps you quantify the impact of your culture strategy, showing where to double down, change course, or grow to meet your goals.
The secret sauce at the Best Workplaces
Leaders at thousands of companies — including all of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® — have recognized the impact that culture has on productivity, employee retention, and profitability.
They continue to partner with Great Place To Work because they know how critical the Trust Index Survey is to sustaining their strong cultures — and how those cultures fuel happier teams, better ideas, and stronger business results.
Transform your workplace culture with the Trust Index Survey
The best employers attract and retain top performers by obsessing over the employee experience. They also rely on employee experience software from Great Place To Work® to measure, benchmark, and improve employee satisfaction.
Survey
Powered by our proprietary Trust Index, easily survey your employees using the Great Place To Work Trust Index Survey to better understand your workplace culture.
Insights & Benchmarking
Using data-backed insights, you will be able to make more informed decisions and get a benchmarked view of your organization, creating a thriving culture.
Certification
Great Place To Work Certification evaluates workplace culture from the perspective that matters most — the employee — providing a clear signal to the world about your culture and commitment to employee experience.
Best Workplaces Lists
Once Great Place To Work Certified™, companies are automatically eligible for lists in Fortune& PEOPLE, earning recognition for the culture you built.
Join the ranks of other Certified workplaces
FAQs
In broad terms, the Great Place To Work Trust Index Survey measures the level of trust in your organization and the consistency of the employee experience. In other words: How often can employees count on something happening in their workplace, such as clear and honest leadership, fair treatment, and employee recognition?
More specifically, the Great Place To Work Trust Index Survey measures individual employee experiences of five focus areas of a high-trust company culture through 60 statements and two open-ended questions. Three of the focus areas are connected to the actions of leaders and building trust: credibility, respect, and fairness. The other two focus areas measure the workplace experience of employees in relation to their colleagues and the wider organization: pride and a sense of belonging.
These five focus areas create a workplace culture where employees feel empowered and encouraged to do their most meaningful work. High-trust cultures are shown in Great Place To Work research to outperform their competitors in recruitment and retention, productivity and innovation, and financial performance.
Survey answers are assessed on a five-point scale, revealing the most common experience of employees in the organization. Employee scores are averaged to provide an organization-wide assessment of workplace culture: the Trust Index score.
Employees answer 14 demographic questions and respond to 60 statements across a five-point consistency scale as well as two open-ended questions. Employees generally take 10 to 20 minutes to complete the survey.
We take our ethical obligation to survey takers very seriously. Employees can rest assured that their participation is completely confidential and voluntary. Survey responses come directly to Great Place To Work. Employers cannot see who has or who has not completed the survey while the survey is live. We remove unique identifiers once the survey closes. For employers, company participation in the Certification program and the survey results are completely confidential. We do not disclose our clients’ names, information, or scores to the public until they are Great Place To Work Certified.
Yes. Once your survey is closed, you’ll immediately get (at minimum) an overview of your scores so you can see how your employee experience measures against our key evaluation areas, and how you stack up against our Best Workplaces benchmarks. You’ll be able to see how your company compares to top workplaces in the country with access to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® and the Fortune Best Small and Medium Workplaces benchmarks. This is exclusive benchmark data only available through the Great Place To Work survey platform. If you’d like even more in-depth reporting and benchmarking, contact support@greatplacetowork.com to learn about upgrade options.
Yes, our Trust Index survey is available in over 70 languages, and they’re all available for you to use at no additional cost.
Our Trust Index™ Survey platform is designed to support a wide range of feedback collection needs. You can use it to gather insights from various groups across your organization — whether you’re running engagement surveys, onboarding feedback, pulse checks, or other internal assessments. This flexibility allows you to include different types of workers depending on your goals, such as contractors, interns, or even franchise employees in some contexts.
However, the criteria for Certification eligibility are more specific and must be followed closely. If you’re unsure how to best capture feedback from various populations within your organization, or if you have any other questions, our team would be more than happy to talk to you.
To be eligible for Certification, you must include all indivduals who are legally employed by your company, paid directly by your company, and classified under one or more of the following at the time of survey launch:
- Employment status: All part-time and full-time employees
- Job roles: Including the CEO and all levels of staff
- Locations: All company locations
- Union status: Both union and non-union employees
- New hires: Including those from mergers or acquisitions
- Remote workers: Telecommuters and those working from home
- Employment type: Seasonal, casual/per diem employees, interns
- Age: Employees under 18, as permitted by local laws
Important: Failure to include any eligible group — whether intentionally or inadvertently — or failure to invite the required number of employees will result in disqualification from Certification and Best Workplaces™ list eligibility.
Do not include individuals who are not legally employed by your organization at the time of survey launch, such as:
- Contractors: Employed by another company or self-employed. These individuals should be surveyed by their legal employer.
- Furloughed employees: Temporarily not working and not expected to perform any duties during the furlough period.
- Franchise workers: Typically employed by the franchisee, not the franchisor. Only include them if they are legally employed by your company.
Take the first step toward a thriving workplace culture
Empower your organization with actionable insights, improved employee retention, and a stronger culture. Ready to see the difference?