The Burning Glass Institute and the Schultz Family Foundation have released an expanded version of Where You Work Matters, a workforce analytics project that grades 1,750 of America's largest employers on the actual career outcomes of their workers. Drawing on a database of 12 million career histories across 1,800 companies, the research measures promotion velocity, retention, pay growth, and regrettable turnover, offering a data-driven look at which employers truly build careers.
In a recent episode of the podcast You Should Know, hosted by William Tincup of WRKdefined, Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Managing Director of the Schultz Family Foundation, discussed the findings and their implications. Sigelman explained the methodology, which cuts through employer marketing claims to focus on empirical outcomes. "If two people start in the same role at directly competing firms, how likely are they each to move up? How likely are they each to stay? How does their pay change over time?" he asked.
The results are striking. Only 22 of the 1,750 companies earned Platinum ratings across every category measured. Of the hundreds of firms employing financial analysts, just 27 rated as great across early career, growth, and stability stages, and only six of those were in banking or financial services. Standouts included General Mills, Liberty Mutual, and Nike. At Whole Foods, food preparation workers fare surprisingly well because prepared foods drive margin.
The discussion also highlighted the concept of "mobility muscle" and how firms like Procter & Gamble, Lockheed Martin, Salesforce, Apple, and Whole Foods stack up role by role. Chandrasekaran cited conversations with CHROs at top-rated firms who point to intentional manager conversations about career trajectory as the practice that separates leaders from laggards.
One of the most urgent issues addressed is the disappearance of entry-level jobs, a trend flagged in a recent Harvard Business Review article. This threatens the future talent pipeline, as fewer opportunities exist for workers to start their careers. The project aims to provide transparency for workers and job seekers, offering an occupation finder tool for the class of 2026 that surfaces roughly 6,000 highly rated entry-level openings.
Tincup pushed back on conventional HR wisdom, arguing that regrettable turnover—not raw turnover—is the metric that matters. Sigelman and Chandrasekaran agreed, adding that transparency benefits workers too. The full Where You Work Matters dataset is available at whereyouworkmatters.org.
