Mid-way through the annual awards period in mid-October, the employee survey link is sent out to participating companies to share internally with their team and is open through December 15th when the awards period closes and data is frozen and exported to determine winners.

HTR has created a quick, password-free way to see where your company stands in the Best Places to Work program in real-time. Enter your work email, and we'll send a 6-digit code to confirm it's you (must use your company's official domain). Once you're in, you'll see your company's compliance status, how many survey responses have come in so far, and which employees have already completed the survey. Each open compliance item shows its due date with a live countdown. This view is read-only and your session lasts 24 hours; to complete an outstanding item, use your company's portal checklist. Two dates matter for eligibility: your company's Rules Agreement must be signed by October 20, 2026, and your employee count must be verified by October 30, 2026.

The HotelTechAwards Best Places to Work rankings are built entirely from verified, anonymous employee surveys — every response is tied to a confirmed work email and limited to one per employee, so scores reflect real teams rather than whoever could be rallied to click a link. Each company's rating blends five dimensions of the employee experience (work/life balance, personal development, AI enablement, confidence in the future, and values/culture fit), and we apply confidence-weighting that pulls small-sample scores toward the field average - a statistical safeguard that keeps a company with a handful of glowing responses from leapfrogging one with a deep, consistent track record. On top of sentiment, we layer a size-adjusted participation bonus: because a 20-person company getting 15 responses is a far stronger signal than a 2,000-person company getting the same, smaller teams have to clear a higher share of their headcount to earn full credit, which keeps the playing field level across companies of every size. Finally, integrity checks (domain and duplicate-voter screening, among others) filter out anything that looks like gaming before results are locked. The net effect is a ranking that rewards genuine, broad-based employee sentiment - not headcount, not marketing budget, and not whoever ran the most aggressive get-out-the-vote push.

Employees will rank their company via the internal survey sent out along the following ranking factors:

Please do not conflate eligibility with the requirement to make the list. Many companies will achieve minimum eligibility requirements but not make the list each year. This is a minimum pre-requisite for contention, not the high bar of success.

In order to be eligible to make the list, your company must (1) enter at least one product into the HotelTechAwards (2) have at least 10 employees and (3) have a completion rate/total employee survey response ratio above the following minimum thresholds based on the size of your company size:

All registrants into the HotelTechAwards with at least one valid product entry are automatically entered into the Best Places to Work Competition.

Only companies who make the top 10 will be recognized. If you participate and don't make the list there is no downside or mention of your company.

No, results of the employee surveys remain private and anonymous. If your company's management would like to receive your team's employee survey results they may request an anonymize dataset. Aggregate anonymized results can be shared but will not be shared anywhere else or posted publicly.

Survey results are anonymized to ensure that employees have a safe place to share real honest feedback about their place of work.

On January 1st, the top 10 firms as determined by the internal surveys will be notified and the public announcement will be made in tandem with the public announcement for product category winners on Jan 15.

Yes, great culture is a strong predictor of future outcomes for clients. Each company that makes the top 10 best places list receives an off-platform bonus towards the HotelTechAwards that historically has historically impacted results especially in super close product level competition.

You can fill out this form to request survey results. Premium members will receive anonymized results in 2-3 business days and basic members will receive results within 2-3 weeks.