University News

Forbes: Employees Say UVA Is the Best College Workplace in Virginia

August 28, 2024 • By Mike Mather, mike.mather@virginia.edu Mike Mather, mike.mather@virginia.edu

A collage of UVA people in different contexts with the state of Virginia overlayed on top with a #1

Forbes has ranked UVA as the top college in Virginia for worker satisfaction, based on a survey of some of the University’s nearly 20,000 employees. (Illustration by John DiJulio)

A new Forbes survey of the best places to work in Virginia shows the University of Virginia is the top college or university in the state for employee satisfaction, and No. 10 among large companies of any kind.

To create the publication, “America’s Best Employers by State,” Forbes partnered with the market research firm Statista “to survey more than 160,000 employees working for companies with at least 500 people within the United States.”

The employees were asked, on a scale of zero to 10, whether they would recommend their company. The list of Virginia employers includes companies headquartered in the state, but also those with a substantial presence in the Old Dominion.

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Steel Dynamics of Fort Wayne, Indiana; Google, based in Mountain View, California; and Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, were the top Virginia companies in the survey.

Of companies headquartered in Virginia, UVA is ranked as the third-best place to work, behind Vienna-based Navy Federal Credit Union and Newport News-based Ferguson Enterprises.

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Employee Satisfaction of Virginia Universities

“UVA is successful because of the approximately 20,000 dedicated faculty and staff who work tirelessly to support our core missions of education, teaching and research,” J.J. Wagner-Davis, UVA’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said. “We recognize it is a competitive environment to attract and retain talent. We are deeply honored for this award and continue to focus on making UVA the best workplace in the country.”

Virginia Tech was the second-highest-ranked educational institution in the state (26th overall), followed immediately by Old Dominion University.

Last year, Forbes also ranked UVA as a top 10 employer in Virginia.

“Being recognized again in 2024 as a top employer is truly an honor and reflection of UVA as a good and great place to work,” said John Kosky, vice president and chief human resources officer, in a nod to the University’s “Great and Good” strategic plan. “It truly takes a village to reach this level, which is made possible by a world-class faculty and staff, and support from our managers and leaders. The result speaks for itself and we are optimistic that we’ll continue this standard of excellence in the coming years.”

Forbes ranked UVA Health in the top five for health care organizations headquartered in Virginia and as the 41st best company overall in the state. It’s one of several recent honors for UVA Health. Newsweek recently ranked UVA Health University Medical Center as the No. 1 hospital in Virginia while U.S. News & World Report ranked UVA’s School of Medicine as one of the tops in the nation for research and primary care.