30 Years of Top Employers Institute

Top Employers Institute is the global authority on recognising excellence in people practices and we have come a long way since our early days of research, publishing, and certifying organisations for their HR policies.

One global methodology 

1991 saw the birth of Top Employers Institute – known then as the Corporate Research Foundation. For the first 13 years of our journey, we produced an annual series of research publications that focused on outstanding employers, leading managers, and companies with strong HR strategies initially in only five countries.

A pivotal change in the way we acknowledged these policies and practices took place between 2005 and 2007, and we introduced our now world-famous Certification Seal, along with the annual certification cycle.

Our name changed to Top Employers Institute in 2013, and with it came one research methodology and a global positioning has of 2021 helped certify over 1 600 organisations per year across the world. Three years later, our Certification Programme became available in all countries and regions.

To date, Top Employers Institute has established 11 offices in strategic locations around the world, and we began scaling up with an ever-growing workforce.

Growing with a purpose

2019 was the dawn of a new era as it is then that we solidified our purpose in accelerating the impact of people strategies to enrich the world of work. Since then, there are countless milestones that have been crossed and goals celebrated, including the creation of a new payoff line (moving on from Develop.Always to For a Better World of Work), an updated HR Best Practices Survey regrouped under six new domains, and our first ever fully virtual Certification Celebration.

As we look forward to the next chapter in our journey, it is with immense gratitude that we continue working with over 1 691 organisations in 120 countries/regions to improve the lives of over 7 million people.

For a better world of work.