The 2026 Where You Work Matters List provides an unprecedented, independent rating of how well major U.S. employers build, reward, and retain talent, offering companies critical insight to drive business performance and individual employee growth.

The List provides an objective way for firms to benchmark how well they perform across occupations versus those with which they may be vying for talent, enabling them to assess the impact of their internal pay, mobility and retention practices. For workers, the List provides new insight: They can see the top places to work for specific jobs.

The List is built on the understanding that companywide measures do not always provide the targeted insight needed to take action. For the first time, the List evaluates and benchmarks a firm’s performance by role. 

At Walmart, for instance, the List rates 62 distinct occupations, not just store associates and supervisors, but also butchers, marketing managers, data scientists and truck drivers. Every rated occupation at a company can be compared to any other firm with the same occupation. The List also recognizes there is no single way to define a good job, evaluating each role based on three distinct models of success.

As AI advancements and economic pressures impact the labor market, the Index reveals the companies that are doing best at building and retaining talent—a key advantage at a time when external hiring ebbs.

The List builds on the prior work of the American Opportunity Index, but with far more comprehensive coverage, and it has been redesigned to provide greater transparency and utility for businesses and workers alike. 

The 2026 List assesses 1,750 of the largest U.S. employers, drawing on the experiences of more than 12 million workers over a five-year period. In addition to rating companies on their overall performance, the List includes data on nearly 55,000 occupations across those employers.

The List is based on an analysis of how workers report their career progression and compensation on hiring websites, social-media platforms and other digital services. 

That information is analyzed using proprietary algorithms, enabling an “associate” at Walmart to be classified as a different job from that of an “associate” at McKinsey but as a similar retail sales job as a Target “guest services representative.”

Unlike other measures of employer performance, the List does not rely on corporate participation or worker surveys. It is a philanthropic project in the public interest. Companies cannot opt in or out of the List, and there is no pay for play.

The List includes all employers—including publicly traded companies, private companies and non-profit corporations—for which there is sufficient worker data to generate statistically significant analysis. Federal, state and local government agencies are not included, nor is the military.

All occupations in the U.S. economy as classified by the Department of Labor are examined across assessed employers.

The List is a joint project of the Burning Glass Institute and the Schultz Family Foundation. The methodology was developed in partnership with the Managing the Future of Work Project at Harvard Business School.

The List recognizes the employers doing the best in advancing, paying and retaining their workers. High-performing firms are identified as gold employers, and the very best ones are badged as platinum employers.

The List recognizes three distinct models for how employers grow talent: 

• Early-career jobs, which are open to entry-level workers and provide skills and training for internal or external advancement. 
• Growth jobs, which provide opportunities to rise internally and externally, especially in firms where leaders are developed from within.
• Stability jobs, which offer leading pay and see strong employee retention.

The List awards platinum and gold badges for each of those archetypes, based on thresholds that represent the highest levels of performance across all companies. The List is not a relative ranking; any firm that exceeds these thresholds is awarded distinction.  Those that do best across the three types of good jobs receive overall recognition.

Of the 1,750 companies assessed, 351 have been recognized as overall platinum employers—the highest level of performance. An additional 351 have been awarded overall gold badges for their performance.

Companies at both levels demonstrate strength across a range of occupations in their workforce in at least two—and usually all three—of the List’s good-jobs archetypes. 

Compared to employees at firms that do not have a platinum or gold overall badge, those at platinum companies across a basket of occupations, on average, are:

• 26 percent more likely to stay for more than three years.
• 68 percent more likely to be promoted internally within five years.
• 38 percent more likely to move onto better roles externally.
• 48 percent more likely to earn more for the same roles.

It’s not just workers who benefit. These firms have built far stronger talent pipelines for filling jobs that can be hard to fill. And as AI raises the value of expertise and as labor market pressures reduce opportunities to hire, workers reward these employers with much greater levels of loyalty.

While the list recognizes distinct models of talent development, a few notable companies—22 of the 1,750 firms evaluated—manage to deliver against each of them simultaneously. Among them are Boeing, Fidelity Investments, General Motors, Liberty Mutual, Mayo Clinic, Northrop Grumman, Proctor & Gamble, and Qualcomm.

People often assume that two people who are in the same occupation will earn and progress about the same, regardless of where they work. That’s not what happens.

The List reveals staggering differences in how workers in the very same job are paid, promoted and retained across different employers. At companies where these occupations are platinum rated, compared to firms where those occupations do not receive a distinction, on average:

• Retail salespeople are paid 91% more.
• Customer service representatives are 85% more likely to be promoted internally.
• Computer user support specialists are 33% more likely to be retained for more than three years.

The List enables employers and workers alike to see how specific occupations are assessed in each of the three good-jobs archetypes across firms, revealing significant differences.

• Retail sales jobs are rated platinum or gold for early career and growth at Costco, Kohl’s and Chipotle, but those jobs are only platinum for stability—meaning they offer above-average pay and retention—at Costco. 
• For marketing managers, Amgen, Hershey and Microsoft are among firms offering platinum-level growth and stability, but none of them offers platinum-level early-career opportunities in that role. 
• For Executive Assistants, Adobe, American Express, and Novo Nordisk are among firms offering platinum-level growth and stability for more seasoned workers, but none of them offer platinum level early career-opportunities in that role. 

Most occupation-company pairs—98 percent of them—are not strong across all three archetypes. Some are strong for people early in their careers but aren’t great places to grow their careers. Other places are good for growth but don’t offer leading stability. And many occupations at companies that are highly rated for stability, don’t have pathways for people to start their careers.

At Kohl’s, for instance, 98 percent of its jobs are platinum or gold for growth, but only 8 percent of its occupations have the same distinction for stability. Conversely, 95 percent of jobs at Nvidia are platinum or gold for stability, but only 22 percent are at that level for growth.

It’s no wonder that most workers job-hop to try to get ahead.

There are, however, 1,202 occupations across all assessed companies are platinum for all three archetypes. They are unicorns of sorts: Places to start one’s career, grow and build a stable job.

We assess the occupation of Financial and Investment Analysts at 138 firms in the Banks and Financial Services sector. Only six are platinum across all three archetypes.  Interestingly, 27 firms in other sectors—including General Mills, Liberty Mutual and Nike—are platinum across all three archetypes for that occupation.

Software and technology companies, many of which have high profit margins and can invest in their workforce, command the greatest share of badges—more than 75 percent of firms in that sector have either a platinum or gold overall badge. But more commoditized industries also do well in creating opportunities for their employees: More than half of the firms in the chemicals, pharmaceuticals, energy, and utilities sectors have one of the two overall badges. 

Different sectors show strength in creating different types of good jobs:

• Retail, hospitality, and entertainment & media companies are often lead as First Jobs.
• Communications & telecom and entertainment & media companies lead for Growth jobs.
• Chemicals, software & technology, and pharmaceuticals lead for Stability jobs.

But sector is not destiny, suggesting that creating good jobs is not specific to industry but rather a management decision. For instance, about a quarter of software and technology firms don’t earn a badge, and every sector with at least 10 companies has at least one platinum badged firm.

The Where You Work Matters List is designed to fill a key void, equipping employers with new data to help them benchmark their success and flag areas for improvement. 

As AI impacts the market for entry-level workers, it increases the impetus for companies to build effective talent pipelines to address emerging needs for personnel with skills and experience. The List helps firms understand how well they are performing across different archetypes of talent development.

The List is rooted in a fundamental belief that employees are a company’s most valuable asset. When employers unlock the full potential of their people, their businesses do better.