Dordt Awarded on the Forbes America’s Best Small Employers 2023 List

Dordt University has been awarded on the Forbes list of America’s Best Small Employers 2023. This prestigious award is presented by Forbes and Statista Inc., the world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider. The awards list was announced on July 18^th, 2023, and can currently be viewed on the Forbes website.

America’s Best Small Employers ranking was based on the analysis of over 7 million data points with over 11,000 companies with more than 200 employees, but fewer than 1000. Placement on the final list was awarded based on a scoring model that considered the following aspects:

A. Employee Satisfaction / Public Opinion Data: This took the form of recommendations given by employees anonymously through online surveys. These were either direct recommendations (0 to 10 scores from employees of the company) or indirect recommendations (positive/negative evaluations of companies, reflecting public opinion). Additionally, employee retention (avg. length of employment) was considered.

B. Social listening data: The sentiment reflected in various sources across thousands of social media posts related to the company’s relationship with its employees is identified through an algorithm and deemed either positive, negative, or neutral based on textual analysis.

Based on the results of the study, Dordt University is excited to be recognized on the Forbes list of America’s Best Small Employers 2023.

“For Dordt to receive Forbes’ recognition as an outstanding small employer is gratifying, particularly since ‘joy-filled work’ is one of Dordt’s six strategic initiatives,” says President Dr. Erik Hoekstra. “I’ve been blessed to work at Dordt for more than a decade, and my sense of why our team members experience Dordt as a great employer is two-fold. First, the laser-focused missional alignment, and second, that we see our fellow team members as created image bearers of God and we care for one another in ways that reflect authentic Christian community.”

About Dordt University

As an institution of higher education committed to the Reformed Christian perspective, Dordt University equips students, faculty, alumni, and the broader community to work toward Christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary life. Located in Sioux Center, Iowa, Dordt is a comprehensive university named to the best college lists by U.S. News and World Report, the Wall Street Journal, Times Higher Education, Forbes.com, Washington Monthly, and Princeton Review.