MINNEAPOLIS -- Two c-store chains made the Minneapolis Star Tribune's list of top 25 places to work in the Twin Cities area, with Kwik Trip ranking No. 6 and CHS Inc. (Cenex) at No. 22.
Beyond the large field of participants, there is "an unusually deep bench of top workplaces in the market," the newspaper reported.
Ranking in surveys such as these helps motivate employees and rewards them for the job they do on a daily basis, said John McHugh, director of communications for the La Crosse, Wis.-based Kwik Trip.
"When the word gets out there, people want to work for you," McHugh told CSP Daily News.
The survey noted that Kwik Trip has 104 locations in Minnesota and 2,508 employees in the state. The chain has 10,100 employees throughout its network.
Kwik Trip operates a chain of 372 Kwik Trip, Kwik Star (in Iowa) and Kwik Trip Travel Center locations throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. Another 38 locations are tobacco outlets, as well as three Hearty Platter full-serve restaurants.
Inver Grove Heights, Minn.-based CHS has 90 locations and 2,000 employees in the state, with 9,000 employees in its company.
Saint Paul, Minn.-based CHS is the nation's leading cooperative, owned by farmers, ranchers and co-ops across the United States. A diversified energy, grains and foods business, it supplies energy, crop nutrients, grain marketing services, livestock feed, food and food ingredients, along with business solutions including insurance, financial and risk management services. The company operates petroleum refineries/pipelines and manufactures, markets and distributes Cenex brand refined fuels, lubricants, propane and renewable energy products.
In addition to this year's larger list of Top 100 winners, another 60 state companies met its survey firm's national standards benchmark, but did not score high enough to crack the Top 100. That's the largest number of standard-setting companies among all the markets that the Star Tribune's partner research firm, WorkplaceDynamics, Exton, Pa., surveys, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta.
"Minnesota has lots of top workplaces," said Doug Claffey, CEO of WorkplaceDynamics. "It is our largest top workplaces program. We have almost doubled the size of the program in three years, which is unprecedented."
Why does Minnesota have so many top workplaces?
Its large and diversified corporate community is one possible explanation, the Star Tribune reported. The state is home to many large, privately held companies, including Wayzata, Minn.-based Cargill Inc., the world's biggest private company, which ranked No. 24 on this year's top workplaces "large-company" list. Minnesota also has a high concentration of Fortune 500 companies, with 19 area firms in Fortune magazine's 2012 list.
Claffey said he doesn't know specifically why Minnesota has so many top workplaces (the question was not part of the research project), but he said that healthy companies, regardless of size, tend to perform well when employees give them high marks on what he calls the "we factors."' Those include such questions as "where are we headed, how are we are going to get there and are we making a difference."
Among large-company employers, Minnesota's top workplaces represent a cross-section of the state's service industry where the customer is king and an engaged, satisfied workforce is a must for business success.
Top 10 "Large" Company Rankings for 2012:
- Keller-Williams
- Edward Jones
- RE/MAX Results
- Minnesota Twins
- FedEx
- Kwik Trip
- Bremer Bank
- AgStar Financial Services
- UCare
- Graco Inc.
CHS came in at No. 22.
Click here for the full Star Tribune article. And click here for the full 2012 Top Workplaces list. (See Related Content below for a recent CSPTV Store Tour of a Kwik Trip location.)
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