Worst Workplace to Work
A public, verifiable signal that a workplace's own employees rated it below 75%. Not a punishment, but an early-warning diagnostic — free, honest data that flags culture risk before it shows up in attrition or Glassdoor, with employees protected from retaliation and a clear, documented path back through a re-survey.
What the designation means
A structured, appealable, employee-verified warning, not an anonymous rumor.
Issued when verified employees rate an organization below 75% across 15 categories, and shown on its public profile and in rankings.
Unlike the Good badge, this designation stays in place until a new, verified round of surveys re-audits the workplace.
Employers can request a re-survey once real change has been made. Our team coordinates a fresh, verified survey window.
Organizations can post a public response on their profile. Candidates and investors tend to read silence as confirmation.
Every response is checked for IP, device and duplicate patterns, so coordinated brigading is filtered out before scores publish.
The public report shows exactly which of the 15 categories dragged the score down, such as leadership, pay, safety or toxicity.
Employers may file a written appeal on methodology or fraud grounds. Our review committee responds within 10 business days.
Individual respondents are never named. All data is aggregated and anonymized before it is published.
Why a Worst Workplace verdict is actually useful for employers
A low score is uncomfortable, but it's also the cheapest, most honest culture data an organization will ever get — and the earliest possible chance to act on it.
Surfaces culture risk while it's still fixable, well before it shows up as attrition spikes or a wave of public Glassdoor reviews.
No engagement vendor will hand you unfiltered, anonymous employee sentiment for free. This is the same data, without the sales pitch.
Instead of a vague morale problem, you get a ranked breakdown of exactly which categories, like leadership or pay, are driving the score.
Fix, re-survey, re-certify: a clear, timestamped record that change happened, useful for HR, leadership and the board alike.
Organizations that visibly act and re-certify often turn the story into proof of a listening culture, not a permanent scar.
Investors and boards increasingly ask how culture risk is being managed. A dated diagnostic and re-survey plan is exactly that evidence.
What happens next
A simple, documented roadmap from diagnostic to re-certification.
Read the category-level report and identify the two or three areas actually driving the score down.
Make real, visible changes tied to those categories, not cosmetic gestures or one-off announcements.
After at least 90 days, open a fresh verified survey window so employees can confirm what changed.
Clear 75% and the Worst designation is retired, automatically replaced by a Good Place to Work certificate.
Public notice preview
Sample of the public notice attached to organizations that fall below the 75% threshold.
Verified employee satisfaction score of 42%, below the 75% threshold across 15 independently audited workplace categories.
Common causes
Most Worst designations can be traced back to one or more of these root failures.
Bullying, cliques, retaliation, or normalized bad behavior reported independently by multiple respondents.
Executives seen as dishonest, unavailable, or self-serving, leaving employees with little trust in stated direction.
Compensation significantly below market rate, or basic benefits framed as perks rather than fair pay.
Employees cannot raise concerns without fear of career damage, exclusion, or retaliation.
The path off the list
There is one route off the list: fix what employees flagged, then let them verify the change.
The public report identifies which categories failed. Start there, not with a PR statement.
Address the specific categories that failed. Cosmetic gestures, like posters or one-off town halls, will not move employee-verified scores.
After at least 90 days of documented change, request a fresh survey window from your organization profile.
If the new round clears 75%, the Worst designation is retired and a Good Place to Work certificate issues automatically.
Employer rights
- Right to a public response on the organization profile.
- Right to appeal on methodology or fraud grounds within 10 business days.
- Right to request a re-survey after 90 days of documented change.
- Right to see aggregate scores and category-level diagnostics (never individual responses).
Common questions
No. The designation is based on aggregated, verified employee ratings collected under a published methodology, and every score is factual and sourced.
No. The designation cannot be bought, removed or altered by payment of any kind. The only way off the list is a new, employee-verified survey window.
Individual respondents remain anonymous and are protected from identification. Attempts at retaliation are grounds for the designation to remain in place.
File an appeal through the Contact page. If methodology or fraud filtering was misapplied, we investigate and correct it publicly.
Help surface the truth, so it can be fixed
Anonymous, work-email verified, and fraud-checked — a few minutes to give a workplace the honest, actionable data it needs to improve.