Hometown Glory

Houston companies dominate the Top 20 of national best places to work rankings

According to Fortune Magazine's new 2014 list of the "100 Best Companies to Work For," Houston companies are some of the best employers in the nation.

Five Houston-based companies were included in the prestigious list and three made the Top 20.

To assemble the list, Fortune partnered with the Great Place to Work Institute — a global human resources consulting, research and training firm which operates in 45 countries — to administer what it claims is "the most extensive employee survey in corporate America." In all, 257 firms and more than 252,000 employees participated in this year's survey.

Two-thirds of each company's score is based on "Trust Index survey" results. Sent to random employees at each company, the survey asks individuals about their attitudes on management credibility, job satisfaction and camaraderie. The other third is based on a "Culture Audit," which includes questions about pay, benefit programs, hiring practices, internal communication methods, training, recognition programs and diversity efforts.

In all, 257 firms and more than 252,000 employees participated in this year's survey.

According to the list, Camden Property Trust — coming in at No. 11 overall — is Houston's best company to work for. Fortune says what makes the company great is that "nonexecutive employees of this apartment giant received surprise bonuses the past three years as a result of better-than-expected financial results." Similarly, the company manages more than 60,000 apartments in 10 states and at least 600 employees live in Camden apartments where they receive a 20-percent discount on rent. The company dropped only one spot from No. 10 on last year's listing.

Only two spots below Camden is homebuilding company David Weekley Homes at No. 13. Fortune says this Houston-based company is great because it flies new employees to the company's headquarters for a two-day orientation and "matches employees’ 401(k) contributions 100 percent up to 8 percent of salary and provides four-year college scholarships of up to $2,000 a year per child."

Oil and gas exploration company Hilcorp came in at No. 15 in the rankings. Fortune says this Houston company is great as it recently announced "an incentive program called Dream 2015 that promises to give every person in the company $100,000 in 2015 if goals are met." Also, employees' children are able to get college scholarships of up to $5,000 per year.

Houston Methodist moved up 21 spots from last year's rankings and came in at No. 46. Fortune says what makes Methodist great is that 20 hospital departments were awarded "Employee Lounge Extreme Makeovers" and were given $10,000 to redecorate.

Oil company EOG Resources was the last Houston company to appear on the list, coming in at No. 97. What makes EOG stand out according to Fortune is that the company matches charitable donations dollar-for-dollar up to $75,000.

Seven other Texas-based companies also made the list with USAA (San Antonio) at No. 17, NuStar Energy (San Antonio) at No. 26, The Container Store (Coppell) at No. 28, Rackspace Hosting Inc. (San Antonio) at No. 29, Whole Foods Market (Austin) at No. 44, National Instruments (Austin) at No. 66 and TDIndustries (Dallas) at No. 82.

Camden Property Trust was the highest ranked Houston-based company on Fortune's 2014 list of the 100 Best Places to Work in the U.S.

Camden Property Trust Facebook

Camden Property Trust was the highest ranked Houston-based company on Fortune's 2014 list of the 100 Best Places to Work in the U.S.

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2026 jobs forecast

Houston's health care sector will drive job growth in 2026, report predicts

Photo by simonkr/Getty Images

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Buoyed by the growing health care sector, the Houston metro area will add 30,900 jobs in 2026, according to a new forecast from the Greater Houston Partnership.

The report predicts the Houston area’s health care sector will tack on 14,000 jobs next year, which would make it the No. 1 industry for local job growth. The 14,000 health care jobs would represent 45 percent of the projected 30,900 new jobs. In the job-creation column, the health care industry is followed by:

Construction: addition of 6,100 jobs in 2026
Public education: Addition of 5,800 jobs
Public administration: Addition of 5,000 jobs

At the opposite end of the regional workforce, the administrative support services sector is expected to lose 7,500 jobs in 2026, preceded by:

Manufacturing: Loss of 3,400 jobs
Oil-and-gas extraction: Loss of 3,200 jobs
Retail: Loss of 1,800 jobs

“While current employment growth has moderated, the outlook remains robust and Houston’s broader economic foundation remains strong,” GHP president and CEO Steve Kean said in the report.

“Global companies are choosing to invest in Houston — Eli Lilly, Foxconn, Inventec, and others — because they believe in our workforce and our long-term trajectory,” Kean added. “These commitments reinforce that Houston is a place where companies can scale and where our economy continues to demonstrate its resilience as a major engine for growth and opportunity. These commitments and current prospects we are working on give us confidence in the future growth of our economy.”

The Greater Houston Partnership says that while the 30,900-job forecast falls short of the region’s recent average of roughly 50,000 new jobs per year, it’s “broadly in line with the muted national outlook” for employment gains anticipated in 2026.

“Even so, Houston’s young, skilled workforce and strong pipeline of major new projects should help offset energy sector pressures and keep regional growth on pace with the nation,” the report adds.

The report says that even though the health care sector faces rising insurance costs, which might cause some people to delay or skip medical appointments, and federal changes in Medicare and Medicaid, strong demographic trends in the region will ensure health care remains “a key pillar of Houston’s economy.”

As for the local oil-and-gas extraction industry, the report says fluctuations and uncertainty in the global oil-and-gas market will weigh on the Houston sector in 2026. Furthermore, oil-and-gas layoffs partly “reflect a longer-term trend as companies in the sector move toward greater efficiency using fewer workers to produce similar volumes,” according to the report.

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This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.