The list of winners was generated by Best Companies Group (BCG), based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which conducts employee engagement research on over 500,000 professionals from 6,000 companies every year. To read more about the methodology, click here.
Company Ranking: 1
Bregman, Berbert, Schwartz & Gilday, LLC
Early one Thursday afternoon, there was a friendly knock on legal assistant Tara Fahimi’s office door. Someone was stopping by to take her order for lunch the next day. Every Friday, the law firm of Bregman, Berbert, Schwartz & Gilday brings in food from area restaurants and picks up the tab.
Company Ranking: 2
Wealthspire Advisors
When Bill Schwartz joined fledgling Highline Wealth Management in 2008, he didn’t expect the six-person Bethesda advisory firm would grow into one with 14 locations nationwide and more than 150 employees. All he knew was that the folks at Highline were more supportive than those at the huge wealth management firm where he had worked.
Company Ranking: 3
Octopus Interactive
Most of the walls at Octopus Interactive have octopus arms painted across them and sayings like “Let’s Play” and “Let’s Chill.” Arcade games flank a door. A nearby lounge area has a Ping-Pong table with its own set of bleachers. “You are invited to the Ping-Pong tournament tonight,” Operations Manager Michael Marchetti tells a visitor…
Company Ranking: 4
Potomac Law Group, PLLC
One afternoon in August, Matt Bergman was finishing client calls from the deck of his 39-foot boat, docked on the South River in Edgewater, Maryland. He wasn’t on vacation; for him, it was a regular day at the office. Bergman is a partner at Potomac Law Group, which has functioned remotely since its founding 10…
Company Ranking: 5
The Meridian Group
On Friday afternoons in pre-COVID days, much of the staff at The Meridian Group gathered on the company’s sprawling terrace high above downtown Bethesda, grabbed beers from the nearby kegerator, and decompressed on comfy outdoor sofas. Sometimes they’d play cornhole.
Company Ranking: 6
Lerch Early & Brewer, Chtd.
The lobby of Bethesda law firm Lerch, Early & Brewer is a serene expanse of tans and grays, with glass-walled conference rooms and panoramic views. It’s hard to imagine the space hosting an after-hours karaoke lounge, Hawaiian-themed aloha night or a giant Jenga game. But a custom system allows the glass dividers to slide back…
Company Ranking: 7
Anthony Wilder Design/Build, Inc.
When you open the glass door of the former fire station that’s home to Anthony Wilder Design/Build in Cabin John, Director of First Impressions Rachel Cave is sitting behind the desk. She looks up and smiles. But the best greeting is from Beau, a 1-year-old Bernese mountain dog.
Company Ranking: 8
Round House Theatre
“What we do matters,” and that’s one of the things that makes Round House Theatre a great place to work, says Danisha Crosby, the organization’s director of education.
Company Ranking: 9
Sandy Spring Builders, LLC
Mike McNeel, who has been a project manager at Sandy Spring Builders for 13 years, says it’s “unheard of” for people to work for a decade or more for one employer in the home construction business. But he says he has no intention of leaving Sandy Spring Builders. It’s not just the fully funded profit-sharing…
Company Ranking: 10
The Market at River Falls
When kids head toward the lobster tank at The Market at River Falls in Potomac, employee Ronald Logan asks if they want to see a lobster up close. One day this past summer, he says with a laugh, “I took it out and [the kids] started petting it.” For Logan, the market’s lead customer service representative, it’s all part…
Company Ranking: 11
Capital City Nurses
At Capital City Nurses, the company culture can be summarized in two words: “Go Blue.”
Company Ranking: 12
The Hatcher Group
“Above all, we’re looking for someone who is kind.” Those words in a job posting four years ago intrigued Reece Quiñones so much that she decided to leave a company where she’d been happily employed for 15 years and join The Hatcher Group, a Bethesda-based communications firm focused on public policy and social change. Now…
Company Ranking: 13
Aldon
In 2018, the Brown family—which has owned Aldon since its founding in 1947—brought in new management. Now, “there’s a lot more support, there’s a lot more training…people get listened to,” says Leslie Gutierrez, who joined Aldon as a leasing agent nearly a decade ago.
Company Ranking: 14
EveryMind
Marcela Compagnet-Orellana, the human resources director at the Rockville nonprofit EveryMind, says there’s a running joke that “nobody would say anything” if an employee wanted to take off on National Margarita Day (Feb. 22).
Company Ranking: 15
Stein Sperling Bennett De Jong Driscoll PC
Thirty years ago, Jeff Schwaber, an associate at a large Baltimore law firm, was assigned to a case in Montgomery County. For the duration of the trial, his supervisors arranged for him to “bum an office” at a small law firm across the street from the Rockville courthouse. “They didn’t know me from a hole in…
Company Ranking: 16
Westat
When Rockville-based research company Westat decided it was time to add a fitness center to its eight-building campus 12 years ago, its employees led the charge, “coming up with the specs, the requirements, interviewing the companies that came in, being a part of the decision-making process,” says Donna Atkinson, one of Westat’s associate directors for…