What does a work culture offering inspiring work, open communication, generous benefits and work-life balance win? In this case, the top spot on the elite World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list from Great Place to Work ®.

SAS, the leader in business analytics software and services, ranked No. 1 based on inspiring work, open communication, generous benefits and work-life balance.

“This recognition underscores our efforts to encourage creativity and innovation around the world, no matter where we are located,” said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. “Employee feedback is critical to achieving first place on this list. It means a great deal that SAS employees value the company as much as we value them. It also mirrors how we value our customers.”

SAS is recognized worldwide by Great Place to Work. Last year, SAS ranked No. 2 on the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list. In 2012, SAS Belgium and SAS Sweden were both No. 1 on their country lists of Best Companies to Work For. SAS corporate headquarters (US) and SAS Norway were both No. 1 on their country lists in 2010 and 2011. This year, SAS has been among the top workplaces in Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Greece, India, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the US.

That is quite a line up.

“The companies listed on the second annual World’s Best Multinational Workplaces List are creating workplaces dedicated to fostering trust, pride and camaraderie among their employees,” said Susan Lucas-Conwell, Global CEO of Great Place to Work. “Their inclusion on this prestigious list demonstrates their commitment to continually improving the lives of their employees and setting innovative new standards for workplaces of the future.”

How to become elegible

To be eligible, companies must appear on five or more national Great Place to Work lists in the past year and have more than 5,000 employees worldwide, with at least 40 percent working outside the company’s home country. Companies on the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list are rated by their employees to be among the best companies, and have excellent HR policies and practices that support a culture of trust.

Since launching the first best workplaces lists in partnership with Fortune magazine in the United States and Exame in Brazil in 1997, Great Place to Work now recognizes leading workplaces in 45 countries. Every year, Great Place to Work analyzes data from surveys taken by more than 2.5 million employees and workplace culture analytics taken from 5,671 companies that represent more than 11 million employees. The World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list is the first integrated look at survey data from employees of thousands of companies across six continents, making it the world’s largest annual study of workplace excellence.

Trust is the first of the six TIGERS Collaborative principles that build high performance teams with an accountable and engaged work culture. The other five principles are interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. The ability to track the quality of the TIGERS principles within any team helps leaders produce workforce development strategies that are on target with measurable team building return on investment.

Copyright TIGERS Success Series by Dianne Crampton

Join Senior Consultant, Dianne Crampton, and 9 other specialists in the Engagement, Retention and Growth training series scheduled for first quarter 2013.