HRO Today Magazine has announced the 2023-24 HR100, a comprehensive list ranking the world's 100 best human resources departments. This inaugural ranking addresses a significant gap in the industry by providing what the publication describes as the first definitive source identifying which companies excel in human resources management. For nearly two decades, HRO Today has ranked HR service providers through its Baker's Dozen Customer Satisfaction Ratings™, but its research indicated a lack of a consolidated ranking for overall HR departmental excellence.
The HR100 evaluates and scores HR departments across eight critical core areas: workplace culture, employee benefits, diversity and inclusion, employee development and talent management, human resources innovation, leadership development, talent acquisition, and employer brand. Performance in these categories is aggregated to form an index that provides a composite score representing overall HR excellence. This multidimensional approach offers vendors and industry observers a more nuanced understanding of what constitutes top-tier HR performance beyond single metrics or narrow specializations.
To create the ranking, the HRO Today research team collected publicly available data from nearly 40 established benchmarking and ranking programs across the identified categories. This methodology generates scores based equally on depth and breadth of both external recognition and internal performance indicators. The data is aggregated and weighted to produce the final index used for ranking. The complete HR100 list can be found at https://hrotoday.com.
The top ten companies on the 2023-24 list include Cisco Meraki, Bank of America, IBM, HubSpot, Alphabet Inc. (Google), Capital One, Dell Technologies, Salesforce, Marriott International, and Workday. These organizations represent diverse industries including technology, finance, hospitality, and enterprise software, demonstrating that excellence in human resources management transcends sector boundaries.
For HR vendors and industry professionals, the HR100 establishes a new benchmark for evaluating potential clients, partners, and competitors. The ranking's comprehensive methodology covering eight core areas provides a more complete picture of organizational HR capabilities than previous single-dimension rankings. Vendors selling into the HR industry can use this data to identify organizations with sophisticated HR functions that may be more receptive to innovative solutions and partnerships. The list also highlights companies that prioritize HR excellence, potentially indicating organizations where HR has significant strategic influence and budget authority.
The introduction of the HR100 represents a significant development in how HR departmental performance is measured and recognized globally. By consolidating data from multiple established benchmarking programs, HRO Today has created what may become the industry standard for evaluating comprehensive HR excellence. This could influence how organizations allocate resources to their HR functions and how vendors target their sales and marketing efforts toward companies demonstrating commitment to HR excellence across multiple dimensions.
