If employee engagement levels are a proxy for workers’ well-being and job satisfaction, then it may be time for employers around the world to reevaluate their organization’s status quo. According to a long-running study produced annually by Gallup—the State of the Global Workplace 2026 report—only 20% of employees across more than 140 countries report being engaged at work, and 40% of employees report feeling considerable daily stress.
These statistics don’t mean, however, that all companies have fallen down on the job when it comes to employee well-being. In fact, Forbes has partnered with market research firm Statista for the seventh straight year to evaluate companies around the world and identify those that support their employees by offering meaningful work, top-tier compensation, training in new technologies and more. The result is our ranking of the World’s Best Employers 2026.
To determine the list, Forbes and Statista surveyed more than 300,000 employees in more than 50 countries. The surveys, which were conducted online, were independent of any corporations so that participants could remain anonymous. Survey respondents were asked where they worked via an open-ended question with an autofill option, and corporations were eligible for consideration if they employed more than 1,000 people and operated globally.
Survey participants rated how likely they were to recommend their employer to family and friends, and evaluated the company on such criteria as salary, career advancement opportunities, work-life balance and company reputation. Respondents could also evaluate former employers (within the past two years) and companies they knew through their own industry knowledge and through friends and family who worked there.
The survey responses were then tallied and put through a scoring system that included data from the previous three years, with heavier weight given to the more recent data and to the evaluations from current employees. The corporations that earned the highest scores made our final ranking. And while the number of honorees per country varied based on the population and qualifying companies in each area, ultimately 900 companies, headquartered in 52 countries, made our list of the World’s Best Employers 2026, which is presented directly below.