These 10 MI Companies Are Among America’s Best Employers

MICHIGAN — Kalitta Air, DTE Energy and University of Michigan are the best employers with headquarters in Michigan, according to a new ranking from Forbes.

The Forbes report, America’s Best Employers By State, is based on a survey of more than 160,000 employees of companies with at least 500 people working in U.S. operations.

The survey, conducted by the market research firm Statista, asked participants how likely they were on a scale of zero to 10 to recommend their employer as a good place to work. Respondents were also asked to evaluate employers they’d worked for within the past two years, and organizations they knew within their industry or through friends or family who worked there.

By those measures, the top 10 employers headquartered in Michigan are:

1. Kalitta Air, transportation and logistics, based in Ypsilanti; Connie Kalittais the CEO of the company, founded in 1999.
2. DTE Energy, utilities, based in Detroit with 10,000 employees; Jerry Norcia the CEO of the company, founded in 1996.
3. University of Michigan, education, based in Ann Arbor with 56,476 employees; Santa Ono the CEO of the company, founded in 1817.
4. Ally Financial, banking and financial services, based in Detroit with 11,600 employees; Michael George Rhodes CEO of the company, founded in 1919.
5. Rocket Mortgage, banking and financial services, based in Detroit with 14,700 employees; Varun Krishna CEO of the company, founded in 1985.
6. University of Michigan Health System, healthcare and social services, based in Ann Arbor with 25,743 employees; Marschall S. Runge CEO of the company, founded 1997.
7. My Michigan Health, healthcare and social services, based in Midland with 10,600 employees; Lydia Watson CEO of the company, founded 1984.
8. Stryker, healthcare equipment and services, based in Kalamazoo with 27,000 employees; Kevin A. Lobo CEO of the company, founded 1941.
9. Auto-owners Insurance, insurance, based in Lansing with 6,009 employees; Jamie Whisnant CEO of the company, founded 1916.
10. Priority Health, healthcare and social services, based in Grand Rapids with 1,600 employees; Praveen Thadani CEO of the company, founded 2020.

Workers from all 50 states and the District of Columbia answered the most recent survey. Those findings were supplemented with data from the previous three surveys. In all, 1,294 organizations made the final cut.

Those in the final list are performing well with workers for their employee retention efforts, according to Forbes.

“When employees are in their roles for longer, leaders need to consider how they can ensure that they are providing challenges and development opportunities for that member of the staff to keep them engaged, satisfied, and productive,” Becky Wallace, head of people at LearnUpon, a corporate learning platform, told Forbes.

The report found that fewer than 50 percent of workers think their employer invests in the skills they need to advance.