Roth Staffing has been ranked No. 2 among the Best Places to Work in Los Angeles for 2026, putting employee experience and workplace culture at the center of the staffing firm’s latest recognition. The annual program, organized by the Los Angeles Business Journal and Workforce Research Group, uses both employer-submitted workplace data and anonymous employee feedback to determine its rankings.

For employers competing for talent, workplace culture has become increasingly measurable.

Roth Staffing’s latest recognition in Los Angeles illustrates that shift. The staffing company was ranked No. 2 in the 2026 Best Places to Work in Los Angeles program, an annual awards initiative created by the Los Angeles Business Journal and Workforce Research Group.

The ranking was announced at an August 6, 2026, awards dinner and evaluates employers based on both organizational practices and employee experience.

That distinction matters.

Workplace awards are often associated with employer branding, but the methodology behind the Los Angeles program puts substantial weight on what employees actually say about their experience. Approximately 20% of the evaluation is based on company-provided information covering benefits, policies, practices and workforce demographics. The remaining 80% comes from an anonymous employee survey.

The result is intended to measure not simply what an employer offers, but how employees experience the organization.

For HR leaders, that approach reflects a larger movement toward employee-experience analytics.

Organizations increasingly have access to workforce data covering engagement, retention, compensation, career development and workplace sentiment. Rather than relying solely on annual engagement surveys, employers can use more frequent feedback mechanisms and people analytics to identify problems before they translate into turnover.

Roth Staffing, part of the broader Roth Staffing Companies organization, says its workplace culture is built around caring, collaboration, inclusion and employee support.

George Pentaris, Market Vice President for Roth Staffing Companies, said the recognition was particularly meaningful because it reflected employee experiences and voices.

The staffing industry provides an interesting backdrop for the recognition.

Staffing companies operate at the intersection of employers and workers, making their own employee experience important to their ability to attract and retain internal talent while serving clients. Recruiters, account managers and other staffing professionals work in an environment where relationships, responsiveness and collaboration directly affect business outcomes.

A strong internal employee experience can therefore have implications beyond retention.

For staffing firms, employees are also part of the service proposition. Recruiters who understand an organization’s culture and have the resources to support candidates can influence both hiring outcomes and client relationships.

The Los Angeles ranking comes as employers across industries are paying closer attention to the relationship between workplace culture and talent strategy.

The labor market has become more selective since the extraordinary hiring conditions of the early 2020s. Employers may be hiring more cautiously, but retaining experienced workers remains important because replacing institutional knowledge can be expensive.

This has increased interest in employee listening, workforce analytics and employee-experience platforms.

Technology providers including Workday, Microsoft, Qualtrics, Oracle and SAP offer tools that can help organizations gather workforce feedback, analyze employee sentiment and connect engagement information with broader HR data.

The objective is moving beyond simply asking whether employees are satisfied.

Modern employee-experience programs increasingly attempt to identify why workers stay, what prevents them from performing effectively and where organizational policies may be creating friction.

That can include everything from manager effectiveness and career development to workload, flexibility, compensation and recognition.

Awards programs such as Los Angeles’ Best Places to Work initiative offer another mechanism for benchmarking workplace practices, although employers should distinguish between recognition and comprehensive workforce analytics.

An external ranking provides visibility and can strengthen an employer’s recruiting brand. Internal workforce data can provide the operational detail necessary to determine which policies are actually driving engagement and retention.

The methodology used in the Los Angeles program is notable because employee feedback accounts for the majority of the score. That gives workers a meaningful role in determining the final ranking and reflects a broader trend toward employee-generated workforce intelligence.

For HR teams, the lesson is straightforward: employer reputation increasingly depends on the gap between what companies say about their workplace and what employees experience.

That gap is becoming easier to measure.

Employee surveys, pulse checks, retention data, internal mobility metrics and people analytics can provide HR leaders with a more detailed view of workplace health. Organizations that combine those signals with compensation and performance data can potentially identify emerging retention risks before they become expensive hiring problems.

Roth Staffing’s No. 2 ranking is ultimately one data point rather than a universal measure of workplace quality. But the process behind the recognition highlights an important development in HR: employee experience is becoming an increasingly important source of business intelligence.

As competition for skilled workers continues, companies will need more than attractive recruiting messages. They will need workplace systems that employees experience as supportive, equitable and sustainable.

Market Landscape

The employee-experience market is increasingly merging with people analytics, workforce management and talent-retention technology.

Platforms from Workday, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Qualtrics provide organizations with tools for employee surveys, engagement measurement, workforce analytics and HR decision-making.

At the same time, employers are moving toward more continuous forms of employee listening. Pulse surveys and real-time feedback can give HR teams a faster view of workforce sentiment than traditional annual surveys.

The challenge is turning that data into action.

High employee engagement scores do not automatically produce lower turnover or stronger performance. HR teams need to connect sentiment with operational indicators such as absenteeism, attrition, promotion rates, compensation changes and manager performance.

That is where people analytics becomes strategically important.

For staffing and recruiting companies, the stakes can be even higher because workplace culture influences the professionals responsible for sourcing candidates, managing client relationships and delivering hiring services.

Roth Staffing’s ranking demonstrates how employer recognition can become part of that broader talent strategy.

Top Insights

• Roth Staffing ranked No. 2 in Los Angeles’ 2026 workplace awards, with anonymous employee feedback accounting for approximately 80% of the evaluation.
• The ranking highlights how employee experience is becoming a measurable component of employer brand, talent retention and workforce strategy.
• People analytics platforms increasingly connect employee sentiment with retention, compensation, performance and internal mobility data for HR decision-making.
• Staffing firms face particular pressure to maintain strong employee experiences because recruiters and account teams directly influence client and candidate relationships.
• External workplace rankings can strengthen recruiting brands, but internal workforce analytics remain essential for identifying the drivers behind engagement and retention.

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