See how high Sarasota Memorial ranked on Forbes best large employer list

Sarasota Memorial Health Care System landed on the Forbes.com list of America’s best large employers released this week at Forbes.com.

New Jersey-based drug and biotechnology company Novo Nordisk, with 55,000 employees, was the top-ranked large employer in the country.

Sarasota County’s largest employer, SMH, which had 7,000 employees at the time of the ranking, came in at No. 107 – the third-highest ranked hospital in Florida. That was behind No. 70 Baptist Health of South Florida, with 27,000 employees, and No. 83 Tampa General Hospital, with 8,000 employees, the fourth-highest ranked business in the state.

At No. 45, Raymond James Financial, with 17,000 employees, was the state's top-ranked company.

Thousands of businesses were evaluated nationwide and the top 600 were ranked, with SMH landing in the top 20%.

Other familiar companies included Florida Blue at 131, with 6,500 employees, and Publix Supermarkets at 172 with 240,000 employees.

If all this sounds a little familiar, it's because SMH was also the state’s fourth-ranked employer in its list of America’s “Best-in-State” employers released last August.

Forbes has also recognized SMH among Florida’s Best-in-State Employers and among the nation’s Best Employers for Women, a designation given to less than 1% of large companies nationwide.

Sarasota Memorial CEO David Verinder credits the public health system’s deep roots in the community and team’s shared mission for the repeated recognition by Forbes.

“Sarasota Memorial has been caring for this community for nearly 100 years,” Verinder said by email. “There is a sense of pride and community ownership that has inspired our staff through the decades and continues to guide us today.”

An expanding horizon in Venice

Since the rankings were amassed, SMH has grown to about 10,000 employees.

The northeast tower of the SMH Venice campus is projected to open in mid-April.

As part of Phase 1 of that expansion, opening of the top three floors will eventually increase the in-patient bed capacity from 110 to 178.

Phase 2, expected to open in the fall of 2024, will include a medical surgical unit and 34 private rooms that will boost the overall inpatient bed count to 212.

Expansion of the emergency department is ongoing as well. Two new operating rooms opened in January – bringing the total to 10, with shell space available for another eight operating rooms.

The number of examination rooms for the emergency department will eventually increase from 28 to 61, while imaging services are expanding to add a third CT scanner and X-ray equipment for emergency patients.

How the rankings are evaluated

Forbes works in partnership with Statista, a market research form that surveys employees of U.S. companies with more than 5,000 workers.

Related: SMH picks architect and contractor to help master plan a new hospital in North Port

The respondents were asked to evaluate their employer on criteria such as work hours, training and promotion opportunities, workload expectations, mental health benefits and management diversity.

The ranking also factored in sustained performance over a three-year period – which is a longer period than its Best-In-State listings.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: SMH ranks among top 20% of large employers on annual Forbes ranking