WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces™

For-profit and non-profit organizations from across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the UK, India, the Netherlands, and Malaysia made the WorldBlu List from industries such as technology, healthcare, telecommunications, media, manufacturing, aerospace, retail and energy, representing over $12 billion in combined annual sales and ranging in size from five to 60,000 employees. Among the winners are:

Zappos.com — Zappos.com, located outside of Las Vegas, NV, is an online retailer with over $1 billion in annual sales and over 1,300 employees. Everyone at Zappos.com is invited to contribute their thoughts on their culture to their annual “culture book,” which is distributed to all employees, vendors and even customers. Learn more about their democratic culture and check out their CEO, Tony Hsieh’s new book, Delivering Happiness.

HCL Technologies — HCL Technologies, a leading global IT services company based in Noida, India with nearly 60,000 employees worldwide and over $4 billion in annual revenue, calls their management approach, “Employees First, Customers Second,” and is about flipping the corporate pyramid upside down. Fortune magazine describes HCL as having “the world’s most modern management.”  Vineet Nayar, CEO, seeks to figuratively “destroy the office of the CEO” and writes about their journey to a democratic company in his new book also titled, Employees First, Customers Second.

Meetup – Meetup, based in New York City, is world’s largest network of local groups with 6.1 members and 180,000 monthly meet-ups in 45,000 cities across the globe.  Andres Glusman, VP of Strategy and Community states, “At Meetup, we help millions of people self-organize to get stuff done that makes a difference. We try to run the company by that same principle.”

Namaste Solar — Located in Boulder, CO, Namaste Solar propagates the use of solar technology. With nearly 70 employees, Namaste Solar was recently ranked 56th on the Inc. 500 List of Fastest Growing Private Companies, attributing much of their rapid growth since inception to their democratic decision-making model.

3i Infotech — Headquartered in Mumbai, India and Edison, NJ, 3i Infotech has over 5,700 employees and customers in 50 countries with a rate of growth averaging 45 to 50 percent a year. Their CEO, V. Srinivasan explains, “With democracy in the workplace you can generate a lot of ideas on revenue improvement, cost reduction and various other aspects of business. You can also make people take ownership of the vision and goals of the company, which is very important for its sustained growth.”

New Belgium Brewery – CEO Kim Jordan of the Fort Collins, CO-based 340-person company that makes the popular “Fat Tire” beer believes, “Businesses that are open to organizational democracy are usually nimble, resourceful and actively maximizing their human potential.”

DaVita — A $6 billion public healthcare company located in Denver with more than 30,000 ”teammates” (employees), has regular Town Hall meetings to give people the opportunity to have a voice in key strategic decisions. Chairman and CEO Kent Thiry explains, “We practice democracy in the workplace because it enables us to achieve our goals.”

View the entire WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces 2010 and help us spread the word about what transparency, collaboration and a power-to-the-people ethos can do to maximize human potential, boost the bottom-line and change the world in the process.