Member News 4.11.25

Ayres Associates is pleased to announce that the firm has earned a 2025 USA TODAY Top Workplaces award and a 2025 Top Workplaces for Engineers award. Read the full press release below:

'Ayres has earned a 2025 USA TODAY Top Workplaces award and a 2025 Top Workplaces for Engineers award, bringing to four the number of recognitions earned as a result of the Energage engagement surveys Ayres’ employee-owners filled out last year. Ayres ranked among the top 10 medium firms in the Top Workplaces for Engineers program.

Energage also awarded Ayres a Professional Development Award and an Employee Well-Being Award as part of its fall 2024 Top Workplaces Culture Excellence national awards program, thanks to our employee-owners’ high opinion of the environment in which they work. All four honors are based on the Energage survey that our workforce responded to in 2024, providing feedback about how valued, empowered, supported, and engaged they feel at work.

The USA TODAY honor is based on the entirety of the responses in all sections of the survey.

The Top Workplaces USA program celebrates organizations that have built great cultures by prioritizing a people-centered culture and giving employees a voice.

The Top Workplaces for Engineers Award is new for 2025. Energage teamed with Engineering.com to present the awards, for which there are winners in the small, medium, and large firm categories. Ayres ranked No. 10 nationwide in the medium category, which is for firms with 150 to 499 employees. Companies need to have at least 35 engineers or have a workforce made up of at least 10 percent engineers to be eligible for this recognition. Ayres is a multidisciplinary firm with approximately 400 professionals, including over 100 registered professional engineers.

Our Wisconsin-based consulting firm also has offices in California, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wyoming. Ayres’ services include civil and municipal engineering, transportation, structural design and inspection, river engineering and water resources, mechanical/electrical/plumbing engineering, landscape architecture, environmental, geospatial, planning and development, and subsurface utility engineering.

One of Ayres’ core values is that it “challenges, supports, and recognizes” its employee-owners, and it shows. Among the exceptional results from the survey that Ayres employee-owners took last year was the 92% who stated they believe their manager cares about their concerns. That placed Ayres in the top 20 percent in our industry on that question. Top adjectives the firm’s employees used to describe Ayres include friendly, ethical, flexible, professional, supportive, and creative.

Other top results include:

• 91% believe Ayres operates according to strong values.
• 90% are happy with their work-life flexibility.
• 87% feel Ayres is an inclusive company.
• 86% feel that they are appreciated at work.
• 85% feel their jobs are meaningful.
• 85% would highly recommend working at Ayres.

“Ayres is committed to the well-being of our people and making sure they know they are valued,” says Bruce Ommen, PE, president. “That motivates and empowers our teams to leverage each individual’s specialty skills to formulate innovative solutions for our clients.”

Ayres’ investment in its workforce includes comprehensive training programs, mentorship opportunities, and career advancement pathways that provide employee-owners the resources they need to thrive in their careers.

“Engineers are the unheralded backbone of our manufacturing economy as well as our broader infrastructure,” said Paul J. Heney, vice president and editorial director of Engineering.com. “Today more than ever, these in-demand professionals are key employees for successful organizations across the technical realm.”

Energage has surveyed 27 million employees across more than 70,000 organizations over its 18 years of workplace culture research. Over 42,000 organizations were invited to participate in the 2024 Top Workplaces USA survey.

Ayres’ profile on the Top Workplaces site can be viewed here: https://topworkplaces.com/company/ayres/.

The Energage survey questions fall into the following themes based on how employees feel:

• Fairly valued: work-life balance, pay, benefits, and well-being
• Respected/supported: innovation, open-mindedness, inclusion, and appreciation
• Enabled to grow: training, development, potential, and growth
• Closely aligned: direction, values, meaningfulness, and leadership
• Empowered: clued-in leaders and employees, execution, cooperation, and meetings
• Engaged: motivation, loyalty, and referral'