tl;dr
The 2025 Top Workplace and Best of the Best Awards celebrate organizations that put employees first, creating thriving cultures of engagement, satisfaction, and teamwork. With 72 companies and over 36,000 employee votes, this year’s winners set a new benchmark for excellence across industries. These awards not only recognize outstanding performance but also inspire continuous improvement, strengthen employer branding, and highlight the power of listening to employee voices.
Introduction
Since 2023, HR.Weekend in Rovinj brings together HR professionals, business leaders and innovators who are shaping the future of work. This year’s event once again featured numerous inspiring talks from leading experts in psychology and HR, offering valuable insights for professionals across industries. It also celebrated workplace excellence with the Top Workplace Awards and, for the very first time, the Best of the Best Award live ceremony.
Introduced to recognize the organizations that achieve outstanding results across all categories, the Best of the Best Award celebrates true excellence, honoring organizations that don’t just meet benchmarks but consistently raise them.
Both recognitions celebrate organizations that put their people at the center, investing in satisfaction, engagement and culture as the true drivers of success.
The story behind the Awards
When Luppa introduced the Top Workplace Award in 2023, the goal was simple: to recognize organizations that actively listen to employees and continuously improve their culture. Since then, the award has become a respected benchmark of excellence in the world of work. What sets it apart from other recognitions is that it comes directly from employees, their voices and experiences are the key criteria for selection.
As Daniel Ackermann, Luppa CEO, put it:
"From the very beginning, the goal of this recognition has been to reward and promote the best workplaces and inspire the entire community. Seeing such exceptional participation, interest and competition makes me very happy and proud, because it shows that we have truly succeeded in this mission."
In 2024, the first live ceremony in Rovinj brought the awards to the HR.Weekend stage, giving the winners well-deserved recognition in front of the HR community.
And this year, the story grew even bigger. With the introduction of the Best of the Best Award, we set out to honor organizations that not only outperform but redefine workplace excellence across all categories. This new category is reserved for very best organizations, those who push boundaries and set new standards in the labor market.
Discover more about the 2025 Adriatics Top Workplace and Best of the Best Awards - what they represent, their purpose, and how they celebrate exceptional organizational culture.
Meet the 2025 winners
The competition was extremely strong this year, with 72 companies participating and a total of 36,177 employees providing their feedback through the survey.
Best of the Best winners
This year’s champions represent the very best in their markets and categories:
Croatia
Large companies:
- 1st place: JGL
- 2nd place: Addiko
Small companies:
- 1st place: Factory X
- 2nd place: DECODE
Serbia
Large companies:
- 1st place: Addiko
- 2nd place: Mplus
- 3rd place: MediGroup
Small companies:
- 1st place: Degordian
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Large companies:
- 1st place: Addiko
Mid-sized companies:
- 1st place: Mplus
Small companies:
- 1st place: Degordian
Slovenia
Mid-sized companies:
- 1st place: Addiko
- 2nd place: Mplus
Small companies:
- 1st place: Manpower
The Top Workplace winners
- Finance: Addiko Group
- Healthcare: MediGroup
- Hospitality: Jadranski Luksuzni Hoteli
- IT: Factory X, ASEE Hrvatska & Monri Payments, Visage Technologies, APIS IT, DECODE
- Marketing: SeekandHit, Degordian
- Non-food industry: Sinago
- Other services: Mplus Group, Manpower Group
- Pharmaceutical: JGL
How to take part in the awards
By using Luppa and conducting a Deep Dive survey, every company becomes eligible to participate in the awards.
The evaluation process is based on several key criteria:
- eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score): Measures how likely employees are to recommend their company as a workplace.
- Employee engagement: The level of involvement, motivation, and commitment among employees.
- 12 dimensions of employee satisfaction: Covering aspects such as work-life balance, leadership, growth opportunities, and company culture.
Employee satisfaction results are compared against industry and market averages. To earn the Top Workplace Award, companies must score at least 15% above these averages.
The Best of the Best Award goes even further, honoring organizations whose results are 25% higher than the benchmarks, recognizing those who truly set the standard for workplace excellence. This means some categories might have multiple winners - or none at all.
Learn more about the award criteria.
Why these awards matter
Earning the Top Workplace or Best of the Best Award goes beyond recognition of excellence - it strengthens a company’s reputation and helps build a trusted employer brand. Such achievements resonate both internally and externally.
Within organizations, they inspire pride among employees, reinforcing a sense of belonging and validation that their voices matter.
Externally, they showcase a company’s commitment to creating a thriving workplace, increasing visibility in the labor market and positioning the organization as an employer of choice.
Beyond recognition, the award can also serve as a catalyst for continuous growth. It encourages companies to continue listening to employee feedback and to build on their strengths, ensuring that workplace culture remains dynamic and future-oriented. In this way, the award is not just a celebration of what has been achieved, but also a driver for continuous improvement and long-term success.
Ultimately, being named a Top Workplace or Best of the Best is both a celebration and a responsibility: it recognizes excellence today while committing to sustaining and advancing that excellence tomorrow. For more details and arrangements, please contact the Luppa team directly.
Word from the winners
The true power of these awards lies in the stories of those who received them.
- Marina Drmač, Group People Growth & Development Director at Addiko Group, emphasized how meaningful the award is for both the company and its employees, noting that it truly belongs to the employees and inspires the organization to continue creating environments where people feel comfortable and can grow.
- Bruna Kostelac Košir from Mplus Group echoed the sentiment, underlining that the award reflects a collective effort. She highlighted the role of both global and local HR teams, as well as managers, in maintaining high engagement levels. For Bruna, the recognition carries special weight because it comes directly from employees’ voices. This achievement, she noted, proves that their people-first approach works and inspires them to keep raising the bar.
- Lorena Dika, Human Resources Director at JGL, highlighted the responsibility that comes with continuous recognition, seeing it as both a privilege and a commitment to continuous improvement.
- Martina Škare Boboš, Office Manager (HR) at SeekandHit, described how the award validates a culture of teamwork, bringing satisfaction and pride to the entire team. She emphasized that it motivates HR and all employees to keep moving in the same direction, demonstrating that a strong culture of collaboration makes a real difference, while also enhancing employer branding and supporting talent attraction.
- Finally, Ivana Pejak, HR Manager at MediGroup, highlighted one of the most important aspects of the award, noting that it is based on employee feedback and emphasizing that it inspires continuous improvement while strengthening the company’s reputation across the region.
These testimonials showcase the dedication, teamwork, and people-first approach that set these organizations apart. We’re always thrilled to see our winners proud and happy, knowing we played a part in that is incredibly meaningful to us.
Looking ahead
The Top Workplace and Best of the Best awards show what’s possible when employees are at the heart of a company’s success.These recognitions celebrate organizations that go beyond policies and perks, creating environments where people feel valued, motivated and empowered to do their best work.
The 2025 winners have set a new benchmark, raising the bar for workplace excellence across industries and inspiring others to strive for excellence in their own workplaces. Their dedication to engagement, satisfaction, and culture demonstrates that investing in people is not just the right thing to do, it’s also a powerful driver of organizational success.
The race for next year’s awards is wide open - we can't wait to see which companies will rise to the challenge and take their place among the Top Workplace and Best of the Best.
Contact us to see how Luppa can help you drive participation, track sentiment, and turn insights into action.