In this challenging year, Knoxville's Top Workplaces shine even brighter | Joel Christopher

It's always a blast to read about the Top Workplaces of Greater Knoxville, but this year it's downright inspiring to learn the stories of the many places doing extraordinary work in challenging times.

Take Pilot Company. One of Forbes' top 10 largest private companies, Pilot had to protect the health of 28,000 employees worldwide while also keeping America moving as the largest supplier of fuel in North America.

"During this time of crisis Pilot has not wavered in taking care of its employees and it's guests," one employee wrote in the comments section of the Top Workplaces survey, explaining that the company stayed deeply connected even during the work-from-home experience.

To collect data and comments like this, we enlisted Energage, a nationwide leader in measuring employee satisfaction. Energage surveyed more than 8,700 employees and received responses from 5,917 people at 48 companies in the Knoxville area. Those respondents answered questions about compensation, workplace culture, company leadership, coworkers and more.

The extensive survey paints a nuanced picture of a place, including the places that consistently do it best. In order to qualify as a Top Workplace, we required a minimum response rate from employees based on a company's size.

In the Knoxville area, the places that qualified shook out this way: three large Top Workplaces that employ 500 or more people in our region; 12 midsize Top Workplaces that employ 100 to 499 employees here; and 20 small Top Workplaces that employ 99 or fewer employees locally.

From the biggest to the smallest Top Workplaces, there was a shared sense of purpose.

"Every day I get to make an impact," said an employee of The Trust Company of Tennessee. "I am able to educate and influence others in a way that promotes growth in people. I love my job because we truly care about our clients and their well-being, not just their financial well-being."

That's exactly what makes Knoxville's Best Workplaces. They inspire. They uplift. They improve the lives they touch.

And among those leaders, there is an elite group among our Top Workplaces, the 11 companies with a commitment to workplace culture so strong they've been among Knoxville's Top Workplaces all four years of our survey.

They are:

• LARGE — Pilot Company; First Horizon; and Pinnacle Financial Partners
• MEDIUM — SmartBank and Harper Auto Square
• SMALL — Cannon & Cannon; Kramer Rayson; Coulter & Justus; LBMC; The Trust Company of Tennessee; and Denark Construction

This is the fourth year Knox News has enlisted Energage to conduct a Top Workplaces survey in this market.

Energage is a nationwide leader in measuring employee satisfaction. Last year alone, Energage surveyed more than 2.6 million employees at more than 7,500 organizations. Overall, the company has been at it since 2006, and has surveyed more than 19 million employees at more than 57,000 organizations.