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Five Guys has earned Great Place To Work certification for the ninth consecutive year, with 82% of its corporate and company-owned store teams rating it a great workplace- well above the 57% average for typical US companies.
Five Guys has once again earned Great Place To Work certification, marking the ninth consecutive year the beloved burger chain has received the distinction. The recognition is not handed out on reputation alone- it is the result of a rigorous independent process involving anonymous employee surveys and third-party data analysis, making it one of the more credible workplace certifications in the industry. For a brand that has always put people at the centre of its operation, the milestone is less a surprise than a validation. What started as a small family burger joint in Arlington, Virginia, four decades ago has grown into a workplace culture that consistently outperforms the broader US market by a significant margin.
The story of Five Guys begins in 1986, when founders Jerry and Janie Murrell opened their first location with a refreshingly uncomplicated mission - make the best burgers and fries possible and take care of the people who walked through the door. No elaborate brand strategy, no secret sauce- just quality food and genuine hospitality. What the Murrells could not have anticipated at the time was that those same values, applied consistently over decades, would eventually give rise to a workplace culture strong enough to earn repeated recognition as one of America's best employers. The certification is, in many ways, the institutional expression of a philosophy the family has held from the very beginning.
The gap between Five Guys and the average American employer is striking when the data is laid out side by side. Eighty-two percent of Five Guys Enterprises LLC corporate and company-owned store team members say Five Guys is a great place to work. The comparable figure for a typical US-based company sits at just 57%. That 25-percentage-point difference is not marginal- it reflects a workplace culture that is genuinely and measurably better than the norm. In an industry where employee satisfaction and retention are persistent challenges, those numbers carry real operational significance and help explain why Five Guys continues to deliver a consistently high standard of service across its locations.
The Great Place To Work certification process digs into the specifics of employee experience rather than relying on broad sentiment, and the individual data points from Five Guys' most recent survey paint a detailed picture of what life inside the organisation looks like. Ninety-one percent of employees say they have the equipment and resources they need to do their job properly- a foundational indicator of operational respect. The same proportion believe Five Guys customers would rate the service they deliver as excellent, reflecting a strong sense of pride in the work. Eighty-seven percent say they are treated as a full member of the team regardless of their position, and the same percentage report feeling genuinely welcomed when they first joined the company. Taken together, these figures describe a culture of inclusion, support, and mutual respect that goes well beyond surface-level employee engagement.
Five Guys founder Jerry Murrell was characteristically direct in responding to the latest certification. "When your team is happy at work, your customers notice," he said. "We're proud of this certification and what it reflects about the teams who made it possible. " The comment captures something that the restaurant industry has long understood in theory but often struggles to execute in practice- that the employee experience and the customer experience are not separate concerns but deeply interconnected ones. A team that feels valued, equipped, and welcomed is far more likely to extend that same quality of care to the people they serve. At Five Guys, that connection appears to be functioning exactly as intended.
The Great Place To Work certification arrives alongside a string of additional accolades that further cement Five Guys' reputation as an employer of genuine distinction. Forbes has named the chain among America's Best Large Employers for 2026, while Newsweek has recognised the brand across three separate categories - America's Greatest Workplaces for Culture, Belonging and Community; America's Greatest Workplaces for Women; and America's Greatest Workplaces for Entry Level- all for 2026. The breadth of these recognitions is telling. They span culture, inclusivity, gender equity, and accessibility for newer workers, suggesting that Five Guys' commitment to its people is not confined to a single dimension but runs consistently across the full employee experience.
