On-Demand Webinar: How to Get Great Place To Work-Certified™
MENU
Ava Community Energy

Ava Community Energy

Updated February 2024.

90%

Employees say this is a great place to work

Company Overview

About The Company

Ava Community Energy (Ava), formerly East Bay Community Energy (EBCE), is the not-for-profit public electricity provider for more than 1.7 million residents and commercial customers in Alameda County and the City of Tracy. As one of 25 community choice aggregation (CCA) programs operating in California, Ava is part of the movement to provide energy choice while expediting local and state-wide climate action goals. Ava is creating a brighter future in our member communities and beyond by providing clean power at competitive rates, reinvesting in our member communities, and developing programs for customers to discover, try, and adopt clean energy solutions.

COMPANY SIZE

72 U.S.-based Employees
(Small)

Industry

Social Services and Government Agencies

HQ Location

Oakland, CA, US

Employee Demographics

Tenure

Company Culture at Ava Community Energy

The employee experience below at Ava Community Energy, compared to a typical company.

Learn More

90% of employees at Ava Community Energy say it is a great place to work compared to 57% of employees at a typical U.S.-based company.

  • Ava Community Energy
  • 90%
  • Typical Company
  • 57%
99%
People avoid politicking and backstabbing as ways to get things done.
99%
People care about each other here.
97%
Management hires people who fit in well here.
96%
We have special and unique benefits here.
96%
When you join the company, you are made to feel welcome.

Why Work at Ava Community Energy?

See what employees say about what makes Ava Community Energy a great workplace. These words are drawn from employee comments on the Trust Index™ survey.


What is the advantage of Great Place To Work?

Organizations partner with Great Place To Work to understand how effectively their leaders create the conditions for an overwhelmingly positive employee experience. Great Place To Work offers best-in-class data about the employee experience, sourced from surveys taken by millions of employees globally. This data offers organizations invaluable insight into how their workers will interact with the workplace and establishes benchmarks for working conditions around the world.

Great Place To Work’s employee-centric view of the workplace was revolutionary 30 years ago. Today, our Trust Model™ offers an unmatched opportunity to identify what’s happening within your organization. Great Place To Work’s survey and analysis gives employers the ability to measure and track employee experience against key metrics and industry leaders.

Earning Great Place To Work Certification has many benefits, including:

  • Better recruitment metrics such as offer acceptance rate
  • Higher business profitability
  • Automatic Best Workplaces™ award eligibility
  • Greater employer brand awareness 
  • Improved employee trust
  • Higher retention: 51% higher than a typical U.S. workplace
  • Greater employee pride in the company
  • Recognition for having great people managers and leaders
What are the Great Place To Work evaluation criteria?

Great Place To Work Certification criteria are the global standard for quantifying and benchmarking the employee experience. Using the Great Place To Work Trust Model and the Trust Index Survey, Certification evaluates workplace culture from the perspective that matters the most — the employee — offering the most comprehensive picture on the market of the internal health of an organization.

To be considered for Certification, organizations must have 10 or more employees and must complete a two-step process: 

  1. Survey employees with the Trust Index Survey.
  2. Complete the Culture Brief™, a company questionnaire. 

Positive employee responses to the Trust Index Survey (four and above on the five-point scale) are averaged to provide an organization-wide assessment of culture: the Trust Index. Companies that score above the current threshold become Great Place To Work Certified.

Surveys must meet strict requirements for how they are distributed and the percentage of employees who respond to ensure they accurately represent feedback from the company’s full population. 

How do we know if we earned Certification?

To earn Great Place To  Work Certification, the average score across your survey results must show that approximately 7 out of 10 of your employees are having a consistently positive experience at work.

Once you are Certified, you will receive an email from us with access to your survey scores, digital Certification badge, a toolkit of social media images, and press materials with shareable content. As an extra benefit, your organization will automatically be eligible for all our award lists through the entire 12-month period your Certification is valid.

How many questions are on the employee survey?
Employees answer 14 demographic questions and respond to 60 statements across a five-point consistency scale as well as two open-ended questions. Employees generally take 10 to 20 minutes to complete the survey.
What is the Great Place To Work survey measuring?

In broad terms, the Great Place To Work Trust Index™ Survey measures the level of trust in your organization and the consistency of the employee experience. In other words: How often can employees count on something happening in their workplace, such as clear and honest leadership, fair treatment, and employee recognition?

More specifically, the Great Place To Work Trust Index Survey measures individual employee experiences of five dimensions of a high-trust company culture through 60 statements and two open-ended questions. Three of the dimensions are connected to the actions of leaders and building trust: credibility, respect, and fairness. The other two dimensions measure the workplace experience of employees in relation to their colleagues and the wider organization: pride and a sense of belonging.

These five dimensions create a workplace culture where employees feel empowered and encouraged to do their most meaningful work. High-trust cultures are shown in Great Place To Work research to outperform their competitors in recruitment and retention, productivity and innovation, and financial performance.  

Survey answers are assessed on a five-point scale, revealing the most common experience of employees in the organization. Employee scores are averaged to provide an organization-wide assessment of workplace culture: the Trust Index score.