Employees of Pot o'Gold Coffee rave about the cold beer available from their company kegerator, while at Comcast they love their benefits. An aQuantive employee is impressed by the $100 bill once taped to the bottom of his chair as a thank-you.

The 12,772 employees who anonymously rated their companies for this year's "100 Best Companies to Work For" generally rated their companies highly. Consequently, to make it into the top 100, companies had to receive high scores from their employees in virtually every one of 10 categories, from hiring and retention to corporate culture. They also had to receive high evaluations from five expert judges. A few companies weren't eligible because they couldn't meet the tough standards for the survey. For a medium-size company (100-499 employees) to be considered, for example, at least half the employees had to fill out the 54-question survey conducted for Washington CEO Magazine by Hebert Research Inc.

Judges were impressed by the nominees. Christina Hemmen, human resources leader at Deloitte Services LP's Seattle office, was particularly taken with Mithun, an architecture firm that allows employees to borrow cars and bicycles at work so they don't have to drive to work. "That policy fits their (environmental) culture," says Hemmen. Scott Ofstead, vice president of human resources at Kibble & Prentice, was impressed by the company CEO who knew when his employees' birthdays were.

"The best companies deal with their problems realistically but compassionately," says Al Lopus, president of the Mercer Island-based Best Workplaces Institute. He noted that when Construx laid off employees, it kept them on the payroll for more than six months while they searched for another job.

Josh Warborg, senior vice president at Robert Half International, concluded in a statement that got nods from all the other judges: "The good companies have mastered the things you tend to forget. They have regular meetings for good communications. They set clear standards and regularly evaluate their employees." The fifth judge was Trehia Quast, president of the Seattle Society for Human Relations Management.

The survey produced some interesting trends. For example, higher-ranking employees tended to give better ratings to their employers. Employee ratings tended to be higher among smaller companies than larger companies. And nonprofit companies generally drew lower ratings than for-profit companies did.

One of the few categories in which employees tended to be hard on their employers was leadership. The statement "Leaders in our company serve as good role models and they inspire me to do well" did not fare well. "Employees are given the opportunity to be involved in the decision-making processes" got the lowest score of any question. Reflecting this dissatisfaction was the employee at a high-tech company who wrote: "They sucker quality people in, break their spirit and they move on."

Interestingly, the best predictor of an employee's belief in the future success of a company was not the quality of the leadership, but the company's ability to hire and retain good workers. That, of course, is what being a Best Company is all about.

All-Stars
Celebrating the state's A-list companies

Small
1.  Construx
2.  The Blueline Group
3.  The Frause Group

Medium
1.  Clark Nuber
2.  Zillow.com
3.  eProject Inc.

Large
1.  McKinstry Co.
2.  aQuantive Inc.
3.  Comcast

Nonprofit
1.  Spokane Federal Credit Union
2.  King County Sexual Assault Resource Center
3.  Northwest Lions Foundation for Sight & Hearing