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Job sharing and telecommuting options. Onsite fitness centers and loads of professional training. These are just a few of the benefits offered employees working at many of Fortune magazine’s “Top 100 Companies to Work For." While the much-anticipated annual survey results appear on newsstands February 4, I doubt many folks will be surprised to learn that Google ranks number one. Filling out the top five are Quicken Loans, Wegmans Food Market, Edward Jones and Genentech, respectively.

Congratulations go to several business partners of ASAE & The Center that also appear on the list: Marriott International (72) and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts (88)! Both invest in and empower employees to go beyond simple competence and use innovation and imagination to create a rewarding experience for guests that also reflects the corporations’ strong values and principles.

Like corporations, many associations and nonprofits are re-examining their workplace culture and employee benefits because they, too, want to be a great place to work—especially as the market for good talent tightens. Informal research done for ASAE & The Center’s new Social Responsibility Initiative finds that numerous professional associations, in particular, are surveying staff more regularly to determine their needs and wants, and are paying particular attention to the desires of young workers in the hope of retaining these emerging but impatient leaders.

Also mentioned more frequently are staff engagement tools such as volunteer opportunities, employee wellness team initiatives, one-on-one career coaching even for non-senior-staff, customized skills training and get-away get-togethers such as retreats in interesting places (not your typical hotel conference room!).

When ASAE & The Center first introduced the Social Responsibility Initiative in August 2007, one of the most frequent questions we got in the Social Responsibility Lounge at the Expo was “Does this help me get and keep employees?” Yes, according to many studies. But I haven’t yet found such a study that is specific to the association/nonprofit sector, so more work needs to be done.

I suspect we’ll hear much more about this important “return on investment” in our discussions about the business case for strategic social responsibility at the Global Summit for Social Responsibility April 30-May 2 (hey, come join us!). Meanwhile, I look forward to hearing all of your ideas about what makes a workplace great—and whether associations and nonprofits are doing enough of what’s needed to earn such an esteemed title.