Vermont Business Magazine and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce recently announced the 21 Best Places to Work in Vermont 2013.

The statewide survey and awards program was created to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Vermont, benefiting the state’s economy, its workforce and businesses.

The Best Places to Work in the small company category in alphabetical order:

ASIC North Inc., Farm & Wilderness Foundation, Fuse, Gallagher, Flynn & Company, Heritage Aviation, Hickok & Boardman Financial Planning & Group Benefits, Instrumart, Liquid Measurement Systems, Resource Systems Group, Seventh Generation, Sonnax Industries.

The Best Places to Work in the large company category (150 or more) are: BioTek Instruments, Comcast Cable, Country Home Products, Edward Jones, Entergy Vermont Yankee, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, King Arthur Flour, Merchants Bank, Vermont Energy Investment Corp.

The awards, created in 2006, are presented in partnership with the Society for Human Resource Management, Vermont State Council, Vermont Department of Labor and the Vermont Department of Economic Development and Best Companies Group.

To be considered, companies had to meet the following requirements:

Have at least 15 employees working in Vermont; be a for-profit or not-for-profit business or government entity; be a publicly or privately held business; have a facility in the state; and be in business a minimum of one year.

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, and demographics, which was worth approximately 25 percent of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure their experience. This part of the evaluation was worth approximately 75 percent.

The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process in Vermont and also analyzed the data and used their expertise to determine the final rankings.

The final rankings for each category will be announced at a special awards presentation on April 4, at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center from 5 to 7:30 p.m.