It is impossible to look forward without recognizing the events of the past 18 months and the lasting impact they have made around the world. The global COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the way we live and work. During this challenging time, one of the things that has grounded me and, I believe Equinix as a company, has been our corporate commitment to be “In Service To” each other, to our customers, partners, shareholders, and to the communities in which we live and operate. In particular, our dedication to put the interests and wellbeing of our employees and customers at the center of everything we do has been a guiding light as we make our way to a brighter future.

In my recent post, “Redefining the Way We Work,” I talked about how the Equinix culture embraces a “we before me” mindset that reflects a collective commitment to drive meaningful, sustainable progress for Equinix and the world. By holding fast to that mindset, we have been able to move forward during this period of uncertainty and achieve some milestones that are—as our CEO and President Charles Meyers expressed perfectly —“both exciting and humbling.”

As our global customers accelerated their digital transformation agendas during the pandemic, we had the opportunity to be there for them in new ways. We expanded our data center footprint, brought new interconnection-led product innovations to market and continued to grow our vibrant digital ecosystems so our customers could interact, transact and build new value. And the industry is taking note. Forbes CIO NEXT 2021 recognized our CIO, Milind Wagle, as one of the top tech executives who is redefining the CIO role and driving game-changing innovation (published April 2021). Milind was cited for his data center innovations, including developing data-driven models that can more accurately forecast customer usage patterns and associated power needs, enabling Equinix to better predict when individual data centers will hit capacity limits.

It is this commitment to continuously improve and blaze new trails for our customers that has made Equinix the trusted global platform of choice for digital leaders. As a testament to our customer-centric business model, for the first time in our company’s history, Equinix has ranked on the list of FORTUNE 500 companies at #461. This honor follows our recognition earlier this year as one of the Fortune’s 2021 “Most Admired Companies,” based on criteria that includes investment value, quality of management and products, social responsibility, and the ability to attract talent.

Another thrilling honor was our recognition as the 2021 Datacloud Global Award for the Data Center Provider of the Year by BroadGroup™ for our hyperscale xScale™ data centers. A panel of 34 independent industry experts spotlighted Equinix for demonstrating that “enabling businesses to innovate never stops.” They went on to say that, “Giving a connected data center platform is not enough anymore to quickly localize infrastructure, the market requires data center providers to be an innovation partner, bringing new ideas to the table and supporting the implementation in a dynamic digital ecosystem. This requires not only hard work, dedication and passion but also forward-thinking and anticipation of future needs.”
As our global customers accelerated their digital transformation agendas during the pandemic, we had the opportunity to be there for them in new ways."

Moving our employees forward

Importantly, all that we have achieved as a business is underpinned by the strength of our culture. At Equinix, we strive to enable our employees to bring their whole selves to work, able to confidently say “I’m safe, I belong and I matter.” Across the countries where we do business, we are honored to be recognized as a “Best Company to Work for” garnering recognition across the UK, Spain, Finland and Poland. This award honors companies with a strong employee commitment who see workplace engagement as a vital part of organizational success. In the U.S., we were honoured this month to be named by the Washington Post as one of the Top 2021 Workplaces in the D.C. area for the second time, after being named to the list in 2020. This award highlights companies in the D.C. area with the highest ratings from their employees.
 
I am also extremely excited to announce that our CEO and President, Charles Meyers has recently been named a Top CEO by Glassdoor, one of the world’s largest job and recruiting sites. The annual award highlights the Top CEOs in several countries throughout North America and Europe. CEO approval ratings are gathered through Glassdoor’s online company review survey, which gathers current and former employee sentiment about job and company satisfaction, the work environment and the culture. Employees are asked to rate a number of workplace factors like compensation and benefits as well as work-life balance, and asked whether they approve, disapprove or are neutral about the job their CEO is doing. In addition, employees are asked to describe some of the upsides and downsides of working for the company and provide any advice for senior management.

I am so appreciative of the commitment and energy our global employees show our customers, partners and each other each day—that is a reward in and of itself. Their dedication has helped fuel the digital transformation of thousands of businesses around the world and enabled us all to successfully navigate one of the most challenging periods of our lifetime. I am incredibly proud to see their contributions recognized on the worldwide stage and most importantly, to know that our investment in each other, our company and the communities in which we serve is creating a better tomorrow.

The original article was published here.