Midwest standouts on Fast Company’s “Best Workplaces for Innovators”

You could argue that if you want a clean read on where a region’s innovation culture really lives, don’t just follow the money, look at the culture within its workplaces. This week, Fast Company dropped its 2025 “Best Workplaces for Innovators” list, and the Midwest showed up with seven honorees: four in Illinois including the number one spot, two in Michigan, and one in Ohio. 

Motorola Solutions took No. 1 place overall, which could be a headline in itself, while the rest of our regional representation spans hardtech, design, HR tech, digital health, fintech and more. The through-line: teams structured to turn ideas into shipped value.

Fast Company says its editors reviewed nearly 1,000 applications before ranking 100 winners, and the write-up on this year’s No. 1 notes that Chicago-based Motorola Solutions has invested $13B over the last decade to enhance AI-driven public-safety tools. That’s less a “hackathon with pizza” culture and more durable, compounding R&D. 

The Midwest seven (and what they signal)

1 — Motorola Solutions (Chicago, IL). No. 1 overall. Public-safety tech, stacked with applied AI, and a long-horizon capital plan. Also worth noting: The company also landed on Glassdoor’s 2025 Best Places to Work at number 20, a separate, employee-rated signal that the culture feels as healthy on the inside as the brand looks on the outside.

8 — Zebra Technologies (Lincolnshire, IL). Quietly one of the Midwest’s most important enterprise hardware/software companies; the move-fast layer inside warehouses, retail, healthcare, and field ops. Its presence here reinforces a theme we’ve been tracking on our pages: operational tech is a Midwest forte.

14 — NOCD (Chicago, IL). A digital-health company that delivers specialized mental-health care delivery, and has built an org where clinicians and product people collaborate to ship responsibly. (They’re understandably proud.)

24 — Rocket (Detroit, MI). Rocket Companies keep showing up on workplace and culture lists in Detroit. That consistency matters if you’re building or recruiting in Michigan; candidates recognize the brand.

29 — mHUB (Chicago, IL). The only hardtech/manufacturing hub in the Top 30, which is a signal of the region’s edge in building real things that people actually use. Their 80,000-sq-ft prototyping + micro-factory footprint and hosts a community of startups that have now raised $2B+ .

37 — Paycor (Cincinnati, OH). HR tech servicing manufacturing, retail and healthcare businesses amongst others. The proximity to real customers is a Midwest innovation advantage we often hear about: when your neighbor is your user, feedback loops tighten.

60 — MillerKnoll (Zeeland, MI). A global design house navigating post-merger and post-pandemic headwinds while keeping innovation muscles warm. Being on this list - while retooling a legacy brand - speaks to cultural resilience.

Land O’Lakes wins “Excellence through adversity”

Beyond the Top 100, Fast Company spotlights special category winners. In Excellence through adversity, Land O’Lakes from Arden Hills in Minnesota rose to the top alongside FutureThink from New York. Fast Company explained their award thus: “In the face of pandemic-era disruptions, leaders at the member-owned agricultural cooperative advocated to bring flexible work to its manufacturing team.” 

Does this matter?

This is culture as infrastructure. Motorola’s decade-long, $13B investment cadence shows what happens when a company commits to multi-cycle R&D, and gives teams permission structures to iterate. Zebra’s presence reinforces that when your products touch physical operations, innovation comes from the loading dock as much as the boardroom.

Hardtech has a local engine. mHUB at #29 is validation of a model the coasts don’t easily replicate as easily: deep prototyping capability, supplier networks, and industry partners under one roof, all in a manufacturing city with real buyers. The numbers (80,000 sq. ft., $2B+ raised, 500+ startups incubated) show scale, not just a vibe.

Talent chooses lived cultures. Glassdoor’s recognition for Motorola and the steady drumbeat of local “best places to work” nods for Rocket point to a competitive reality: hiring is a brand sport. The Midwest’s advantage isn’t cost; it’s credible, builder-friendly environments.

Category breadth matters. From OCD treatment at NOCD to payroll/HR at Paycor to enterprise devices at Zebra and designed environments at MillerKnoll, the Midwest list reads like a cross-section of how the real economy actually runs. That’s the kind of economic diversity that can buffer the region against tech fashion cycles.

The bigger picture

It’s easy to treat lists as mere hype cycles. But Fast Company’s methodology focuses on systems - programs, investments, and behaviors that help ideas survive contact with reality. That’s why Midwest companies showing up in a global list like this, with a legacy player coming out on top to boot, matters. It validates what we hear in founder and operator conversations every week: the region’s innovation story is less about sizzle, more about collaboration and compounding results.

We’ll keep tracking how these cultures translate into outcomes - patents, pilots, revenue, and, yes, more great workplaces. For now, a tip of the cap from us to Motorola Solutions, Zebra Technologies, NOCD, Rocket, mHUB, Paycor, and MillerKnoll for making the list.