HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. – The Hillsborough County Clerk’s Office has been recognized with two “2026 Top Workplace” awards this spring. In March and April, The Bay Times and USA Today announced the achievements, respectively.
The awards come after Clerk Victor Crist launched a sweeping workplace-culture overhaul. The results not only resonated with national evaluators, but most importantly, with Clerk team members.
“This recognition is rooted in a renewed commitment to purpose, customer service, and employee development,” said Clerk Crist.
The transformation began in 2025, shortly after Clerk Crist took office, when he introduced a servant-leadership model. The model was designed to elevate both employee satisfaction and customer service. The unique leadership style led to measurable gains, including stronger recruitment, improved retention, and increasingly positive feedback from frontline employees.
One workplace theme rose to the top in the most recent survey: Employees talked about purpose. They repeatedly cited meaningful work as their top motivator.
One employee wrote, “I am provided the opportunity to use my skills and passion to make a difference each day.”
Another responded, “We have lots of different opportunities to help our constituents in many different ways.”
Eighty-six percent of employees participated in a voluntary survey conducted by Energage, a national workplace culture platform.
Clerk Crist explained, “Our customers may have only one brief interaction with us, at a service counter, in a courtroom, or over the phone, but the quality of that experience inevitably reflects our workplace culture. Behind every effective public agency is a work ecosystem that attracts service-minded employees and provides strong reasons for them to stay.”
The Clerk’s Office has focused on recruiting the best and brightest talent while also being dedicated to retaining highly skilled, trained employees.
The office launched Clerk W.I.S.E. (We Inspire Service Excellence), a formal training department focused on job proficiency, leadership development, and professional growth. New employees begin their careers in a dedicated learning environment designed to help them develop confidence, knowledge, and long-term success within the organization. Their first day is called WOW–Day! — not an acronym, but a reflection of the enthusiasm the Clerk’s Office wants new team members to feel when they join.
Clerk Crist said, “I also meet in person, over lunch, with each incoming training class of one to six individuals. Then we meet again, one-on-one. I believe leaders should remain connected to employees at every level of the organization.”
On-the-job training, or “shadowing,” practices at the Clerk’s Office were replaced with four to six weeks of classroom training to a comfort level, delivered with a mindset focused on ensuring excellence in service. Leadership development and a vision for professional growth round out the training experience.
To meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive labor market, Clerk Crist increased the minimum wage for employees from $15 to a living wage of $20 per hour. That decision, he said, addresses a long-standing issue faced by many public agencies: retaining experienced frontline employees. Unique supplemental benefits include a pre-existing food pantry stocked by Feeding Tampa Bay and access to an emergency loan, up to $10,000, if needed.
The Clerk noted the results have been encouraging. Since establishing the training department, the office’s court employee retention rate improved from 79.9% in 2024 to 84.3% in 2025 (about 5%). Of the forty-six hires since last year, only three did not stay, primarily due to external factors.
“The quality of applicants has improved significantly. We look for three primary qualities: competency, character, and culture,” Crist said.
Feedback from leaders across the organization was also positive.
One director recently wrote the Clerk to thank him for hiring and training teams that eased staffing pressures by selecting “high-quality candidates” who are “intelligent and driven professionals.”
That kind of input, according to Clerk Crist, “showed we were on the right track to building a workplace culture that supported our mission and delivered a positive experience to our customers when they interacted with their local government.”
New welcome kiosks added to customer service areas, accompanied by two frontline employees, have boosted customer satisfaction ratings, while work stress has decreased.
“There’s no shortcut for building a positive workplace culture. You have to build it one day at a time, one employee at a time, and one customer at a time,” reaffirmed Clerk Crist.
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