Nightingale Education Group Wins 2026 Culture Excellence Award, Adds Employee Appreciation Honor

Salt Lake City, Utah — July 6, 2026

Salt Lake City, Utah — Nightingale Education Group has been named a 2026 Culture Excellence & Industry Award winner by TopWorkplaces.com, and separately picked up an Employee Appreciation award in partnership with Bucketlist, a workplace rewards and recognition platform. In all, the Salt Lake City-based nursing education company was recognized across eight categories, based entirely on feedback from its own employees.

It's the second consecutive year Nightingale has landed on the list — TechBuzz reported in April that the company's TEDxNightingale event coincided with a 2026 USA Today Top Workplaces win, timing that underscored the company's pitch that fixing a broken nursing pipeline starts with the people already inside it.

Eight Categories, One Survey

Culture Excellence & Industry Awards are determined solely through employee responses to the Energage Workplace Survey, and organizations must hit at least a 35% response rate to qualify.

Nightingale was recognized in:

• Innovation — for a culture that encourages new ideas and supports employees reaching their full potential
• Work-Life Flexibility — for enabling employees to balance personal demands with high performance
• Compensation & Benefits — for benefits employees consider fair relative to the industry
• Leadership — for leaders who inspire confidence in the company's direction
• Purpose & Values — for successfully communicating and integrating the company mission
• Professional Development — awarded for the second year in a row, for investment in employees' career growth
• Employee Well-being — also a second-year repeat, for centering health and wellness in the workplace
• Appreciation — in partnership with Bucketlist, for organizations that treat genuine recognition as a driver of performance and morale

"Together, these awards reflect Nightingale's commitment to building a workplace and a workforce that is relevantly skilled, readily available and representative of the communities it serves," said Mikhail Shneyder, founder and CEO of Nightingale Education Group. "This recognition belongs to each collaborator who makes that real every day."

In Their Own Words

Nightingale frames its workforce as "collaborators" rather than employees, and the company shared a handful of unprompted comments explaining why staff say the recognitions ring true:

• "How we work matters as much as what outcomes we achieve. This is such a special place to work, and the work we are doing is changing the world!" — Mission Support
• "I am able to work with amazing people and help people achieve their dream of becoming a nurse!" — Learner Support Services
• "I am afforded the opportunity for a true work-life balance. I can be heard and seen if needed by my peers and leadership. I have the opportunity to provide education to our underserved populations." — Nursing Faculty
• "Helping to raise up the next generation of nurses. I love my job." — Nursing Faculty

Why It Matters

Nightingale has been vocal about the scale of the U.S. nursing shortage — a projected 350,000-nurse gap within the decade, by its own count — and has positioned itself as an institution trying to fix the pipeline from the education side. Back-to-back culture awards give the company a data point to argue that the fix has to start with retention and morale inside its own walls, not just enrollment numbers.

About Nightingale Education Group

Nightingale Education Group works to close health equity gaps by strengthening education and employment systems that feed a nursing workforce reflective of the communities it serves. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, the company includes Nightingale College — which offers accredited nursing programs from PN licensure through LPN-to-ASN (in select states), baccalaureate, and master's levels — along with Nightingale Innovations.

Learn more at nightingaleeducationgroup.com.