New Homebase Data Reveals 86% of Hourly Workers Are Proud to Work for Small Businesses

Homebase releases 2026 Local Workplace Pulse alongside its third-annual Top Local Workplace Awards, celebrating small business owners, managers and employees during National Small Business Week

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Homebase, the AI-powered platform for small business payroll, team management, and hiring, today released the 2026 Homebase Local Workplace Pulse, new research based on a survey of 1,250 small business owners, managers, and hourly employees. The report examines what makes employees proud to work for small businesses, what entices them to take or leave jobs, and how owners and managers use AI to take on time-consuming and repetitive operational work, to invest more time into their team and communities.

This research arrives alongside Homebase’s third-annual Top Local Workplace Awards, a recognition program honoring over 55,000 small businesses for being great places to work and making teams feel valued and connected. Together with the 2026 Homebase Local Workplace Pulse, the awards demonstrate what it takes to build a small business that keeps hourly workers engaged and excited against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and a tighter job market.

Key findings from the Homebase Local Workplace Pulse include:

1. Pride in working for small businesses is strong. Despite unease surrounding economic headwinds, small business pride is holding steady. 86% of hourly employees surveyed are proud to work for a small business, and nearly 2 in 3 (62%) aren’t planning to leave their jobs in the next 3 to 6 months. For owners, 55% feel financially stronger than they did a year ago, and 97% said small businesses are important to local communities, up 14 percentage points from 2024.
2. Pay gets employees in the door. Community makes it a great place to work. Hourly employees ranked pay as the top factor when weighing whether to stay in a role or take a new job (80%), nearly 2x the amount of hourly employees who prioritized pay in 2024. Yet pay is workers’ last priority when asked what makes a great workplace. The number-one factor employees use to define a great place to work is a strong sense of team and community (60%). The best small business owners, including Homebase’s Top Local Workplace Awards winners, offer both stability and community to employees, making companies great places to work from day one.
3. When pay is equal, hourly workers choose small businesses by a wide margin. All else being equal, hourly workers are nearly 5x more likely to pick a small business over a large corporation, driven by the relationships they build (47%) and the flexibility small businesses offer (45%). The longer these workers stay at small businesses, the prouder they become. Employees who have been with a small business for five or more years are 50% more likely to feel deep pride compared to those in their first six months on the job. The culture that draws hourly workers in is the same culture that deepens loyalty over time, creating a great workplace where these teams can build their careers.
4. AI adoption in owners and managers is growing. Owners and managers are quickly adopting AI technologies, with nearly 3 in 4 (72%) currently using or piloting AI tools, up from 65% in June 2025. The biggest benefit owners expect to see from AI implementation is task automation (47%) along with improved customer support (45%) and communication (42%). By using automation to reclaim time spent on repetitive tasks, owners can invest more deeply in their teams, giving employees the sense of community they’re looking for while driving business results.

“Small businesses are where work becomes personal. You’re not just another employee, but part of a team, a community, and a place that knows your name,” said John Waldmann, Co-founder and CEO of Homebase. “Our latest data shows just how strong that pride still is, and our Top Local Workplace Awards bring it to life, recognizing the owners who are building cultures where people feel valued, connected, and excited to show up. These teams are proving that when you invest in people, you create workplaces where people choose to stay and grow.”

​To learn more about the Homebase Top Local Workplace Awards and this year’s winners, visit https://www.joinhomebase.com/awards. For a deeper look into the 2026 Homebase Local Workplace Pulse, visit https://joinhomebase.com/blog/local-workplace-pulse.

Report Methodology

The 2026 Homebase Local Workplace Pulse is based on a third-party survey of 1,250 small business employees over the age of 18 in the United States employed at or running small businesses across industries including food and beverage, retail, healthcare, construction, education, manufacturing, and hospitality. The survey was fielded in April 2026. Where noted, data is compared to Homebase's 2024 Small Business Fulfillment Index, conducted in March 2024 via survey to 1,290 active Homebase customers.

Awards Methodology

Through a proprietary scoring system, the team evaluated 150k+ businesses in the Homebase network, analyzing more than 1 billion data points to identify the Top Local Workplaces of the year.

About Homebase

Our mission is to make small business teams unstoppable.

Homebase is the AI-powered platform for hourly teams, with employee scheduling, time clocks, payroll, hiring, communication, HR, and more. More than 150,000 small businesses rely on Homebase to make work radically easy and give their teams superpowers. As the leader in small business team management, Homebase tracked 1+ billion hours for 3.5+ million workers last year. Homebase was named a 2024 Fast Company’s Brands That Matter, a 2025 Webby Award winner, and a 2025 Fast Company’s Most Innovative Workplaces North America winner.

Homebase also earned recognition from top reviewers, including “Best Payroll for Hourly Teams (2024)” by USA Today, “Best Payroll for Small Business (2024)” by CNN Underscored, and “Best Small Business Payroll (2025)” by U.S. News & World Report.

Homebase is based in San Francisco, Houston, Denver, and Toronto. We are backed by leading venture investors L Catterton Growth, Emerson Collective, Notable Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Baseline Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Bedrock Capital, and PLUS Capital.