You should be able to do this with labeling. Make a feature layer that only includes the states you want showing the label to be highlighted, then you can have the label be based on the field which contains the employee numbers. You can use symbol styles to place them within a circle, oval or whatever shape you would prefer. Once you have selected the symbol style, you can edit the symbol, go to advanced text, make sure text background is checked and select properties. There you can select scale marker to fit text to get your text all inside the background shape.