Netflix, Adobe, and Google Rated Among Top Places to Work

Where are the best and worst places to work? Glassdoor, the site that surveys employees about workplace conditions in great detail, has issued lists of the best and worst 50 companies as rated by employees out of the 11,000 in its database (see below).

There aren’t any startups on these lists because Glassdoor does better with larger companies with more employees. Topping the list of best companies is General Mills, but tech companies make a decent showing as well, with Netflix (NFLX), Adobe (ADBE), Google (GOOG), SAP, and NetApp (NTAP) making the top 10. Apple (AAPL) is No. 19. Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) didn’t make the list. Neither did Yahoo (YHOO), but it escaped the worst 50 list as well. The same cannot be said for eBay (EBAY), IAC (IACI), and AT&T (T).

Here are the top 20, with tech companies in bold:

1. General Mills
2. Bain & Company
3. Netflix
4. Adobe
5. Northwestern Mutual
6. Whole Foods (WFMI)
7. Google
8. SAP
9. Continental Airlines (CAL)
10. NetApp
11. Intuit INTU)
12. McKinsey & Company
13. FactSet
14. Boston Consulting
15. Procter & Gamble (PG)
16. Caterpillar (CAT)
17. Genentech (DNA)
18. CareerBuilder
19. Apple
20. Juniper Networks (JNPR)

The five worst places to work, according Glassdoor, are:

1. DHL Express (USA)
2. United Airlines
3. Reynolds and Reynolds (REY)
4. Farmers Group
5. Gibson Guitar

Other notable companies that made the bottom 50 include:

6. RadioShack (RSH)
14. Qimonda (QI)
15. NCR
27. EDS
29. AT&T Mobility
31. OfficeMax (OMX)
33. Level 3 Communications (LVLT)
34. Motorola (MOT)
37. Blockbuster (BBI)
38. Alcatel-Lucent (ALU)
43. IAC
44. Cadence Design (CDNS)
46. Circuit City
47. eBay
49. AT&T

The full lists are below, with teh best places to work listed first:

Original post

Comments

[Tom Armistead:]

It would have been nice if the author had correlated these ratings to stock performance, something like last year's ratings and this year's performance, to see if employee satisfaction has predictive value.

I notice Macy's, Motorola, Office Depot, WaMu are low ranked, also poor stock performance..

2008 Dec 30 12:20 PM

[Bob C:]

It looks like eBay's employees are just as unhappy as it's customers, the sellers.

They do rate J Donahoe, at 20% approval, higher than most sellers would rate the bum.

2008 Dec 30 02:28 PM

[mollytjm:]

Gibson guitar? That was a shock. But i wonder about some of the others and how the rate of pay figures into what employees say about the company. I know Apple pays better than a lot of other places and certainly Wal-Mart and Radio Shack pay less. Phone stores are hard places to work...you have to deal with a lot of very frustrated customers. Still, in this climate, being a great place to work doesn't seem to influence stock prices, unfortunately!

2008 Dec 31 11:31 AM

[nakedjaybird:]

Well then, let's make sure the worst-places-to-work CEO's get ZERO Bonus' as long as they are in that grouping, and maybe should also be considered candidates for replacement with no exiting parachute, in addition to actual PAYCUTS until then.

AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, let's make sure that all the other CEO's get only their pay, no bonus', because they are doing their job - and that's what they get paid for. And that pay should be no more than 20x the LOWEST PAID WORKER ON THE PAYROLL FOR THE WHOLE CORPORATION - maybe $200-300,000/yr, tops.

NO MAN IS WORTH A LIFETIME INCOME IN ONE YEAR (especially when they are only managing some public entitiy with stockholders and have many layers of management below them from which many qualified folks several layers down who are capable and eager to run the company would do so with a 20% raise from where they are.)

Addemdum to Myth Buster 101: you don't have to pay lots to get the best. Much proof available. Look around!

2008 Dec 31 12:29 PM