Apple breaks into top 10 'best' companies to work for
updated 01:55 am EST, Thu December 15, 2011
Facebook, Google, others top list
Management consulting firm Bain & Company was named the top company in the world to work for in Glassdoor.com's annual ranking of some 65,000 firms, with frequent top pick Facebook coming in at number three (a fall of two places from last year). Apple leapt ten spots in this year's ratings to capture the 10th place spot, with other tech firms such as Careerbuilder.com and Google also in the top 10.
Glassdoor, which invites employees to anonymously rate their companies, created a short profile film (seen below) interviewing employees of Bain & Company and Facebook who offer insight into why the companies are both highly ranked. For Bain employees, a corporate culture of cooperation and teamwork made workers feel like the company was vested in, and willing to help foster, their success; for Facebook, employees spoke of an "entrepreneurial atmosphere" and of the prestige they get from seeing the impact their work has on millions of people all over the world.
Apple employees spoke highly of the environment, the opportunity to make great products that people have a strong emotional attachment to, and had high regard for CEO Tim Cook (with a 96 percent approval ranking). However, what was perceived as a long period of "dues-paying" before promotion and the sheer workload were listed as negative marks. Retail workers were generally seen as being less satisfied, particularly with promotion opportunities, than corporate employees.
The marks separating the companies in the top 10 were very narrow in range; Apple (with a score of 3.9) scored just one-tenth of a point less than Google, which came in at number five. Top-ranked Bain had a score of 4.7 (all scores on a scale of 5), substantially better than the second-place finisher, another management consulting firm.
The consensus "advice" workers gave upper management was simple and somewhat poignant following the death of former CEO Steve Jobs in October: "As long as we continue to do what we have for the past 14 years, we will continue to be a great company."
Junior Member
Joined: Jul 2006
Secrecy drains
Years ago, I worked on hush-hush USAF radar projects. Lives literally depended on our not leaking what we did, saw and heard.
Having to keep my lips zipped away from work was draining. I remember one case where I almost told a bank clerk that she shouldn't write my deposit on a pad of slips because the numbers, merely what I was depositing, would create and impression on the pages below. That's the sort of rules we lived under.
For many of its employees, work at Apple must carry the same burden. So much pressure, so many secrets to keep, except the reasons can't seem as serious. That may be exhilarating at first, but it grows tiring over time. There's always MacNN and its kin trying to break through that veil of secrecy and a boss saying "No Leaks!"