Roger Fingas
Despite being one of the most valuable corporations in the world, Apple has slipped to 36th place in Glassdoor's annual "Best Places to Work" rankings for large-scale businesses, as determined by employee ratings.
Last year the company occupied 25th place, and the year prior, 22nd. Its current position is the lowest since Apple first made it onto the Best Places list in 2009. Its highest point came in 2012, when it reached 10th.
Some high-tech companies above Apple in the latest list include Facebook (#2), Google (#4), Adobe (#9), Salesforce (#17), Intuit (#20), DocuSign (#23), Akamai (#25), Zillow (#29), Nvidia (#30), and Airbnb (#35). Leading the chart is the multinational consulting firm Bain & Company.
It's not clear what led to Apple's decline, but while reviewers have been positive about aspects like benefits, a recurring complaint is a lack of work-life balance, since some teams demand extremely long hours that can keep people away from friends and family.
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
Sponsored Content
Amber Neely
45 Comments
Must be why the stock is up sharply this morning... :|
WAY back in 1987, I interviewed at Apple's HQ. My driver from the airport explained there was a strange dual-personality syndrome at Apple:
- everyone acted mellow, to reflect hippie/surf culture
- but many of those same people privately had therapists and marital problems
Just an interesting anecdote...
The difference between 9th and 34th is 0.1 on a 5 point scale apparently (4.2 versus 4.3) so this isn't a precipitous drop. But obviously it would be nice if Apple were high on this list. Whether you like your job is a much bigger factor in employee retention than salary and stock price, so it's important. I expect a significant shift in these numbers next year after the move--either up or down. I've been involved in a few office moves in my career and every one generated months of strong opinions.