What employees are saying about Philly's best employers

In my last post, I looked at the elements of corporate greatness – those factors that distinguish the best places to work from the rest. One of the unmentioned ones, at least as far as the companies ranked by glassdoor.com is concerned, is that the employees overwhelmingly love working there and feel invested in their company.

Glassdoor knows this because the employees say so themselves. So, I would guess, do the employees surveyed by the Philadelphia Business Journal for its annual listing of the Best Workplaces in Philadelphia. But unlike Glassdoor, the Business Journal doesn't share employee evaluations of the winners with its readers. So I decided to do a little nosing around on Glassdoor to see if I could find out what employees were saying about these companies there.

It appears that even the outstanding employers could stand some improvement, according to Glassdoor's anonymous reviewers. For instance, just about every review of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (Penn Medicine), one of PBJ's standouts in the Extra-Large Company category, praised the quality and diversity of the staff at the flagship Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and loved the benefits package, but some were critical of upper management, who many said either ignored patient satisfaction or focused on the bottom line over quality, while others dinged arrogant medical staff and overly bossy managers.

Employees of Digitas Health, one of the Large Company winners, were more positive overall: They loved the corporate culture, the support they got from co-workers and management, the company's efforts to balance a sometimes-demanding work pace with life and family needs, and the intelligence and energy of the staff. But the best ones leave, they all said, for opportunities that pay them better.

The two people who commented on Medium Company honoree First Financial Group may be too small a sample to be valid, but they both said the same thing: They loved the unlimited earnings potential and the freedom they had to shape their work but lamented the lack of support as they built their client bases.

And if the three commenters on Abington Memorial Hospital are representative of the entire workforce, then one might wonder how it also landed a Best Place to Work honor in the Extra Large category, for all of them complained about low pay, overwork, and understaffing due to cost-cutting.

Which brings us to an unavoidable problem with Glassdoor: Since the reviewers self-select, we cannot be sure that we are getting a representative sample of employee opinion, especially for smaller companies or those with only one location. Still, the reviews provide some insight into employee sentiment and morale at some of Philadelphia's best employers.

By Sandy Smith

Sandy Smith is an award-winning writer and editor who has spent most of his career in public relations and corporate communications. His work has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia CityPaper, PGN, and a number of Web sites. Philly-area residents may also recognize him as "MarketStEl" of discussion-board fame. He has been a part of the great reserve army of freelance writers since January 2009 and is actively seeking opportunities wherever they may lie.