Each year, magazines and newspapers both national and local survey companies large and small to come up with lists of the Best Places to Work.
One of the more recent entrants in this field is the website Glassdoor.com, which features insights into companies from the people who know them best - their employees. The site's 2011 list of the "50 Best Places to Work," out Dec. 15, is its third, and a much-discussed newcomer tops the list - Facebook.
Unlike many of the media surveys, in which companies can nominate themselves, Glassdoor's - like the Philadelphia Business Journal's local list - relies on input from employees. In Glassdoor's case, the employees post anonymous assessments of their companies' strengths and weaknesses to the site, along with the occasional surreptitious workplace photo.
What's remarkable is that many of the companies on Glassdoor's Top 50 list also make the more widely known lists like Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For." What this suggests is that at these outstanding companies, management and employees share not only the same high opinion of their businesses, but are likely in harmony because their corporate cultures encourage it.
That's certainly the case at Southwest Airlines, a perennial on Fortune's Most Admired Companies list, a Glassdoor repeat winner and second to Facebook this year. The company is famous for giving its employees a great deal of leeway to have fun with their jobs (within FAA regulations, of course). Creativity also appears to be a big reason why employees at Facebook and #3 General Mills love their companies and the people who run them (employees get to rate their CEOs on the site too).
Many of the employees at Top 50 companies also praised their strong family-like corporate cultures - a quality most of the reviewers ascribed to the one Philadelphia-area company on the list, financial trading firm Susquehanna International Group in Bala-Cynwyd. In fact, if there can be said to be any one quality that distinguishes a great place to work from the rest of the pack, it is that the great ones inculcate a "we're all in this together" spirit among their workforce. Or, as a pseudonymous poster put it in response to Forbes' article on the Glassdoor survey, a "'we' culture" is what makes a company a top performer in its employees' eyes. It usually makes it a top performer in the marketplace too.
Looking for a place where you can be part of the family? It's out there - start your search on PhillyJobs.com.
One of the more recent entrants in this field is the website Glassdoor.com, which features insights into companies from the people who know them best - their employees. The site's 2011 list of the "50 Best Places to Work," out Dec. 15, is its third, and a much-discussed newcomer tops the list - Facebook.
Unlike many of the media surveys, in which companies can nominate themselves, Glassdoor's - like the Philadelphia Business Journal's local list - relies on input from employees. In Glassdoor's case, the employees post anonymous assessments of their companies' strengths and weaknesses to the site, along with the occasional surreptitious workplace photo.
What's remarkable is that many of the companies on Glassdoor's Top 50 list also make the more widely known lists like Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For." What this suggests is that at these outstanding companies, management and employees share not only the same high opinion of their businesses, but are likely in harmony because their corporate cultures encourage it.
That's certainly the case at Southwest Airlines, a perennial on Fortune's Most Admired Companies list, a Glassdoor repeat winner and second to Facebook this year. The company is famous for giving its employees a great deal of leeway to have fun with their jobs (within FAA regulations, of course). Creativity also appears to be a big reason why employees at Facebook and #3 General Mills love their companies and the people who run them (employees get to rate their CEOs on the site too).
Many of the employees at Top 50 companies also praised their strong family-like corporate cultures - a quality most of the reviewers ascribed to the one Philadelphia-area company on the list, financial trading firm Susquehanna International Group in Bala-Cynwyd. In fact, if there can be said to be any one quality that distinguishes a great place to work from the rest of the pack, it is that the great ones inculcate a "we're all in this together" spirit among their workforce. Or, as a pseudonymous poster put it in response to Forbes' article on the Glassdoor survey, a "'we' culture" is what makes a company a top performer in its employees' eyes. It usually makes it a top performer in the marketplace too.
Looking for a place where you can be part of the family? It's out there - start your search on PhillyJobs.com.
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.
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