Glassdoor Blog » Lowest Rated Companies

Highest and Lowest Rated Tech Companies

Glassdoor Team — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:09:39 +0000

We buy their gadgets, use their software or work with their hardware every day, but when it comes to the people who work at the companies who make these products or services, is it really as impressive as it seems from the outside packaging? As we wrap up the end of the year, Glassdoor offers an inside look into the technology companies whose employees work to make our lives easier, more efficient and more productive to find out: Is the packaging on the outside reflective of what’s happening on the inside?

The list of highest and lowest rated technology companies comes as part of the Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Awards, which was previewed last week on GigaOm. The award honor the top 50 Best Places to Work in which the company achieves at least a 3.0 or greater company rating and whose CEO garners a 50%+ approval rating. First we look at a list of the highest rated tech companies* that exceeded these minimum requirements – Juniper Networks, National Instruments and Google come in as the three highest rated technology companies in respective order.

A Juniper Networks Senior Software Engineer gets straight to the point about the benefits of working at Juniper:
“- excellent compensation
- best in class technology, plenty of great projects
- good balance with personal life
- excellent hardware and software engineers
- good information by several on site tech talks each week by industry experts and project teams”

A National Instruments employee comments, “Company has a play hard – work hard attitude toward its employees – it’s awesome here.”

And a Google Developer writes in, “What has made Google really great are the brilliant minds that work there…Somehow, Google has managed to preserve an open culture where people really aren’t arrogant.”

In terms of CEO approval, it’s Steve Jobs at Apple who holds top spot among CEOs on the highest rated technology companies. Google’s Eric Schmidt (87% approval) and National Instrument’s James Truchard (85% approval) follow Jobs’ closely behind.

But it appears that not all technology employees feel their companies have been on the nice list this year. In fact as you’ll see there have been 13 leading technology companies to make the highest rated list but 15 who have made the lowest rated technology companies list. The lowest rated tech companies* list is based on those companies who received a 2.5 company rating or lower and a CEO approval rating less than 50%. Xilinx, Affiliated Computer Services and Hewlett-Packard are the lowest rated among technology companies. Here are some highlights from among the respective company reviews:

“Has lost its way in innovation and leadership. No longer empowers employees in the decision making process.” – Xilinx Employee

“I got to a supervisor possition very quickly, but career ends here. Made very clear by upper management. A degree is needed for almost anything, but it does not matter what the degree is in.” – Affiliated Computer Services Supervisor

“I can’t wait till the economy is on the upswing and jobs are plentiful. I predict a mass exodus. I hope Hurd has a contingency plan.” – Hewlett-Packard Business Partner

Do you work for these companies? Do you agree with your fellow colleagues when it comes to how satisfied you are with the company? If you haven’t already, share your company review and give insights into how you feel about the career opportunities, compensation & benefits, employee morale, recognition & feedback, senior leadership, work/life balance at your company.

* Highest and lowest rated companies have received at least 25 reviews during December 1, 2008 and December 1, 2009 from US-based employees.

Highest and Lowest Rated Tech Companies is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

Glassdoor Reveals Lowest Rated Companies; United Stays Grounded as Gibson Guitar Strikes A Cord With Employees

Glassdoor Team — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:17:01 +0000

As 10% of the US population struggles to find work, employees are sounding off on Glassdoor.com providing real time ratings¹ and reviews of their employers and providing job seekers with helpful insight that include cautionary tales of companies to avoid.

In concert with the release of the Employees’ Choice Awards for Top 50 Best Places to Work in 2010, Glassdoor has identified the 25 lowest-rated companies, according to employees who voluntarily completed a 20-question survey. Among those companies that have received at least 25 reviews from U.S.-based employees in the past year, the lowest rated is Gibson Guitar, followed closely by United Airlines and Spherion.

Here are some recent employee reviews that reveal why these companies fall short in terms of company satisfaction:

“Good people overall…[but] An absolutely bizarre culture that top-to-bottom seems to revolve solely around trying not to upset the CEO.” – Anonymous Gibson Employee (Location n/a)

“Job security is always an issue and stressful to one’s life and home life. Extremely dysfunctional pay scale system. Most of the employees have placed their heart and soul in to this company only to have their face slapped for doing so.” – United Airlines Supervisor Airport Operations (Location n/a)

“Poor communication from management regarding my assignment and other employment opportunities within the organization.” – Spherion Project Administrator (San Francisco, CA)

One thing common among lowest-rated companies is finger pointing at senior management and CEO. In fact, only two CEOs on this list have an approval rating higher than 30%: Cognizant Tech Solution’s Frank D’Souza (40% approval) and Fastenal’s Will Oberton (42%). In addition, a handful of CEOs have consistently appeared on the Glassdoor CEO Watch List, including: United Airlines’ Glenn Tilton, Rain Bird’s Anthony LaFetra and Level 3 Communications’ Jim Crowe.

The complete list of the 25 lowest-rated companies is included below along with the CEO approval rating:

If you are in the job market or just gauging what your company is like compared to others, keep in mind that ratings are just one aspect of the in-depth, work-related data Glassdoor offers. You can also get information on salary for specific jobs at specific companies as well as find interview questions and reviews.

If you haven’t yet taken time to anonymously voice your opinion or share your pay (for current job or any job in the past three years), we invite you to take a few minutes and contribute to our growing database. Your contributions get you access to all Glassdoor.com and puts your company in the running for the 2011 lists.

¹ Ratings are based on a 20-question survey that evaluate eight key workplace factors including: Senior Leadership, Communication, Employee Morale, Career Opportunities, Work/Life Balance, Compensation and Benefits, Recognition and Feedback, and Fairness and Respect. For reporting simplicity, a company’s rating on the Glassdoor website and this list is limited to one decimal space although the actual calculations extend infinitely to determine final rank order

Glassdoor Reveals Lowest Rated Companies; United Stays Grounded as Gibson Guitar Strikes A Cord With Employees is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

Employees’ Choice Unveiled: Glassdoor Announces Top Best Places to Work

Robert Hohman — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:39:49 +0000

Since launching early this year, nearly 75,000 employees have come to Glassdoor to anonymously contribute salary information and share opinions about their company’s work environment and rate their overall satisfaction. We decided to tabulate the results and see who rated highest… and lowest. We are proud to announce the ultimate Employees’ Choice Awards for Workplaces in our first annual Best Places to Work Top 50¹ list.

Congratulations to General Mills, which topped the list of companies rated by their employees with a 4.5 company rating (on a 5-point scale) while giving General Mills CEO Ken Powell a 96% approval rating. It’s not hard to see why when looking at reviews². One employee writes “I’m proud to work for GMI! They are good community partners, they genuinely care about diversity, and they are well respected as a company. They are consistently ranked among the best companies to work for and their pay/benefits are competitive. The headquarters…is rather impressive as well boasting an impressive cafeteria, health facility…You could probably live on campus if you wanted to. These amenities go a long way into making the real life more manageable so that you can focus on performing well at your job.”

Another General Mills employee adds this review:

“Pros: Incredible work life balance! I started with General Mills many years ago in a interesting and challenging part-time position. Even during my part-time years, opportunities for growth were made available. Once my kids were older I returned to a full time schedule and pursued a management track.
Cons: The upsides of working for General Mills outweigh the downsides 100-1. The only observation I have is that General Mills is sometimes too good to their employees. The process for terminating an employee is so onerous that many managers just avoid it. Poor performers can linger for months or even years before someone takes action.
Advice to Senior Management: Outstanding company to work for!”

We know there are a number of lists out there where companies must nominate themselves and then spend considerable time and money to put together extraordinary marketing packets of information in hopes of being considered – let alone make the list. We’ve designed these awards with the same spirit of transparency on which we founded Glassdoor and think an award based exclusively on Employees’ Choice is an important reflection of that openness. (Particularly given the year we’ve all had!) In this first year, we’ve focused on companies that have U.S.-based employees because that’s where we have the most content to date, but we hope to expand the awards in the future to encompass other countries and companies with smaller employee bases. So without further ado, here are the 50 Best Places to Work according to the people who know best – their employees.

Glassdoor 50 Best Places to Work
Company	Company Rating	CEO	CEO Approval Rating (%)
General Mills	4.5	Ken Powell	96
Bain & Company	4.5	Orit Gadiesh	88
Netflix	4.4	Reed Hastings	100
Adobe	4.3	Shantanu Narayen	82
Northwestern Mutual	4.2	Edward J. Zore	98
Whole Foods	4.2	John P. Mackey	85
Google	4.1	Eric E. Schmidt	89
SAP	4.1	Henning Kagermann	75
Continental Airlines	4.1	Larry Kellner	79
NetApp	4.0	Dan Warmenhoven	79
Intuit	4.0	Brad D. Smith	78
McKinsey & Company	4.0	Ian Davis	85
FactSet	3.9	Philip A. Hadley	91
Boston Consulting	3.9	Hans-Paul Bürkner	71
Procter & Gamble	3.9	A.G. Lafley	86
Caterpillar	3.9	Jim Owens	85
Genentech	3.8	Art Levinson	94
CareerBuilder	3.8	Matt Ferguson	86
Apple	3.8	Steve Jobs	90
Juniper Networks	3.8	Kevin Johnson	n/a
Marriott	3.8	Bill Marriott Jr.	82
NIKE	3.8	Mark G. Parker	100
Ernst & Young Global	3.8	Jim Turley	79
MITRE	3.8	Alfred Grasso	53
Chevron	3.8	Dave O’Reilly	73
Goldman Sachs	3.8	Lloyd C. Blankfein	86
Nordstrom	3.8	Blake W. Nordstrom	75
Citrix Systems	3.7	Mark B. Templeton	77
Schlumberger	3.7	Andrew Gould	70
Booz Allen Hamilton	3.7	Ralph W. Shrader	61
National Instruments	3.7	James J. Truchard	74
Novell	3.7	Ron Hovsepian	64
PricewaterhouseCoopers	3.7	Sam DiPiazza Jr.	59
American Express	3.6	Ken Chenault	80
Cisco Systems	3.6	John T. Chambers	79
USAA	3.6	Joe Robles Jr.	83
EMC	3.6	Joe Tucci	60
Capital One	3.6	Rich Fairbank	68
QUALCOMM	3.6	Paul E. Jacobs	75
MetLife	3.6	Rob Henrikson	53
Lockheed Martin	3.6	Robert J. Stevens	63
Texas Instruments	3.6	Rich Templeton	64
US Army	3.6	Pete Geren III	50
Deloitte	3.5	Jim Quigley	64
Wells Fargo	3.5	John G. Stumpf	65
Best Buy	3.5	Brad Anderson	64
salesforce.com	3.5	Marc Benioff	69
Accenture	3.5	Bill Green	67
FedEx	3.5	Fred Smith	67
Paychex	3.5	Jon Judge	59

To find out more about the top 50 workplaces and read employee reviews of these companies, we invite you to visit: 2009 Employees’ Choice Awards. A complete copy of the Glassdoor survey along with additional information about the Glassdoor Best Places to Work methodology may be requested via email: BestPlacestoWork@glassdoor.com.

We look forward to seeing how these companies fare throughout 2009. Sending you best wishes and greater workplace transparency in the New Year!

¹To be eligible for the inaugural Employees’ Choice Awards for the Best Places to Work companies must have received at least 25 reviews from U.S.-based employees who are currently employees or who were employed at some time during 2008, maintain an above 3.5 cumulative average overall and across eight workplace factors addressed in the company’s voluntary 20-question survey, and the CEO must have an approval rating higher than 50%.

²Glassdoor carefully reviews each ratings survey, company review and salary report submitted through its website and only those surveys and reports that are approved by the Glassdoor research team are eligible for the list.

Employees’ Choice Unveiled: Glassdoor Announces Top Best Places to Work is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

Who’s the Lowest of them All? Glassdoor Reports Companies with Lowest Overall Ratings

Glassdoor Team — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:02:23 +0000

With a New Year right around the corner, it may be time for some companies to take a look at what’s working and what’s not. We all know and recognize that things are tough right now, and for employers this is an opportunity to take a look inside so that you retain your talent and get the most out of your employees while keeping them happy. As we thumb through the data collected throughout this past year, there are companies who shine (stay tuned for top companies) and there are those who – well, let’s just say their ratings aren’t a bright spot.

For your perusal, we have identified some of the lowest rated companies on Glassdoor.com¹. DHL Express ranks as the least favored company on Glassdoor (of those with at least 25 employee reviews). DHL Express is headquartered in Plantation, Fla. and receives a 1.7 company rating (on a 5-point scale). United Airlines headquartered in Chicago, Ill. takes the number two spot, followed closely by automotive supplier Reynolds & Reynolds headquartered in Kettering, Ohio. Both Reynolds & Reynolds and United Airlines receive a 2.0 company rating².

What’s also interesting to note is which CEOs from the 50 lowest rated companies recently made our CEO Watch List that was highlighted in our “Naughty and Nice CEOs of 2008″ post.

Glassdoor: Lowest Rated Companies Based on Employee Satisfaction
Rank	Company	Overall Rating	CEO	CEO Approval Rating
1	DHL Express (USA)	1.7	N/A	N/A³
2	United Airlines	2.0	Glenn F. Tilton	12%
3	Reynolds and Reynolds	2.0	Bob Brockman	8%
4	Farmers Group	2.0	Paul N. Hopkins	6%
5	Gibson Guitar	2.1	Henry E. Juszkiewicz	17%
6	RadioShack	2.1	Julian C. Day	11%
7	Rain Bird	2.1	Anthony LaFetra	9%
8	CSAA Inter-Insurance Bureau	2.2	James R. Pouliot	12%
9	Office Depot	2.2	Steve Odland	4%
10	Compuware	2.4	Pete Karmanos Jr.	16%
11	Affiliated Computer Services	2.4	Lynn R. Blodgett	10%
12	Harrah’s Entertainment	2.4	Gary W. Loveman	30%
13	Convergys	2.4	Dave Dougherty	20%
14	Qimonda	2.5	Kin Wah Loh	19%
15	NCR	2.5	Bill Nuti	27%
16	Tata Consultancy	2.5	Subramanian Ramadorai	37%
17	Countrywide Financial	2.5	Angelo R. Mozilo	3%
18	Chrysler	2.5	Bob Nardelli	17%
19	Fidelity National Information Services	2.5	Lee A. Kennedy	15%
20	Acxiom	2.5	John Meyer	Not Rated
21	LexisNexis	2.5	Andy Prozes	13%
22	Unisys	2.5	Ed Coleman	Not Rated
23	Dominion Enterprises	2.5	Conrad M. Hall	25%
24	Borders	2.6	George L. Jones	16%
25	Rite Aid	2.6	Mary F. Sammons	28%
26	Coca-Cola Enterprises	2.6	John Franklin Brock	19%
27	EDS	2.6	Ron Rittenmeyer	11%
28	Nationwide	2.6	Jerry Jurgensen	31%
29	AT&T Mobility	2.6	Ralph de la Vega	36%
30	Red Cross	2.6	Gail McGovern	Not Rated
31	OfficeMax	2.6	Sam K. Duncan	23%
32	Marvell Technology	2.6	Sehat Sutardja	27%
33	Level 3 Communications	2.6	Jim Crowe	21%
34	Motorola	2.6	Greg Brown	10%
35	CA	2.6	John A. C. Swainson	57%
36	Gannett	2.6	Craig A. Dubow	19%
37	Blockbuster	2.7	James Keyes	Not Rated
38	Alcatel-Lucent	2.7	Ben Verwaayen	37%
39	Robert Half	2.7	Max Messmer Jr.	24%
40	Freddie Mac	2.7	David Moffett	Not Rated
41	Macy’s	2.7	Terry J. Lundgren	33%
42	Corporate Executive Board	2.7	Thomas L. Monahan III	30%
43	IAC	2.7	Barry Diller	21%
44	Cadence Design	2.7	John Shoven	Not Rated
45	Real	2.7	Rob Glaser	27%
46	Circuit City	2.7	James Marcum	Not Rated
47	eBay	2.7	John J. Donahoe	20%
48	Washington Mutual	2.7	Alan Fishman	0%
49	AT&T	2.7	Randall L. Stephenson	27%
50	UnitedHealth Group	2.7	Steve Hemsley	26%

In addition to news headlines about DHL and its failure to respond to financial and community commitments which will result in the loss of 8,000 jobs, current DHL Express employees point to the plethora of reasons why this company rates so low in terms of employee satisfaction:

A DHL Express Field Service Supervisor in Chicago, Ill. advises:

“Get Out Now” and adds “PROS: There are none! A highly disorganized company. I should have known better from the beginning.“

And, a Courier for DHL Express in Seattle, Wash. gives a laundry list explanation as to why the company takes top spot as the lowest rated company on Glassdoor:

“DHL Express is currently “downsizing” as it struggles to right a sinking ship in a recessionary economy. Upper management has continually mismanaged the company to the point that it is losing $5 million dollars a day (that’s over a billion dollars a year), even though their upfront costs were probably half that of its competitors, FedEx and UPS, and it had a diverse network and client base. It has continuously ignored whatever problems are actually occurring at the station level, has bungled numerous initiatives to cut costs and improve workplace efficiencies, has gone through a string of incompetent CEO’s, Presidents, and VP’s (who in turn were promoted into the upper reaches of the parent company, DPWN after failing to actually reach their “break even” target) and as a result there is a high degree of dissatisfaction by the dwindling customers we still have and low morale among the workers on the frontlines who run DHL’s service model (delivering packages). DHL USA is simply going out of business, and supposedly “retooling” to service international products exclusively even as international trade is slowing down and jet fuel costs are skyrocketing through the roof.”

So if you’re reading this blog as an employer, we hope you’ll take some of the feedback your employees are sharing about the good, the bad as well as advice they have to offer you about how to improve the company.

But if you’re an employee (of any company out there), use the opportunity to learn from your colleagues about what opportunities are available at your company… and other companies you bay be interested in. Afterall, information is power in today’s market.

And no matter what side of the conference table you sit on, keep an eye out for tips from our guest contributor Rusty Rueff, a career and workplace expert, and take advantage of the advice he has to offer whether it’s on how to handle layoffs (as an employer or employee) or insights into handling an interview.

¹ Ratings are based on a 20-question survey that evaluate 8 key workplace factorsincluding: Senior Leadership, Communication, Employee Morale, Career Opportunities, Work/Life Balance, Compensation and Benefits, Recognition and Feedback, and Fairness and Respect

² For reporting simplicity, a company’s rating on the Glassdoor website and this list is limited to one decimal space although the actual calculations extend infinitely to determine final rank order

³ A ‘Not Rated” approval rating is due to the fact there are fewer than 25 responses for the current CEO. This may be caused by a recent CEO turnover or the fact fewer employees answered whether they “approve,” “disapprove” or have “no opinion” of the job the CEO is doing than those who completed the employer survey.

Who’s the Lowest of them All? Glassdoor Reports Companies with Lowest Overall Ratings is a post from: Glassdoor Blog