back to article Anonymous employee review site Glassdoor research: Tech companies dominate the best places to work

As the world struggles to free itself from the clutches of a global pandemic, maybe it's possible to look on the bright side — at least if you work for a gang of global tech companies. Research from anonymous employee review site Glassdoor shows that dominant software giants Salesforce, Microsoft, Google and SAP are the only …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Gimp

    and how many of these "best places to work" 5-star reviews ...

    ... come directly from the company's HR drones?

    1. Steve Button Silver badge

      Re: and how many of these "best places to work" 5-star reviews ...

      It's worse than that. If you read the book "Disrupted" you'll understand why "...sales platform Hubspot is number two..." they have a cult like mentality and actively encourage their employees to leave positive reviews. It's not HR drones, they are ALL drones.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: and how many of these "best places to work" 5-star reviews ...

        No need, if you pay for Glassdoor's premiere tier they write the reviews for you

    2. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

      Re: and how many of these "best places to work" 5-star reviews ...

      A company that took over the one I worked for forced us to write a positive review on Glassdoor. A HR person actually sat next to me and dictated the review. This was their standard policy for new hires or those like me that joined them through acquisitions.

      Checking their current reviews, those glowing testimonials are offset by far more negative ones. Not surprised, as they were horrible to work for - within three months of bring acquired everyone from the company I originally joined had quit.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: and how many of these "best places to work" 5-star reviews ...

      Yeah, but how bad must a workplace be, when even the HR drones won't go on Glassdoor and astroturf?

  2. doublelayer Silver badge

    Specific criteria

    "Research from anonymous employee review site Glassdoor shows that dominant software giants Salesforce, Microsoft, Google and SAP are the only companies — from any sector — to appear in all the top 50 best places to works lists in the UK, France, Germany, the US, and Canada."

    But a company that operates in only four of those countries wouldn't even be able to appear on all the lists. That means the only candidates that could appear there need to employ a lot of people and have operations in several countries. Given the number of largish employers that don't operate everywhere, it's possible the sample size was smaller than it sounds.

    That tech rates highly doesn't surprise me much. It's a field with a distinctive culture because it's relatively new and because individual employees usually have more ability to change things. That certainly doesn't mean it's the best way to operate, but there are many things about the tech culture that don't seem common in other types of company.

  3. Howard Sway Silver badge

    the highest rated places to work all have a few things in common

    Like maybe a "post a good review whilst I watch or you're fired" policy?

    The only good use for this site I've ever found is to just read the negative reviews by ex-employees. If there's lots of them and they're especially scathing it's a good indicator to avoid having anything to do with that company.

  4. DrXym

    How do we know for sure?

    It wouldn't be the first time companies, especially those with deep pockets have paid a review site to proactively remove bad reviews even if they have to violate them for petty rule infractions. On top of that I bet there are a lot of shill reviews since there is an incentive to do it and minimal verification somebody actually works for the company they purport to.

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I know my last company...

    ....passively monitored people logging onto the site and cross referenced negative posts with time stamps. Posting bad comments is part of a disciplinary action (check your contract, chances are you have the same clause), so be prepared to get roasted.

    I Know this happens in other companies as well.

    Of course, the flip side, you can let it slip that you know fake reviews from HR / Marketing have been posted to GD and watch them get annoyed at them being flagged.

    1. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: I know my last company...

      Why the hell would you do that from work anyway?!

      Do they search for jobs on Seek and LinkedIn with their work systems (and logins!), too?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I know my last company...

      These days, Company HR agents do Social Media Trawls for prospective candidates *before* deciding whether to take them on or not.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I know my last company...

        Which is a practice that seems like a waste of time to me.

        At this point, social media has been around long enough that almost everyone will have posted something that can be taken out of context at this point.

        Also, for a lot of techies (including myself), any HR drone crawling through my social media history will find a huge, HUGE amount of experimental bot traffic or automated posts. If they wish to trawl through my 218,693 posts over almost a decade, they better have a good supply of coffee.

        1. hoola Silver badge

          Re: I know my last company...

          That maybe the case however there is now an industry that provides services doing just that.

          Look at the people who have been discredited due to some post on social media when they were a student or something.

          Equally there are plenty of people out there with reams of social media content that align exactly with their views (Katy Hopkins is an excellent example). The big difference is that the latter is current active & valid whereas trawling through posts that are long forgotten from years ago is simply destructive and is usually for malicious purposes.

          That these companies exist is part of the problem and equally that there are people prepared to pay for the services they offer.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: If they wish to trawl through my 218,693 posts ...

          .. then they'll use a poorly trained neural network (with weird and poorly characterized biases) to do it.

        3. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

          Re: I know my last company...

          "At this point, social media has been around long enough that almost everyone will have posted something that can be taken out of context at this point."

          Which is why I never use my real name on forums or the likes of Facebook when I briefly had an account on there. So in case you were wondering, I'm not really Fat Freddy's Cat.

    3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Frankly, it seems a bit stupid to me to go and post bad things about your company on the company network. The company has the right, and the power, to log everything you do.

      You can access the Internet from your phone. Or from your home PC. In either case, you are secure from the prying eyes of your company.

      1. Giles C Silver badge

        That is why I don’t connect personal devices to company WiFi networks. Or use a personal account on a company issued device.

        My work is one set, my personal stuff is another set and the two don’t meet.

        I will occasionally email from personal to company but that is usually because I have found a fix for a problem whilst out of work hours.

        I don’t have social media (apart from a LinkedIn account where I haven’t posted anything for a year or more) so good luck on searching for that. Unless you want to go through my 1500 hundred posts on autopuzzles.com or all the comments made on the register…

    4. spireite Silver badge

      Re: I know my last company...

      If you're stupid enogh to post from your work machine during work hours, then you have it coming.

      1. DrXym

        Re: I know my last company...

        That may be but it doesn't excuse some shitty company trying to find out who might be posting bad reviews about itself. I wouldn't be surprised if some large companies with a poor reputation (*cough* Amazon) even have internal security departments whose purpose includes finding people posting or saying negative things about the company in the press or online.

        But yeah, it would make sense to do this at a time and location that the company can't pin on a person.

        1. teebie

          Re: I know my last company...

          "I wouldn't be surprised if some large companies with a poor reputation (*cough* Amazon) even have internal security departments whose purpose includes finding people posting or saying negative things about the company in the press or online."

          eBay say they don't normally do this https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/28/ebay_security_prison/

      2. Youngone Silver badge

        Re: I know my last company...

        ...your work machine...

        And yet here I am having to explain to people that no, that laptop belongs to the company and I won't let you take it with you now you've quit.

        Yes, I know its 2002.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I know my last company...

      What kind of moron leaves a negative review of their employer, using company provided kit, connected to the company provided VPN in office hours?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mandatory positive reviews

    Meh. Used to work for a major backup vendor as a pre sales person. As part of a whitewashing initiative we staff had to post positive reviews in a team meeting. Of course everyone gave cr@p reviews as soon as they got home, even the ones who would t usually have bothered!

  8. spireite Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    I'm on the fence with Glassdoor, but......

    It is inevitable the bad reviews outnumbervthe good, like any review site really.

    You also have to weigh up the 'bitterness' of an (ex) employee with reality.

    That said, I've looked at a few of my ex-employers, and the bad reviews (vast majority) have been spot on

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The "Innovation Management"/software company I work for, has seen an exodus of staff since the new CEO arrived.

      Those who left wrote a lot of accurate reviews on Glassdoor, but all of a sudden many 5 star reviews have been placed which are all very similar. Looks like the work of the CEO as he can't take criticism, so Glassdoor has some work to do if it's to remain neutral.

    2. DrXym

      I expect the majority of reviews are reflective of a person's experience at a company.

      The biggest issue is Glassdoor is like Tripadvisor, Yelp et al. They masquerade as a review sites but their true intent is to shake companies down for £££ to make bad reviews go away.

  9. Jason Hindle

    The benefits of working on tech?

    The future might be dystopian but at least you're on the giving end. When it comes to things like SAP/Salesforce/Workday/Whatever, it is always better to give than it is to receive.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Glassdoor is a cesspit of whinging for the workshy!

    Alright, maybe not quite that but how many of us have worked with those handful of lazy bastards who contribute nothing, expect all the glory and then moan when the company won't increase their pay, pay them a 20% bonus for coming up with one reasonable idea?

    I've worked at a couple of places that got slaughtered on Glassdoor and they weren't that bad, maybe not amazing but certainly not the employee hellholes some people seem to suggest. You're never going to get an honest answer about how good a place is, workplaces polarize opinion, some love it and some hate it. All you can do is look at staff turnover numbers if available and make your own assumptions.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Glassdoor is a cesspit of whinging for the workshy!

      "handful of lazy bastards who contribute nothing, expect all the glory and then moan when the company won't increase their pay"

      Oh, you mean management

  11. Wedgie

    A few years back my missus used to run a program at a consultancy firm, the objective was to do well in these surveys.

    A lot of effort went into ensuring that only the right types of people were selected to complete the surveys, a population of about 100. Those individuals weren’t coached, coerced, or otherwise encouraged to answer in a particular way, however they were pretty safe bets.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not necessarily fake

    As an employee of one of the top 5 with over 20 years in the industry, I can honestly say it's by far the best place I've ever worked. You're genuinely treated well, fairly, and given opportunities to develop your career. There's never been any suggestion that anyone write fake positive reviews. I can understand the cynicism, but it really doesn't have to be the norm that people should be treated like shit by management.

  13. Peter2 Silver badge

    This is a breakdown of the population by percentile points of income, along with what that income is from the HMRC.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax

    Summarily for those who can't be bothered to look:-

    The 1% percentile makes 12k p/a

    The 25% percentile makes 17.8k p/a

    The 50% percentile makes 25k p/a

    The 75% percentile makes 37.8k p/a

    The 90th percentile makes £56.2k p/a

    The 99th percentile makes £175k p/a

    *This typically excludes people who are "contractors" instead of "employees", which can people working at McDonalds or Uber at the low end, and at least 800 BBC presenters in the top 1%, which suggests that ways of avoiding paying tax is prevalent enough to skew these figures. Still, they should be reasonably accurate.

    Out of IT jobs, first line service desk jobs are about all that can reasonably be expected to make less than the top 50% of the population, and even then not by that much.

    A stark reality is that tech companies are staffed with reasonably sought after employees with transferable skills, who other companies would be reasonably happy with recruiting and who's employers would be somewhat put out at losing. As a result, most jobs come with much better conditions than employees in lower wage brackets who are often treated as disposable and easily replaceable.

  14. This post has been deleted by its author

  15. Winkypop Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Toadies and other sycophants

    You know the types, laugh at the bosses jokes, attend every work function, work weekends for free, etc.

    Kids today, bah!

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