Keep your circles small
Big Tech used to rule 'best places to work' rankings. Now smaller companies are taking their crown.
Silicon Valley's tech giants are known for offering a deluge of office perks — anything from free meals to happy hours to ping-pong tables. But those perks don't mean as much as they used to, at least according to Glassdoor's "Best Places to Work 2020" ranking, announced Wednesday.
Facebook, which earned the top spot three times in the last 10 years, tumbled to the 23rd position in the latest list, and Google, a top-10 finisher for the last 8 years, came in at 11th place. Apple also sank to a low 84th rank from 71st, while Amazon didn't make it on the list at all (for the 12th year in a row, reports Bloomberg). Microsoft was the lone tech giant that managed to climb 13 spots, landing at 21st place, reports CNBC.
The overall decline in Big Tech's desirability likely stems from the "growing pains" of "public scrutiny," Amanda Stansell, a senior economic research analyst at Glassdoor, told New York Post.
After its Cambridge Analytica scandal last year, Facebook has struggled to recruit employees, observes CNBC. Meanwhile, internal polls at Google showed "fewer employees were inspired by Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai's vision than a year earlier," and employees have protested the search giant's "intimidation" tactics against worker organizers," notes Bloomberg.
The tech industry still nabbed the highest number of spots on the list, notes Forbes, but it was the smaller companies that reigned supreme.
A relatively unknown Massachusetts-based software company, HubSpot, snagged the No. 1 honor, by offering employees "unlimited vacation time," and a "five-year anniversary, four-week paid sabbatical with the equivalent of a $5,000 bonus," writes CNBC. DocuSign Inc. and Ultimate Software also outranked Big Tech's employee desirability, remarks Business Insider.
Glassdoor's full rankings can be found here.