Glassdoor’s Top 50 Best Places to Work 2014: Apple #35

Glassdoor has announced their sixth annual Employees’ Choice Awards, honoring the 50 Best Places to Work, and new for 2014, the 50 Best Medium-Sized Companies to Work For.

Winners were determined by the people who know these companies best — their employees.

Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work 2014, Top 10:
1. Bain & Company
2. Twitter
3. LinkedIn
4. Eastman Chemical
5. Facebook
6. Guidewire
7. Interactive Intelligence
8. Google
9. Orbitz Worldwide
10. Nestlé Purina PetCare

Apple Inc. placed 35th and Apple’s employees describe themselves as merely “Satisfied” versus the “Very Satisfied” employees at #2 Twitter, #5 Facebook, and #8 Google.

Read more, and see the full Top 50 list, here.

20 Comments

    1. And it is interesting that different publications “rankings” which also compile employee’s questions to surveys have wildly different outcomes (a top 10 ranked company may not even make the top 50 in another)

      I think like most opinion surveys it is incredibly easy (both intentionally and unintentionally) to wildly skew results via both the phrasing and types of questions and the ranking of the answers.

  1. Steve Jobs besides being a brilliant visionary and futurist was a brilliant people manager in that he could fuse together a brain trust of smart egotistical people (smart & egotistical go with the territory – you usually can’t have one without the other) and get them working together to come up with revolutionary products. I think it was due to part charisma, part driven personality, part persuasive talker (just listen to his keynotes), part charlatan of the technological arts, part mercurial reputation.

    Cook, on the other hand, is more of a consensus builder and probably doesn’t tolerate outrageous egos within the team resulting in bland, incremental products like the iPhone 5S and the horrible iOS 7 interface. I don’t think Steve would have put up with the shoddiness of iOS 7 but Cook doesn’t seem to mind that it looks like an amalgamation of Android & Windows Phone 8.

    The end result is middling employees who are team players get rewarded but superstars like Scott Forstall get shunted aside making for a bland boring workplace.

    1. I bet we could get MDN readers to each chip in a buck and gather the $600 it’d take to buy your iPhone from you. Whaddya say? Then you could find another site to bless with your constant, repetitive bitching.

      1. I’m with you, Cancerous.

        It takes a “special” kind of person to stick fixedly to his opinion and not even wonder, “Hmmmm. Maybe I should think why there are only five of us and 30 million people who think it’s fine.”

    2. Horrible iOS 7 interface. I agree. And when are they going to fix the mess which is Mavericks? Probably taking so long because so many huge problems. Should I wait or revert to Mountain Lion?

    3. BLN, you speak the God honest truth.

      Remembering the Jack Nicholson military movie line is certainly apropo around here at times, “you can’t handle the truth!”

      Keep it real and keep it coming …

  2. Not a lot of retail in the top 50 – Costco, HEB (big markets away from the mall) and Apple. More than half of Apple’s employees are retail and most of those are part-time. I think if corporate and retail were separated you would have two very different rankings.

      1. Indeed. Corporate growth is outpaced by retail expansion and an increased p/t headcount. There are other factors at play (including the sj factor) but every year, retail makes up a bigger part of the employee mix.

  3. Apple works its employees hard, demanding performance at every turn. People who just want a job to pay the bills should probably look elsewhere. I’d bet the Very Satisfied group at Apple are the ones who work on new technology. In AppleCare, customer satisfaction is paramount, so egocentrism can definitely be an issue, as are long hours and working holidays when new customers are likely to call in.

      1. You keep repeating (in multiple posts) that apple was #1 on a previous Glassdoor compilation.
        But again, I don’t see it anywhere near that (for any year)
        Where are you getting this?

  4. Interesting, as the companies at #2 and #5 have not made a dime…does LinkedIn actually make any money? Does this list actually matter? Would anyone doing anything useful have answered the survey that created this list? Is it snowing again?

  5. I agree with the other commentators who point out the large proportion of retail staff in the mix these days at Apple. Retail is, well, retail and although Apple does it with flair its a largely unskilled job and these employees are young and may not have much experience with other retailers. Also, the culture of Apple is changing – it is now Goliath, whereas pre-iPhone it was always David. The really key employees are the ones working in creative areas, and I would think that these people still retain the same passion for Apple as ever.

  6. Where does glassdoor.com rate on the list?…

    The problem with glassdoor’s rating is that is requires people to trust glass door and tell them things about their company. Unlike the other more reputable best places to work lists, this is full of a bunch of unknowns.

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