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Glassdoor reportedly attaches real names to anonymous accounts
Users have reported that Glassdoor is adding their names and other information to their profile — despite never consenting.
Apple #22 on Glassdoor's 2015 Best Places to Work list
Recruiting website Glassdoor has published its Employees' Choice Awards for 2015. The awards honor the best places to work in the US and UK, based on ratings by employees. This year, Apple came in 22nd of the top 50 large companies, a marked improvement from 2014 and 2013, where the company came in at #35 and #34 respectively. Looking at the details of Apple's rating, the company received an average 4.0 out of 5 score from employees. A whopping 93 percent of Apple employees approve of the job that CEO Tim Cook is doing, and 78 percent would recommend the company to their friends who are seeking employment. While things are looking rosier for Apple, the company still has a long way to go to be the top banana (see what I did there?) of tech companies on the Glassdoor list. Google topped the 2015 list, with former list leader Facebook falling to the 13th spot on the list. Adobe weighed in at #18, while LinkedIn was just behind Apple in the #23 spot. Apple's entry in the list was marked by an employee review from April of 2014 referring to the company as the "Paradise of jobs". The same person noted that "Apple offers crazy benefits, and competitive salary. By competitive I don't mean a couple grand more in a year, I'm talking about a 2X / 2.5X salary. This place is a sea of knowledge. Never seen a more dedicated group." Obviously that person isn't working in an Apple Store, where one employee notes that "It's a retail job with retail hours and slightly above average retail pay." While Apple made inroads in terms of employee satisfaction during the past year, it's obvious that worldwide human resources vice president Denise Young Smith and retail and online stores senior vice president Angela Ahrendts need to up their game to keep the team happy.
Apple is the 16th best tech firm to work for, but here's how it could be number one
In this year's edition of the career community site Glassdoor's "50 Best Places to Work" list, Apple came in at number 35 overall and number 16 of tech companies, a one-position drop from last year's rankings. Like any large company, there are plenty of reasons why current employees and contractors downgraded Apple's overall rating, ranging from having too many meetings to long hours around product launches, but things like that aren't likely to change overnight. However, we've come up with a list of 10 things Tim Cook could implement to raise the company's ranking by the time next year's ratings are published. Let's get to it! Hold an employee lottery where the winner gets to have Jony Ive narrate their life for a day. Offer each new employee a lifetime supply of actual apples. Have Tim Cook follow every Apple employee on Twitter, because I'm pretty sure that makes you an instant celebrity. Install a go-kart track that spans the entire roof of Apple's new "spaceship" campus. Give all employees every new iPhone two weeks before the rest of us, and encourage them to rub it in. Let employees order useless products from Amazon Prime Air (if it ever actually launches) and set up a paintball shooting range where the drones land. Dig a bunch of Apple Bandai Pippins out of the storage room and give them away to new hires. Have ex-BlackBerry employees come in to give motivational speeches tell their horror stories. Put a live webcam feed on every desktop monitor showing the inside of a Foxconn factory, so Cupertino workers know how good they have it. Encourage employees to team up and teepee Google's headquarters every time a new Android device that doesn't support the latest version of Android is launched.* *This may lead to a statewide toilet paper shortage in California.
Apple ranks 35th in Glassdoor's 'Best Places to Work 2014' survey
Glassdoor has announced the results of its sixth annual Employees' Choice Awards that ranks the best places to work in America. The rankings are chosen by the employees who work at the companies and the awards are divided into two categories: large- and medium-sized companies. Apple, of course, fits into the large-company category and this year, it ranked number 35 out of the 50 best places to work. That's a drop of one place from last year's ranking. Apple's place is determined by employees voting on a five-point "satisfaction" scale. Out of 2,557 votes, Apple received a 3.8-star satisfaction rating. Glassdoor breaks down satisfaction ratings into pros and cons based on employee feedback. Here are the top two pros and top two cons listed about working at Apple: Pros: "You work with great people with great hours and great benefits." "You get to meet a lot of great people since you are always in the public eye." Cons: "Being relentlessly driven also means it is not easy to achieve work/life balance." "Sometimes long hours because of product launches, but that's the best part of Apple." Besides Apple, other technology giants that made the list included Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google -- all of which made the top 10 list. More than half a million employees voted in this year's Employees' Choice Awards.
Glassdoor: Apple employees love Tim Cook
Glassdoor is a site that allows employees of various corporations to rate how they think their management is doing (while remaining anonymous), and the company has shared some info with TUAW that it says comes out of Apple's campus in Cupertino. The site works kind of like Yelp for employees, as users can come along and leave ratings and reviews for their own company. But presumably this information came from anyone who works for Apple, not just the employees that work directly with CEO Tim Cook in California. And what's the word? In short, they love him. Cook has never had anything less than a 92% approval rating since this time last year, and his current approval rating sits at 93% among employees leaving reviews on Glassdoor. During his time overseeing the company, Steve Jobs held a 97% approval rating, and Cook is a few points below that, but still -- Apple employees think he's doing a great job. Glassdoor also shared a few comments from users who identified as employees actually working in Cupertino, and they called Cook "a CEO who demands work before 6 a.m. everyday, and 'accountability without control'." Another engineer from Cupertino said that "no work/life balance is to be expected at Apple," and that management required employees to be "reachable after work hours." But despite those extra requirements, employees in general seem like enjoy Cook's management. Obviously, these reviewers are all basically self-selected, and like Yelp, this is not exactly an objective look at exactly what the entire company thinks of how things are going over there. But as far as this data goes, it seems like Cook has the support of his employees, and those choosing to report from inside Apple are happy with where the company is at.
Peek inside your (least) favorite game company at Glassdoor.com
Have you heard of Glassdoor.com? It's worth a look if you're career-minded and itching to get some inside info on game development firms. The catch is that the info isn't fool-proof. Posters are largely anonymous and therefore the company ratings and reviews should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, the site requires registration and purports to review every post. What do anonymous insiders have to say about MMO companies? Plenty, as it turns out. Kotaku has collated a list that includes BioWare, Blizzard, CCP, NCsoft, Sony Online Entertainment, and others. None of the firms escape unscathed, and Glassdoor users are particularly hard on CCP and NCsoft. "Too much kool-aid, not enough substance," writes one former employee of CCP's Atlanta studio. NCsoft doesn't fare much better. "No leadership, complete chaos caused by the HQ and the lack of professionalism in the Seattle office. I could not wish this company to my enemy," says one disgruntled employee.
Apple workers quite fond of CEO Tim Cook
Apple employees were happy when Steve Jobs was at the helm and now his successor is receiving the same adoration. According to Glassdoor's March 2012 list of the top 25 highest rated CEOs, Tim Cook takes the top spot with a 97 percent approval rating. This matches Steve Jobs's rating when he resigned from the CEO position last August. It also beat Job's 2011 rating (March 2010 to March 2011) which was 95 percent. [Via AllThingsD]
Apple employees love Steve Jobs
Silicon Alley Insider has put together a chart that shows the approval ratings employees have for various CEOs at major tech companies. The chart is based on data from Glassdoor.com and reveals that Steve Jobs is the most-favored CEO, ranked by his own employees, followed closely by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Eric Schmidt of Google. Employees at struggling Yahoo give their CEO, Carol Bartz, a high-50s point rating, while outspoken Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, comes in last place out of the companies listed in the chart. Earlier this year Barron's published a list of tech's most-respected CEOs which put Steve Jobs in the number one spot and called him "the world's most valuable CEO."
Apple makes Fortune's list of bonehead moves (twice), still a best place to work
With the end of the year comes the cavalcade of best and worst lists, just in case you didn't know what was best and what was worst over the course of the year. Apple made glassdoor.com's list of "50 Best Places to Work," placing 19th. It scored a 3.8 out of five, and 90 percent of employees approved of the job that CEO Steve Jobs was doing. 303 employees completed reviews at the site, contributing to its score. (The reviews themselves are interesting to read, incidentally, if you have a few minutes to kill.) On the other hand, Apple made Fortune magazine's list of 21 Dumbest Moments in Business for the year, twice -- but the second time really wasn't its fault. The first head-smacker, at number six, was for the approval (and subsequent removal) of the "I Am Rich" iPhone application. "The real losers?" Fortune asks: "The eight suckers who bought it." The second blooper, number 19, actually goes to CNN and Bloomberg for two false stories about Steve Jobs' health. Bloomberg accidentally released an obituary on August 28, and retracted it the same day. In a similar gaffe, a post on CNN's iReport site falsely claimed that Jobs had suffered a heart attack. CNN took down the post -- but not after Apple's stock dipped 10 percent in 10 minutes. Ouch. [Via Macsimum News and MacNN.]
