Facebook, the Palo Alto, CA-based social networking giant with half a billion users worldwide, has won the highest overall rating of any company in a 2010 survey of U.S. employees. Meanwhile, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg received a 96 percent approval rating from survey respondents, putting him among the top eight CEOs in the country, in the estimation of employees.
The data was released today by Glassdoor, a Sausalito, CA-based job site co-founded by Rich Barton, a venture partner at Benchmark Capital and CEO of Seattle-based Zillow. It was part of Glassdoor’s third annual Employees’ Choice Awards, a list of the top 50 places to work in the eyes of workers themselves. Southwest Airlines, Bain & Company, General Mills, and public relations firm Edelman rounded out the top five companies in Glassdoor’s survey. (See the full list on page 2.)
“We’re thrilled to be recognized as the best place to work among the distinguished companies on the list,” Facebook vice president of human resources Lori Goler said in a statement. “At Facebook, every person can have a meaningful impact, and people are empowered to move fast, take risks, and build bold and innovative things. We’re thankful people have embraced this freedom to do great things for Facebook and the people who use Facebook around the world.”
Other companies headquartered in or near Xconomy’s home cities that made Glassdoor’s top-50 list include Boston Consulting Group (no. 6), MITRE (no. 12), Slalom Consulting (no. 8), Shutterfly (no. 14), NetApp (no. 15), Apple (no. 20), Analog Devices (no. 21), Synopsys (no. 25), Chevron (no. 26), MassMutual (no. 29), Google (no. 30), Qualcomm (no. 36), Adobe (no. 39), Salesforce.com (no. 41), Ford Motor (no. 42), Genentech (no. 44), Intel (no. 45), and Nike (no. 47).
Glassdoor’s website offers job listings as well as company ratings compiled through anonymous employee reviews and surveys. The company’s top-50 list is based on cumulative average ratings from employees who participated in a 20-question Glassdoor survey between December 1, 2009 and December 1, 2010. The top-rated companies usually rank highly on factors such as company culture, pay packages, and open communications practices, and also tend to have popular CEOs, according to Glassdoor co-founder and CEO Robert Hohman.
The 10 most respected CEOs on Glassdoor’s list, all of whom earned a 96 percent approval rating or higher, were Ken Powell (General Mills, 100 percent), Steve Ellis (Bain & Company, 99 percent), Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs, 97 percent), Steve Jobs (Apple, 97 percent), Kelly King (BB&T, 96 percent), Eric Schmidt (Google, 96 percent),
