Hold That Resume: Fortune Magazine recently published a list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For that no doubt caused a good deal of celebration in the HR departments of the chosen companies. But after a brief conversation with The Legendary KK I was prompted to look a bit further. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of employers in the U.S. How could Fortune know which ones were the best? I discovered some perspective is in order.
The competition itself is run by an organization called Great Place to Work. That organization does a bit of investigation and performs a survey of the employees of nominated companies. According to the nominating process, eligible companies must have at least 500 employees and have been in business for at least 6 years (Actually, the Great Places To Work site states 1000 employees whereas Fortune states 500, which could be misleading in light of the nominating process). So right off the bat, that clever start-up that offers all sorts of unorthodox perks and such an egalitarian atmosphere is disqualified; as is that little niche company of a couple hundred employees that hasn't had any turnover in the last thirty years.
Well, there still must be tens of thousands of companies that meet the criteria, you say. Yes, but: the companies still have to be nominated. That means a) somebody had to know about the competition, figure out that there is a nominating process and take the time to investigate how to get on the list, and b) the company had to facilitate the distribution of the Great Place To Work survey to the company employees, allow them to take the time to fill it out, and submit to a company "Culture Audit," which sounds vaguely Orwellian. So basically, there had to be a signifiant company-wide effort to make it onto the list, just sitting back and being a good employer isn't enough.
As it turns out, there were only 279 companies that went to the trouble. That means as long as you completed the nomination process, you had almost a 40% chance of making the list no matter what you do to your employees. Suddenly the appearance changes from the 100 best companies out of millions to the 100 best out of 279. Southwest Airlines was in the winning 100 last year but decided it wasn't worth the effort this year. Does that mean they are a worse company to work for now?
The article should be retitled The 100 Best Companies To Work For Out Of The 279 6-or-more-year-old Companies With 500 Or More Employees Who Knew About The Contest And Figured It Was Worth All The Effort, but that wouldn't fit on the cover of Fortune and it probably wouldn't seem like much of a victory for HR.
Sound and Fury, signifying nothing.
Ch-ch-ch-changes: Some minor site issues-
Netsurfer Science links is now a pay site, so I've removed it from the links section. It's cheap, $20 per year, so I may subscribe and just provide you with the "best of."
For some reason, I've been removed from the webloggers webring so trying to use those links won't do you any good. I've sent emails a-flyin' but no response yet. I'll let it go a couple of more days and then I'll just sack it and remove the links.
I split out all my little travel essays from Sublime and Ridiculous, just because.
