The 25 best companies to work for according to LinkedIn
Social business platform LinkedIn has unveiled its annual rankings of the best employers to work for in the world. The 2017 edition sees internet companies dominate the global employment market, while consultancies McKinsey, Deloitte, Accenture and EY all sit among the top 25.
The world’s largest professional network is fed data continuously by its global user-base of job seekers. Utilising information gathered from billions of actions taken by their 433+ million members, the network’s insights and global editorial teams analysed the input to come up with a blended score that they used to rank the most desirable employers in particular locales.
Top 5 companies
Unsurprisingly perhaps global IT and tech giants Alphabet, the parent company of Google, ranks as the most desirable place to work on earth. As the group constantly strives to diversify, Alphabet’s global headcount of 72,000 is currently working on everything from self-driving cars to the combat of online extremism, with 2016’s R&D spend standing at $13.9 billion. Commenting on the company’s sustained popularity as an employer, CEO Larry Page said, “You need to stay a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.”
Following closely behind, with a staff of 341,400, Internet behemoth Amazon is at the forefront of automisation and innovation in the retail sector, delivering its first package by drone in the UK in 2016, while it rolled out Prime Video in India and in a step beyond the digital world began to open brick-and-mortar stores in the U.S.
Third-placed social media titans Facebook meanwhile stand on the brink of 2 billion monthly active users, and among its global headcount of 17,000 the company boasts a 96% satisfaction rating. Facebook staffers are currently working on new methods to combat internet extremism and “fake news.” According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg the company aims to do much more than enable networking though, “When you enter our buildings, we want you to feel how much left there is to be done in our mission to connect the world.”
The world’s fourth most popular employer meanwhile is an altogether less conventional choice. Freelancer platform Uber is one of the most valuable start-ups in the world, worth some $68 billion. Culturally the firm remains controversial, with many seeing it as a way of undercutting wages for full-time workers, particularly in the taxi industry, however it still attracted outsize attention from global job seekers among LinkedIn’s network activity. With a global headcount of 12,000, the company trains each formal employee, or nUber as new employees are dubbed, with a three-day Uberversity program, with direct input from the company’s heads.
Fifth-spot in LinkedIn’s rankings goes to Apple, with the consumer electronics colossus employing 110,000 globally. Nearly 67,000 of these work in Apple’s 463 stores worldwide, but they receive the same benefits as those in corporate positions, including shares in the company and education aid. The company works to design and develop a large portion of the world’s must-have digital commodities, with its long term focus of perpetual innovation making their new hardware continuously popular.
Top 10 companies
Internet company Salesforce, with a global headcount of 25,000, continues the web’s dominance of LinkedIn’s top 25 employers at sixth place. Salesforce came to prominence by bringing customer relationship management to the cloud, with further plans in the future to pair CRM with artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, McKinsey & Company is the first consulting firm to feature on the list. The strategic advisory boasts a worldwide influence, from healthcare to retail, with McKinsey’s 22,000 global employees being used to tailor teams who are the best fit for every job, regardless of location – which as is typical with management consultancy work, leads to a great deal of work-travel. About 40% of its consultants have at least one international engagement per year, while the company combats burnout by allowing consultants to take off an extra five to 10 weeks per year beyond vacation time to pursue personal interests and passions.
LVMH in eighth place has a worldwide staff of 135,000 and the luxury retailer caters to a wide selection of sectors including fashion and leather goods, perfumes and cosmetics, jewellery and wine and spirits. The company – the globe’s largest luxury player – remains popular among employees by offering genuine opportunities to progress in the company, as nearly 75 percent of managerial positions get filled through internal promotions.
World-famous cosmetics firm L’Oréal place ninth in LinkedIn’s research, with the cosmetics company collecting a huge $28.6 billion in sales last year, retaining its position as the top beauty firm worldwide. It’s global staff of 83,000 had a 30% intake of young graduates in 2016, with the company prioritising giving youth a chance for decades – the current CEO himself even beginning in 1978 as a fresh-faced intern.
Rounding off the top ten, IT firm Dell Technologies acquired storage solutions provider EMC in Autumn 2016 for $60 billion, making Dell a global IT leader with seven assorted technology powerhouses under its umbrella. The global Dell workforce of 145,000 people are each encouraged to participate in its Connected Workplace program by 2020, which gives them the opportunity to work from home, set their own hours, or re-engineer their career paths.
Top 25
Beyond the top ten, computer networking company Cisco employs 73,000 people worldwide, with employees working to shape the Internet with cutting-edge technological innovation, including products and services like WebEx, OpenDNS, and the company’s Tetration Analytics system. In 12th place, tech-innovators Tesla utilise a staff of 30,000 to work toward the transition to sustainable transportation with electric vehicles – however flagging popularity among those staff could see the firm drop down the future rankings, as a gulf emerges between employees and their enigmatic CEO Elon Musk, who recently responded to demands for improved pay and conditions with the promise of frozen yoghurt.
13th placed Oracle, one of the world’s most dominant ERP providers, has recently been making a move to the cloud, as Google’s cloud-based G-Suite threatens to undercut their traditional customer base. Oracle seem un-phased by the new competition though, seeing third quarter sales of its cloud-based products rise by 62%. In 14th , Siemens’ 351,000 employees are focused on a huge array of sectors, with divisions devoted to energy, healthcare and financial services among others. The company has the longest employee tenure of LinkedIn’s entire list, with the average stay standing at 8.6 years, according to the network’s data.
Consumer goods group Unilever ranks 15th and is parent to more than 400 well-known brands used by billions of people each day from Suave to Lipton to Lifebuoy, while global entertainment conglomerate The Walt Disney Company’s 195,000 staff work in everything from theme parks to consumer goods and cinematic and televisual hits. In 17th globally recognised healthcare company Johnson and Johnson is made up of 275 companies around the world, including pharmaceuticals and consumer products, with the 126,000 employees working in a decentralised structure meaning each company has autonomy to make the best decisions for its market.
IT advisory IBM meanwhile maintain a presence in the top 18, despite a troubled period in the UK seeing Big Blue’s British operating profit more than halved from £290 million to £138 million in 2015. Globally the 380,000 employees at the firm remain poised to help deliver key innovations in the digital era of business, with IBM CEO Ginni Rometty stating, “I believe the most disruptive and transformative trend is now in front of us, and it’s cognitive.”
Big Four firm Deloitte, who ranked 15th in LinkedIn’s list of the 25 best companies to work for in the UK, sit at 19th in the global list, with the professional services giants employing 244,400 worldwide. Like McKinsey, Deloitte prides itself in giving employees the opportunity to gain international experience, allowing consultants to take on assignments abroad, transfer to one of the more than 150 countries and territories Deloitte operates in or manage global teams, with over 6,000 such arrangements occurring in 2016 alone.
Completing the top 20, PepsiCo, the global food and drink force boasts 22 iconic brands, including Lay’s crisps, drinks Gatorade and Tropicana, as well as the infamous Pepsi, which are sold in more than 200 locales around the world, employing a global headcount of 264,000.
Rounding off the top 25, strategy consulting firm Accenture masterminds consulting, digital, technology, strategy and operations projects spread across 120 countries, while its 401,000 are involved in work with 75% of the Fortune Global 500 elite – with 22nd placed EY provides assurance, advisory, transaction and tax services to clients situated in over 150 countries. The quickly expanding firm is expected to reach a global workforce of 300,000 by 2020.
French headquartered electric car solutions providers Schneider Electric sit at 23rd with software producers Adobe following in 24th, and 25th placed industrial internet firm GE rounding off the list, having offloaded its finance arm to now focus on turbines, aircraft engines and big data over credit, loans and personal banking.
