11 Top Companies Beloved By Their Employees In 2016

When you’re searching for a job, it’s smart to identify companies you might like to work for and look into what employees there are saying.
That can be done several ways: connect on LinkedIn, reach out to your own personal network, scan the company blogs, etc. You can also read reviews on job boards.
Indeed.com – an online job search platform based in Austin, Texas, that attracts 180 million monthly visitors in more than 60 countries – recently released data on which large companies seem the most loved by their employees. Indeed went about this by parsing out all the biggest firms on their platform with over 25 employee reviews and sorting through which had the most positive feedback.
Indeed.com senior vice president, Paul D’Arcy, took a few moments to chat with Forbes about what exactly the top companies on the platform are doing to make them so popular among their staffs. One thing he noted was that not all of the firms in the top 50 are in high-margin spaces—Publix is at #29, Costco is at #14, for example. “Having happy loyal employees is a choice that organizations make and it feels like a choice that’s available to any company that really focuses on the right culture, a special environment for employees and a real purpose that motivates employees when they come to work every day,” says D’Arcy.

Taking the top positions on Indeed.com’s list are Salesforce, Southwest Airlines and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, in that order. “When you look at the comments, (Salesforce’s) employee talk about the great work environment—that its fun and engaging,” D’Arcy said. “There are some particular things that Salesforce does that are unique. For example, they give six volunteer days off to every employee every year, so there’s a real focus on community engagement.”
More broadly, says D’Arcy, companies on the top section of Indeed.com’s list tend to be successful in their attempts to inspire their people and treat them well. Tech giants Google(#6) and Apple(#9) are well known for creating successful business cultures while making their people feel pampered and free to be creative.Says D’Arcy: “Occasionally things come up around benefits or workplace flexibility, but those don’t seem to be the biggest determinants of what makes an organization great. Having fun, feeling like you’re having an impact and having that impact extend beyond the company to the world—those are the things that make the workplace really special.”