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Apple Plummets to Lowest Ranking Ever in Glassdoor's Annual List of Best Places to Work

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Apple has ranked 84th on Glassdoor's annual list of the best companies to work for in the United States, after finishing no lower than 36th every year since 2009. In fact, heading into 2012, Apple was 10th on the same list.

apple-employees-800x534.jpg

It is Apple's lowest-ever finish over the decade that Glassdoor has published these Employees' Choice Awards:
o 2018: 84th
o 2017: 36th
o 2016: 25th
o 2015: 22nd
o 2014: 35th
o 2013: 34th
o 2012: 10th
o 2011: 20th
o 2010: 22nd
o 2009: 19thApple trailed well behind several other technology companies in the rankings, including first-place Facebook, fifth-place Google, 21st-place LinkedIn, 31st-place Adobe, 39th-place Microsoft, and 65th-place Yahoo.

It's not just technology companies that are on the list, with fast food chain In-N-Out Burger and Southwest Airlines among others that made the cut.

Glassdoor said the rankings are based on its proprietary awards algorithm, which calculated the quantity, quality, and consistency of company reviews submitted by employees between November 1, 2016 and October 22, 2017.

Apple earned a 4.3-star rating out of five during that period, compared to Facebook's leading 4.6-star rating. Glassdoor says the average company rating is 3.3 stars among the more than 700,000 employers reviewed on the jobs site.

Apple has an overall 4.0-star rating on its Glassdoor company profile. Apple CEO Tim Cook was ranked the 53rd best CEO of an American company on Glassdoor last year, with a 93 percent approval rating.

The rankings mirror a recent survey of the most ideal employers for tech professionals in the United States, in which Apple ranked fourth, behind Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. In that survey, however, Apple was ahead of Facebook.

We've reached out to Apple to see if the company has any comment about the results, and we'll update this article if we hear back.

Article Link: Apple Plummets to Lowest Ranking Ever in Glassdoor's Annual List of Best Places to Work
 
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https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/06/apple-drops-on-best-of-glassdoor/
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Trying to enforce a PC culture does not bring out the best in your workforce.

I still believe you get the best out of people if they fight what they believe in, even if that results in debates that are perceived at conflict, as long as its constructive, you get better products.
 
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Reactions: ex0dus1985, huperniketes, dpjkillian and 27 others
rpat701 said:
Many people from the outside want in. But, keep in mind why companies build HQ's like Apple - the expectation to work 24/7 and force work becoming your life. You couldn't pay me enough to work there.
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This.
Last year I became a father, obviously I need to earn money but I want to spend as much time as possible with my family.
Companies like Apple are a good fit when you're young, maybe single and you're willing to work very hard, get a lot of money and have a great name on your resume.
10 years ago I'd have been willing to work at Apple, now I'm not sure I'd apply for a job there.
I don't think they force you to work 7 days a week, but I guess they expect you to work overtime every time they need it.
 
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Baymowe335 said:
These rankings should be taken with a grain of salt, even when they are good.

"Proprietary algorithm" is code for "we don't know and take our best guess to represent the voices of thousands of people."
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Of course! The only time any ranking system, analyst or other entity is right is when they are ranking some positive aspect of something and puts Apple #1. If Apple is not #1, the entity doing the placement is entirely wrong, taking payola, suspect and so on.

We'll even readily flip flop faulting an entity when Apple is not #1 and praising them and/or offering them up as examples in other threads when the same ranks Apple #1. Consumer Reports is one that is particularly standout if anyone knows how they work. They are so right when they are praising Apple and so wrong/suspect/"need to alter their methodology" (more favorable to Apple) when they are panning something from Apple... or even not ranking that something #1 with mostly praise.

We are consistent about this in all threads. Is it a rule? ;)
 
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recoil80 said:
This.
Last year I became a father, obviously I need to earn money but I want to spend as much time as possible with my family.
Companies like Apple are a good fit when you're young, maybe single and you're willing to work very hard, get a lot of money and have a great name on your resume.
10 years ago I'd have been willing to work at Apple, now I'm not sure I'd apply for a job there.
I don't think they force you to work 7 days a week, but I guess they expect you to work overtime every time they need it.
Click to expand...

Congratulations on the new addition. All the best to you and your family.
 
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Not too long ago, there was an article about Apple employees complaining about the open office setup in the new campus.

I personally would hate an office like that, and can understand why there were so many complaints.

I wonder how much impact this had on Glassdoor's ranking?
 
MH01 said:
Trying to enforce a PC culture does not bring out the best in your workforce.

I still believe you get the best out of people if they fight what they believe in, even if that results in debates that are perceived at conflict, as long as its constructive, you get better products.
Click to expand...
In practice, those who espouse "Tolerance", are quite intolerant to anyone who disagrees with them.

If Tim could manage to get Apple OUT OF POLITICS (much like Jobs did); and instead of focusing on all that energy on product development, perfecting the OS, and creating better support and environment than the competition, they would not only improve their sales, but accelerate the growth across the market. Then focus on supporting the Mac Pro, which was a very well received, expensive desktop; and take the Mac Mini back to the 2012 design - so people have the option to increase the DDR3 RAM, add a second hard drive. The 2012 i5/i7 Mac Mini can easily be modified to be much more powerful than the top of the line 2015 Model - and this is ridiculous.
 
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I’ve been working at Apple for 8 years now, at two different retail stores, all while being a student. Expectations are pretty high, but if you do your job well, incentives are great, schedules are always pretty flexible (at least for me), and managers are easy to talk/get to. Also, for the job done, salary is damn good. Literally the best student job one could get.
 
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rpat701 said:
Agreed. The tech company I work for has it and it's horrible. In addition to the productivity issues, it has caused some HR problems as well having everyone out in the open.
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Everyone I worked with including myself all had our own offices at Apple (infinite loop 1 ~ 6) so I am not sure what is this about.
 
Is Glassdoor that important? I’ve nevet used it. Do many people here use it?
 
If your workforce is mostly non-engineering, ratings are not likely to make sense for the engineering staff. Unless Glassdoor starts providing split ratings you can't tell overall what its like.
 
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I visited Apple's campus in SF a few months ago (during WWDC) and met up with a designer who had worked there for over a year.

I was surprised to learn that his work phone was an old scrappy iPhone 5C, and that workers at Apple are never prioritized for getting the latest gear to do their work on.

We headed over to Café Macs where I was again surprised to see that every worker had to pay for a simple coffee, as if it would have been a commercial café. I would have expected free snacks, drinks, coffee and meals for working at such a successful company and I don't understand the nickel-and-diming here. I know that the work culture in the US is a bit different than where I'm from (Sweden), but it really tarnished my idea of Apple as a "magical/amazing" place to work at. It felt very cold and big-corporate. In contrast, I've visited the Spotify HQ here in Stockholm and you have access to free coffee, snacks, nuts, protein bars, catered meals, salads, sandwiches, drinks, sodas, energy drinks, etc 24/7 at no charge, you get the latest mid-high specced Macbook Pro and iPhone Plus/X, etc.

I don't understand why the wealthiest company in the world can't supply proper tools and coffee & snacks to the people on which their success is built on. Maybe these are silly remarks. But it really gave me the feeling that working at Apple is not a very great experience and that you're not really cared for as an employee.
 
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vertical smile said:
Not too long ago, there was an article about Apple employees complaining about the open office setup in the new campus.

I personally would hate an office like that, and can understand why there were so many complaints.

I wonder how much impact this had on Glassdoor's ranking?
Click to expand...


Open office setups are horrible for getting anything done... especially for developers. I work in the tech industry and the in the last company I worked for, i managed a tech team of about 100 people, half of which were coding. We moved into a new space, and the VP responsible for planning the space wanted to "re-stack" the space into this open environment. He had done another floor in the building that way. I found the term "re-stacking" to be offensive for my employees and refused to accept that setup for my team. I frequently had to walk through the floor with the open arrangement, and about 200 people were there with no barriers between them at all. They complained so much that they ended up putting in white noise machines to try and help, but it was terrible. This VP that planned it touted the fact that he also had one of these open desks for himself. But here's the dishonesty of that. There was also a conference room on that floor that was private and guess who controlled who could use it... him. And he worked in that conference room 95% of the time, regardless of whether there was a meeting.
 
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