50 Best Companies to work for

The annual “50 Best companies to work” for awards were announced this week.
Airtricity won the overall award. Accenture won the best company over 1,000 employee awards. Marathon Oil Ireland was the smallest employer to be listed with 52 employees.
There were very few public sector organisations in the list. Children’s University Hospital Temple St being one exception. Given the family friendly, flexible working practices, and generous pensions present in this area this initially seems strange

The relevant website does not list the qualifying criteria but it does quote the following definition
“….. A place where employees trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with”

This issue of trust, pride and relationships probably counts against them. Difficult to take pride in your job when you work in a dingy school building, or many of your patients are on trollies. Alternatively it could be that public sector organisations are unwilling to spend €5,500 of tax payer’s money to find out how their employees are feeling.
A pity, because I’ve found that a well conducted employee attitude survey, can really help improve morale once action is taken on the results. However don’t bother doing a survey if you’re not prepared to act on the often uncomfortable results, it just leads to increased cynicism

Interesting to see Accenture winning. It’s a while since I’ve worked with Accenture people but the long hours culture then was incredible. I wonder has it changed or is work life balance a criteria in the survey?

Companies are now using their places in the top 50 lists as recruitment advertising. But please, Deloitte and Touch drop the ad with sad guy on holidays wishing he was back in the office. Who wants to work with such a boring twat?

Hopefully we’ll see more focus on “good employers” in the future. If you’re thinking of changing jobs have a look at the list below to whether you could target any of them.

Update 5th of March
Talked to the Accenture people today who said work life balance is one of the "best companies" criteria and they had strong work life balance policies now. She herself rarely worked more than 40 hours a week. Now that's progress!

changing jobs
employee attitude survey
50 best companies
work life balance

Link to further Information