Facebook slips from 1st to 7th in 2019 ‘Best Places to Work’ list

MANILA, Philippines – Facebook’s seemingly endless string of controversies in 2018 has had many serious effects on how its users perceive it, and how governments and civil society groups approach the platform. Now, the company appears to be feeling some of the effects internally: the company slipped down several notches in Glassdoor’s annual list of “Best Places to Work,” going from the top spot in 2018 to 7th in the newest rankings. 

Glassdoor, a US-based website that allows employees to review the companies they work for, ranks companies based on several factors including management behavior, salaries and benefits, and work-life balance. 

This year, Facebook scored a 4.5 out of 5, down from last year’s 4.6. The score is still relatively high, however, as Facebook remains one of the top tech companies to work for in Glassdoor’s list, with only LinkedIn, Procore Technologies, and Zoom Video Communications topping Facebook in the tech vertical. 

Right next to Facebook is Google at 8, Adobe at 30, Microsoft at 34, Apple at 71, and Amazon outside the top 100. Google also slipped from the 5th spot last year. 

Yet the slip partly reflects the troubles that Facebook has faced and continues to face this year.  

In an interview, Glassdoor community expert Scott Dobroski suggested to US outlet CNBC that the company’s long-standing “move fast” mantra may have also caused employee satisfaction to drop from a 4.6 rating in Q1 2018 to a 4.3 in Q4: “Facebook employees talked about the ‘move fast’ culture sometimes moving too fast.” 

Reviews on Glassdoor tend to be still fairly positive but some reviews do point out that all the attention recently in the press is a con and that management could be more transparent with employees more. Work-life balance is among the biggest concerns in the reviews, with employees linking that to the ultra-competitive atmosphere in the company, pushing everyone to put in extra hours. 

Several former Facebook employees talked to CNBC as well, saying that some employees have been trying to look elsewhere because of falling stock prices, the scandals, and the increasing bureaucracy. – Rappler.com