I've never seen one of those surveys that were actually legit, though. They use completely subjective factors to measure & determine happiness or "best". To me, the whole thing is a lot like the Academy Awards where it's basically a fake award without any scientific rigor.
I remember one year, I think it was 2005 or 06? Verizon Wireless was one of the "happiest" places to work. The reason they were rated so high? Because the researchers weighted one factor more than any of the others. That factor was how the company treats mothers, and expectant mothers (maternity leave). They weighed that particular metric insanely heavy. Basically, if you weren't catering to mothers even slightly during that particular year, the survey would have completely ignored your company even if you had the happiest workers.
It's all nonsense. As far as I know, there hasn't been a single, actual scientific study to determine "happiest/best company". It's all hogwash. I think this piece has more scientific rigor behind it than those "best places to work" surveys because his results are actually measurable and quantifiable. On the other hand, you can't quantify something as subjective as happiness anyways, by definition. Everyone has their own opinion of what happiness is....
Believe what you want. There's not scientific study for about everything that matters in life, yet there's stuff that is common sense enough it does not need to be demonstrated.
The companies who apply for this kind of surveys are confident in the first place that they are not treating their employees poorly, and that fact alone makes it more relevant than all these other companies that don't even both measuring how they are doing.
Back on the subject, Kyocera is a very traditional company, and if you want scientific demonstration that they are not saying bullshit, when you don't have it either, so what is your point exactly ?
Have you never worked in a company that's on those lists? It's highly encouraged (wink, wink) that you help them out with high marks.
The place was a nightmare.
And, yes, not only were you encouraged to give them high marks, they actually built a front-end to the survey system used to track who had and had not submitted a response and setup HR conversations with anyone that gave them less than a top score.
I actively avoid companies on those kinds of lists.
The company was very proud of "teamwork". There were "teams" everywhere. Every employee was expected to be on at least 3. As a senior engineer, I was on 5, not including the actual project team I was assigned to. Things like "data architecture team" and "API review team" and "future engineering team" or "testing web services team". These teams would meet at least once a month, often weekly.
In spite of, or, more likely, because of, all these teams existing, there was actually very little team work. Lots of turf wars and internal politics.
The review process was silly. Your manager gave you 5 goals and you had to come up with 3 goals for each team you were on. You had to select two peers to rate you on your 5 goals, as well as 2 members from each team for your team goals. So, basically, you just did horse trading to give each other 5-star reviews ('hey, I'll give you all fives if you give me all fives, cool?'). This consumed an insane amount of time. Even though I was only there for 3 months, I had to go through this process twice.
Management was also completely ham fisted. They wanted to improve QA. So they gave notice to everyone in QA and told them they could reapply for their jobs. They literally made them all clean out their desks and then come in the next day with resumes in hand to interview. As if they had never worked there. Anyone not "rehired" by the end of the week was given severance.
There were some positives. They had on-site day care and a decent (for the time) vacation package. They also had a liberal education reimbursement plan that only had a 1 year lock-in.
Yes, twice. And I can clearly see why they stood out. (Never participated myself in such surveys).
True, does not mean your job is awesome, but it means that you are usually not treated like shit as an employee.
2) Yes and the fact I felt it was relevant to say that might mean I work for some place with a large number of employees too hmmm?