It's possible to love your job and get a good salary too: You just have to work for the right company.
The first annual list of the best employers in America by PayScale and Business Insider evaluates companies by both pay and happiness.
The winner is a company you've probably never heard of: a New Jersey biopharmaceutical company called Celgene Corporation. Many of the best companies were also in the health care industry.
The famously indulgent tech industry also did well on this list, including Google (#2), Yahoo (#8), and Microsoft (#14).
Companies in the 2012 Fortune 500 were ranked using PayScale's salary and survey database. Happiness represented 57 percent of the final score and was measured through questions about satisfaction, feelings of meaningfulness, stress, and schedule flexibility. Pay represented 43 percent of the final score and was measured by looking at median pay after five years and pay compared to industry peers.
20. Dow Chemical Company
Headquartered in Midland, Mich., this chemicals company has about 50,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of flexibility (85%); high rates of satisfaction (78%) and meaningfulness (66%); and average rates of relaxation (35%).
Median pay is very high at $90,000 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
[Grumpy Note: I assume they're talking about white collar jobs. My dad sure as hell didn't get no $90K a year from Dow.]
19. Booz, Allen and Hamilton
Headquartered in Tysons Corner, Va., this management consulting company has 26,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of relaxation (48%); and high rates of flexibility (83%), satisfaction (72%), and meaningfulness (61%).
Median pay is very high at $93,100 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
18. Johnson & Johnson
Headquartered in New Brunswick, N.J., this pharmaceutical company has 117,900 employees.
Employees report very high rates of meaningfulness (73%); and high rates of relaxation (39%), flexibility (83%), and satisfaction (72%).
Median pay is very high at $92,000 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
17. 3M Company
Matt RourkeHeadquartered in Two Harbors, Minn., this conglomerate company has 84,198 employees.
Employees report high rates of relaxation (44%), flexibility (79%), satisfaction (77%), and meaningfulness (59%).
Median pay is high at $82,400 after five years, and very high compared to industry peers.
16. The Boeing Company
Headquartered in Chicago, Ill., this aerospace and defense company has 171,700 employees.
Employees report high rates of relaxation (45%), flexibility (80%), satisfaction (76%), and meaningfulness (68%).
Median pay is high at $85,900 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
15. Amgen Corporation
Paul SakumaHeadquartered in Thousand Oaks, Calif., this biopharmaceutical company has 17,800 employees.
Employees report very high rates of meaningfulness (81%); high rates of flexibility (78%) and satisfaction (75%); and average rates of relaxation (37%).
Median pay is very high at $98,500 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
14. Microsoft Corporation
Headquartered in Redmond, Wash., this computer software has 94,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of flexibility (92%); high rates of relaxation (39%) and meaningfulness (60%); and average rates of satisfaction (69%).
Median pay is very high at $111,000 after five years, and very high compared to industry peers.
13. Abbott Laboratories
Headquartered in North Chicago, Ill., this pharmaceutical company has 91,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of meaningfulness (81%); and high rates of relaxation (39%), flexibility (83%), and satisfaction (77%).
Median pay is high at $88,000 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
12. ITT Exelis
Headquartered in Tysons Corner, Va., this defense company has more than 20,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of relaxation (63%), flexibility (84%), and satisfaction (79%); and high rates of meaningfulness (58%).
Median pay is very high at $102,000 after five years, and average compared to industry peers.
11. Pfizer, Inc.
Headquartered in New York, N.Y., this pharmaceutical company has 103,700 employees.
Employees report very high rates of flexibility (84%) and meaningfulness (77%); high rates of satisfaction (73%); and average rates of relaxation (36%).
Median pay is very high at $93,200 after five years, and very high compared to industry peers.
10. Williams Companies, Inc.
Headquartered in Tulsa, Okla., this oil and gas company has 3,913 employees.
Employees report very high rates of relaxation (54%) and satisfaction (80%); and high rates of flexibility (79%) and meaningfulness (65%).
Median pay is high at $79,000 after five years, and very high compared to industry peers.
9. E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Co.
Headquartered in Wilmington, Del., this chemicals company has 70,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of flexibility (84%) and satisfaction (84%); and high rates of relaxation (43%) and meaningfulness (67%).
Median pay is high at $80,700 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
8. Yahoo! Inc.
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., this internet company has 14,100 employees.
Employees report very high rates of relaxation (46%) and flexibility (88%); high rates of satisfaction (81%); and average rates of meaningfulness (55%).
Median pay is very high at $120,000 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
7. Chevron Corporation
Headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., this oil and gas company has 62,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of satisfaction (81%) and relaxation (47%); and high rates of flexibility (80%) and meaningfulness (58%).
Median pay is very high at $102,000 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
6. MasterCard Worldwide
Headquartered in Purchase, N.Y., this financial services company has 6,700 employees.
Employees report very high rates of satisfaction (81%), relaxation (63%) and flexibility (85%); and average rates of meaningfulness (54%).
Median pay is very high at $103,000 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
5. Biogen Idec, Inc.
Headquartered in Weston, Mass., this biotechnology company has 4,850 employees.
Employees report very high rates of satisfaction (83%), flexibility (89%), and meaningfulness (89%); and average relaxation (33%).
Median pay is very high at $97,800 after five years, and very high compared to industry peers.
4. Qualcomm, Inc.
Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., this telecommunications company has over 20,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of satisfaction (81%) and flexibility (92%); high rates of meaningfulness (65%); and average relaxation (37%).
Median pay is very high at $106,000 after five years, and very high compared to industry peers.
3. Huntsman Corporation
Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, this chemicals company has approximately 12,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of relaxation (50%) and flexibility (94%); high rates of meaningfulness (63%) and satisfaction (75%).
Median pay is very high at $95,600 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
2. Google, Inc.
Mark BlinchHeadquartered in Mountain View, Calif., this internet company has more than 30,000 employees.
Employees report very high rates of satisfaction (81%); high rates of relaxation (44%), meaningfulness (61%), and flexibility (81%).
Median pay is very high at $119,000 after five years, and very high compared to industry peers.
1. Celgene Corporation
Headquartered in Summit, N.J., this biotechnology company has more than 4,500 employees.
Employees report very high rates of satisfaction (91%), meaningfulness (86%), and flexibility (91%); and high rates of relaxation (41%).
Median pay is very high at $118,000 after five years, and high compared to industry peers.
Appropriately, tomorrow is a review of a book called Money.
9 comments:
Very interesting. Thanks for reminding me of how little money I make. Happy Hump Day!
Love the Grumpy Note!
I work at a University. The pay is ok I could get more in the private sector, but not the benefits.
I basically work for the State of Texas...
*Shiver*
I have to second the comment highlighting the grumpy note, because I wonder if these paychecks are going to everyone or just the people they're willing to talk about, being higher up the corporate structure, five years with the company or not. When a company wants to sound good, that's how they manipulate the flow of information.
"Median" pay is a statistical measure that means 1/2 the people make more, 1/2 make less. As a measure, it's more helpful than an average, but not as helpful in this context as the "mode" (remember from math? Mean/median/mode?) Mode would tell you what MOST people in the company make. For example, if a company has 10 people, and the boss makes $100,000 per year, four people make $20,000 and five make $10,000 per year, then the
Mean = 23,000, which is useless because it would leave you assuming most people make that, but in fact all but one make less.
Median = 10,001, which tells you something -- 1/2 the people make less than that, but you don't know HOW MUCH less, and 1/2 make more, but you don't know how muchmore.
Mode actually tells you the most, here, because you would find out that most workers make only $10,000, painting a very different picture than the other two.
In any event, speaking as an employer, I'm not sure how they measure this, and I'd be interested in the mechanics of the survey. Yahoo!, for example, ended their previously-popular telecommuting benefit. Google just ended many benefits they'd offered including 20% time, which was a great idea.
At our firm, I try really hard to be flexible and let people bring kids to work and let them take days off and we do small incentive programs to try to be fun and we give out bonuses and we have a Christmas party. It's tough to make everyone happy. The other week, I tried to have a review of people following office procedures by having our office manager pick out a procedure a day, and go around to see if people were following it. So an example would be having your timesheet up and billing to make sure clients' fees are being recorded appropriately.
If you had the timesheet open, you got a candy bar. If you didn't, nothing bad happened to you, you just got reminded to have it open.
PEOPLE COMPLAINED. They didn't like that it was a candy bar. They felt like they were being treated 'like children' (that's from someone who didn't have the timesheet open), and felt like we were policing them.
So: try to enforce a rule by rewarding people who follow it with a little treat, get complaints.
Anyway, I think we've got a pretty good place to work here. We have superlow turnover: only about 2 people have left voluntarily while I've been here (13 years this week) and some people who left came back.
Microsoft is #14. No wonder people are jumping to Google. Celgene makes drug therapies for cancer. I'm sure working for a company that helps people is satisfying. That's why I like working at my job.
I Googled, Google, Inc. and they came out and number two, alright.
No mention of McDonald's. No surprise!
Interesting statistics. I notice County and State agencies are absent from the list. Oh wait, these are corporate only?
......dhole
What a wonderful list. You know, all of these stocks have (for the most part) had a record year too. I've been following Celgene and am looking for a "buy" opportunity to emerge on a 5% pullback of some kind.
Aren't you glad I told you to get out of bond? Look what happened to the market yesterday! Fantastic and huge surge woo hoo!
I used to lead our 'Fun Committee' at work. I found that in large enough groups, people will complain about every decision or event. After a few years of this, our quarterly events went from citywide scavenger hunts (and being paid for it!) to me doing stand-up until people got bored and left the conference room I'd scheduled for it.
But hey, when people are complaning about, literally, every detail of every carefully planned event... it just wears a person down after a while.
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