Customer Reviews

The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America: 3rd Revised Edition (One Hundred Best Companies to Work for in America)

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The only way this book can help you is if you first read the latest list of best places to work published in a business magazine. Compare the that list with this one, and then read about the companies in this volume that appear on both lists. That will give you a sense of where the company's environment was back in the early 1990s. That consistency of being a superior place to work increases the likelihood that you will have located a place that will continue to be a good place to work in the future.

As the authors point out, between 1984 (when they published the original research on this subject) and 1994 (when this paperback edition was published) only 55 of the original 100 companies persisted on the list. I suspect that the fallout since 1994 has been even greater. The list contains many companies that went through dire times in the 1990s like Armstrong, Compaq, Cray, Cummins Engine, Donnelly, DuPont, Hewlett-Packard, Inland Steel, Kellogg, 3M, Motorola, J.C. Penney, Tandem, and Xerox. In fact, companies that are riding for a fall in their business peformance are often the ones that have been great places to work. Before its performance plummeted in the early 1990s, IBM used to be on the list . . . just before it laid off an enormous percentage of the total workforce.

So a weakness of this backward-looking research is that it is not very good at predicting what will be the best companies to work for. The list is obviously dominated by very big companies, and they are the ones that offer the least job stability these days, even though the authors try to make the opposite point. "Job security is not a relic of the past for them."

The more obvious point is that for tens of millions of Americans the best employer is themselves. That point is not considered in this book.

The majority of the organizations and companies that will provide the best pay/benefits, opportunities, job security, pride in work/company, openness/fairness, and camaraderie/friendliness (the criteria for selection by the authors) in the next 10 years either were tiny or did not exist in 1994. So you need more contemporary sources for your search.

A good example of the need for newer information is that many companies now encourage you to work at home, due to the Internet. If you want to do that, this book won't help you find those companies. If you want to avoid doing that, this book won't help you avoid those companies.

My main concern about studies like this is that they focus your attention on what your employer can do for you. I suspect that thinking about your personal life goals would be a better starting point. Then, within those goals, what kind of career works best for the future in light of important future trends? Then, what jobs should you consider to develop that career? Next, should you work for someone else or be on your own? Finally, how should you screen potential employers to meet your personal criteria? After you have finished doing all that thinking, I doubt if this book will be very helpful to you.

Don't let the old paradigm of the employer as the source of paternalism and stability distort your judgment of what's right for you!

Make your life a joy by following the road to health, happiness, peace, and prosperity!

This guide is out of date. In my opinion, a much more current, and insightful, insider's view of work life at top companies can be found in the Vault Reports career guides (and individual reports on major employers.)

What makes a company a great place to work? Authors Rober Levering and Milton Moskowitz have studied U.S. corporations extensively and the result is "The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America". These companies all have certain things in common that combine to enhance the work environment: flexible work schedules, concern for family related issues, employee involvement in decision making, openness between management and employees, and special incentives like profit sharing and stock options. There are even some benefits that would surprise the average person, like free child care at SAS Institute and free income tax preperation at Fel-Pro, Inc.

What seperates these companies from the majority of U.S. corporations is their willingness to embrace new ideas and their radically progressive approach to management and employee involvement. Employees are not just a number. They are actively involved in the running of the business and their importance in the process is equal to management. Many of these ideas were originally pioneered by the late W.E. Deming, the founding father of quality management. American companies (and American citizens, in general) have always been notorious for their resistance to change, even when change is for the better. U.S. corporations did not listen to Deming when he first introduced these ideas many decades ago. But now it appears that they are finally starting to embrace some of the ideas of quality management.

This book makes you think more about your current working conditions. The company that I work for recently extended stock options to all employees. This is a step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before my employer reaches the quality level demonstrated by these 100 best companies.

The outlook is optimistic. In the coming years, I expect to see more and more companies adopting changes similar to those in place at these 100 best companies. Instead of dreading the daily 8 to 5 grind, more Americans might someday actu!ally look forward to the morning trek to the workplace.

Rating companies as "great" is, of course, a subjective undertaking and no two people will agree on which ones are the best. What sets these companies apart from others is their flexibility and concern for their employees' health and overall happiness, rather than only being concerned with bottom- line profits. The management philosophy that these corporations utilize emphasizes the idea that happy employees are more productive and more likely to remain loyal to their employer. Any loss incurred, by offering more flexibility, will be more than made up for by the extra productivity and loyal years of service.

Some of these companies, as described by the authors, do seem like fun places to work. Southwest Airlines, in particular, offers an exceptionally enjoyable work environment. According to the authors, Southwest Airlines employees routinely joke around, play games and pranks, dress casually every day, etc. Employees of Southwest Airlines have often stated that they actually look forward to going to work! That's something that few other employees can say.

This is a pretty good book to read, full of interesting facts and figures relating to some of America's best corporations. There is one bad thing about this type of book: It becomes outdated too quickly. The authors release new versions, but they often go from several years to as many as ten years between each. That's a little bit too long, in my opinion, for this type of book. With the fast- changing pace of business, I wouldn't be surprised if many of these 100 Best Companies have fallen off the list. As a matter of fact, from the first edition to the second, only about 55 companies were still good enough to be included in the revised edition. This is the type of book that needs to be updated much more frequently, like maybe every 2 or 3 years, to ensure accuracy. For example, J.C. Penney is included in the 1994 edition. I would bet that, if a new book were published today, J.C. Penney would no longer be included.

Overall, this is an interesting book to read and it does keep your attention. It makes you critical of your own place of employment. You'll start to wonder why your employer doesn't offer any special benefits, like free lunch and the use of a company vacation resort. Who cares about dental and vision insurance coverage when you can have a discounted resort to take a vacation?

If you feel intrigued by what you read in this book, don't just jump up and move across the country to work for one of these companies. Do your homework first! Corporate benefits change constantly. The great companies of yesterday can quickly fall into difficult financial straits, and be forced to eliminate many of these extra employee benefits and perks. Make sure you check before you make your move.

found the research very informative. The book has very elegant style of writingand tons of data. As HR consultant i used the book extensively to educate a number of my colleagues in innovating with hrm policies

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