Sunday, March 08, 2009

Reality Intrudes Again

Every so often you'll see an article entitled, "100 Best Companies to Work For." I think Fortune Magazine publishes such a list annually. Being naive, I expected that Fortune would have come up with these companies through some research. Well, I was wrong.

The Fortune List and, I suspect, many others are complied by an organization that goes by the name "Great Place to Work Institute". The co-founder, Robert Levering, is the co-author of the Fortune list. You can get on the list by nominating yourself and completing a form to measure your employees trust index (at least 400 employees complete a 15 minute survey) and an audit of your culture (as seen by you). Last year 353 companies applied for the 100-member list.

I wonder how confidential the employee survey is and what feelings they have about being asked to complete a survey as to their trust in the company. The culture audit gives the company ample opportunity to tell its story. An article in the Columbia Journalism Review raises many questions about some of these stories.

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