Worst Companies to Work for in America: Another List

Almost every day there is any number of online “top-ten” lists about any number of topics, from personal hygiene to cars to dating services to best dressed persons to best beaches to best ways to re-pipe the basement to top SEO strategies.

They are all mostly subjective and sometimes even fun but writing these lists is a favorite blogger activity. At least that’s the rumor, maybe it’s on a top-ten list for bloggers somewhere. So in that grand tradition, this post takes a whack at America’s worst companies to work for, courtesy of a recent 24/7 Wall St. article and list. Except that instead of 10 such companies 24/7 Wall St. has helpfully and graciously come up with 11.

“Employees at many of America’s largest corporations dislike, or even hate, their jobs,” says 24/7 Wall St. “With some of these companies in deep trouble, having disgruntled employees makes improving their operations that much harder. Or, some might say, it is their bad relationship with employees that caused some of their problems in the first place.”

Unhappy employees are created through a deadly combination of perceived low pay, disillusionment with management decisions and a dysfunctional culture that values making money over customer service. “Running a company with dissatisfied workers is hard enough, but the problems are compounded further as the companies find it difficult to hire new, skilled workers when the opinions of current employees are so harsh.”

In compiling the list, 24/7 Wall St. looked at the employee reviews at the online job site Glassdoor. To be considered, companies had to have a minimum of 300 reviews. Glassdoor’s employee reviews rate the companies on a scale of one to five. Based on these ratings, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 11 publicly traded companies that received the worst scores — a score of 2.7 or lower, putting them in the bottom 10 percent of the 202 companies measured.

Common themes cited throughout the list include: low pay, long hours, mandatory overtime, failure to pay overtime, working holidays, management turmoil (see HP for that one), poor management, massive layoffs (see HP again), financial difficulties, poor customer service and ancient systems/infrastructure.

Here they are, descending order:

11. Bank of New York Mellon

10. GameStop

9. Rite Aid

8. Hewlett-Packard

7. Robert Half International

6. Sears Holdings (Sears/Kmart)

5. OfficeMax

4. Hertz

3. RadioShack

2. Dillard’s

1. Dish Network.

Apologies if you are working for one these companies – but then this is probably something you already knew or suspected anyway. Some of you may wonder how it is possible your company did not crack the top 11. Then you’d have something to brag about.

In any case at least you have a job. For now.

[Image: Dish by commorancy via Flickr CC]