Amazon, Alphabet, Wells Fargo best workplaces, says LinkedIn
Amazon, Alphabet and Wells Fargo offers the best workplaces for professionals to grow their careers, according to LinkedIn’s 2022 Top 50 Companies list, which ranks the top 50 firms investing in their talent and helping people build careers.
The 50 firms on this year’s list are the best US companies when it comes to investing in employee success and continued skill development, offering training, education and mentorship to help employees grow.
These companies provide everything from fully paid tuition to paid time off to upskill, and they offer the flexibility and resources, including four-day workweeks, remote/hybrid workplaces, and mental health benefits that employees need to thrive, say LinkedIn.
And as such, they are the ones likely to win in the current competitive labour market and war on talent, attracting and retaining the best the world has to offer.
This is the second consecutive year that Amazon has topped the list, and Alphabet has placed second, with JP Morgan moving down one to fourth place and Wells Fargo hitting the top 10 for the first time. Walmart moves up four places to fifth, while IBM maintains its sixth-place ranking.
The Top 10 2022 US LinkedIn companies
1. Amazon
2. Alphabet
3. Wells Fargo
4. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
5. Walmart
6. IBM
7. AT&T
8. Bank of America
9. Apple
10. Comcast
LinkedIn cites a number of key trends implemented by the companies on the list, practices that make these organisations employee favourites, and mean they are more likely to attract and retain top talent.
Competitive pay and compensation
With a US headcount of 1.1 million, the US’s second-largest employer, Amazon recently announced it was doubling its maximum base salary for corporate and tech workers and raised average wages for warehouse workers late last year.
The last year has been a big year for Alphabet, with the tech giant onboarding nearly 6,500 employees last quarter and witnessing huge growth across Google’s Cloud service and YouTube. Wells Fargo is doubling down on cloud computing, and looking to hire thousands in software engineering and tech roles this year.
JPMorgan Chase, ranked fourth, saw record profits in 2021 — and the company is using that gain to pump up workers’ paychecks. Junior bankers saw their baseline pay increase twice last year. “We want to be very, very competitive on pay,” CEO Jamie Dimon said in his company’s first earnings call of the year.
IBM has re-upped its benefits offerings amid the Great Reshuffle, according to LinkedIn, with new initiatives including increased paid time off, more promotion and pay reviews, backup dependent care, virtual tutoring and ‘compassionate leave’ for parents who experience stillbirth or miscarriage.
Bank of America employees saw their wages grow, as the bank raised its minimum hourly wage for US workers to US$21, with a commitment to reach US$25 an hour by 2025.
And Apple, ranked 9th, is increasing benefits and pay for retail workers to attract and retain employees at its 270 retail stores across the US, including doubling sick days for both full-time and part-time employees and granting more vacation days.
Top companies are offering flexible work
Flexible work practice is one of the key trends, and has become increasingly necessary for companies to offer, if they are to both attract and retain top talent. Most companies on this year’s list offer some form of flexibility, from completely remote to hybrid working to custom hours, with more than 70,000 remote jobs open now across the top 50 companies.
Companies like Amazon, Raytheon Technologies and General Motors spotlight work-life balance with company-wide days off.
On the flexibility front, Alphabet has generous offering, having adopted a hybrid work model for employees, as well as four ‘work from anywhere’ weeks per year, sabbaticals for long-term employees and ‘no meeting’ days, the company told Linkedin. But Alphabet has also worked to maintain a collaborative culture and support career growth while working remotely. Employees can take advantage of resource groups like Women@Google, as well as its Googler-to-Googler training, which lets its workers get first-hand knowledge across different fields from other employees.
As the company moves forward with a hybrid working model that allows employees to decide how often they want to be onsite, IBM has also transformed its onboarding process with “a focus on empathy and engagement” to help remote new hires feel more connected.
After being one of the first companies to tell its corporate employees to work remotely in March 2020, Apple is now asking that they return to the office three days a week.
Supporting educational ambitions is an attractive work perk
Tuition-support programs, where companies offer employees massive or total coverage of higher education costs, are becoming increasingly popular as companies battle for the best. Among those offering such programs on the Top 50 list are Amazon, Walmart, Disney, Bank of America and Ford Motor.
Amazon really shines on this front, investing US$1.2bn over the next three years to expand its education and skills training initiatives, making free college available to its 750,000 frontline US workers. The ecommerce giant’s Career Choice program pays 100% college tuition for frontline employees and covers high school diploma programs, GEDs and English proficiency certifications for employees.
And it’s not just in relevant areas such as logistics and IT, but also in other fields like nursing, as a sign of support for employees’ career prospects “both inside and outside of Amazon”, says Tammy Thieman, head of the program.
More than 75,000 associates have enrolled in Walmart’s Live Better U program since 2018, while Bank of America offers employees a maximum tuition subsidy of US$7,500 a year to cover educational costs, and also boasts external education counsellors on retainer who advise employees on where to find the best match between their career goals and available programs.
For those currently working at the bank, Wells Fargo recently pledged US$300m towards training, career development, early talent programs and tuition reimbursement.
AT&T invests US$2 million annually in AT&T University, an internal training program to help its workers upskill, and has partnered with groups like Udacity and Coursera to offer advanced online courses.
Comcast prioritises career growth and development among its employees through various benefits, including mentorship programs, department rotations and tuition assistance for continuing education and skills development.
LinkedIn Top 50 Companies List
