The list is derived from Glassdoor’s analysis of reviews and ratings of employers that employees leave on its site.
Seven Seattle-area companies are on a list of the 50 best places to work in 2016 compiled by Glassdoor, a Mill Valley, Calif., company that runs an online forum for employees to review and rate employers.
Zillow Group, Expedia, Slalom Consulting, F5 Networks, Costco, REI and Concur all made the cut on the technology star-studded list. Glassdoor creates the rankings based on employee reviews over the past 12 months. Glassdoor uses a machine learning system to search through reviews and analyze the mood behind the language used in them, spokesman Scott Dobroski said.
Though tech companies once again dominated the list, the eight-year-old ranking showed the biggest diversity it has yet, Dobroski said. Retailers were represented, as were travel companies —Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines both made the list — and even religious organizations. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was ranked No. 22, with a company rating of 4.0 out of 5.
Glassdoor itself rated 4.6, the same as No.1-ranked Airbnb, but the company excludes itself automatically from the list. Its “brothers and sisters” are another story. Glassdoor was co-founded by Rich Barton, who also founded Zillow and Expedia —both of which made the list.
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There’s no special treatment there, Dobroski said, pointing out that it’s Expedia’s first year on the list. Glassdoor has several safeguards to ensure that fake reviews don’t appear online, and that employees are not receiving incentives from companies to post reviews.
“It’s perfectly OK for employers to encourage employees to share reviews on Glassdoor,” Dobroski said. “We have found it doesn’t necessarily skew results because you are still doing it voluntarily and anonymously.”
But if there’s ever a whisper of giving employees incentives to post, Glassdoor investigates and may delete the reviews. Every review posted has to list both positive and negative aspects of the company, and about 10 percent never make it online because they’re deemed unreliable.
Airbnb was joined in the top 10 by tech giants Facebook, LinkedIn and Google.
Here are all the local companies and their rankings on the list:
No. 7: Zillow, 4.3 stars
No. 16: Expedia, 4.1 stars
No. 30: Slalom Consulting, 4.0 stars
No. 33: F5 Networks, 4.0 stars
No. 40: Costco Wholesale, 4.0 stars
No. 45: REI, 3.9 stars
No. 49: Concur, 3.9 stars