Google no longer best place to work

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Search giant Google is no longer the best company in the world to work for as data warehousing specialist NetApp has stolen its crown.

So says Fortune Magazine’s poll of the top 100 best places to work, which shows Google slipping to fourth place in the list.

US companies Edward Jones – a brokerage - and management consultancy the Boston Consulting Group squeezed into the second and third top slots respectively.

"Our new No. 1, NetApp, the San Francisco-based data storage and management company that has been on the list for the past six years, continues to grow revenues while boosting employee morale enough to topple Google, which held the crown for the past two years," the magazine wrote.

Google employees said that hiring had slowed at the firm in the past 12 months and added that a number of perks, like afternoon tea and an annual ski trip, had been cut. This has had a negative affect on the firm's results in the poll.

Meanwhile, over at NetApp, benefits are highly praised. Here employees were thankful for extras like, "five paid days for volunteer work, $11,390 adoption aid, and autism coverage - used by 43 employees since 2006 at a cost of $242,452," according to Fortune.

Another tech company, Cisco, is sixth in the list. The networking giant was praised for giving its employees more of a say in decision making. Importantly, it is also poised to ride out the business slowdown, while still hiring, according to Fortune.

Microsoft comes much lower in the list, at number 38. However, it has climbed to this position from a much lower 86th place. Fortune said that here: "Managers maintain ‘morale budgets’ to stage fun events (team dinners, outings to sports events or plays) for the troops."

The 100 Best Companies to Work For rankings are created by San Francisco's Great Place to Work Institute, which surveys more than 81,000 employees from some 353 companies.

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