Twitter disappears off Glassdoor's list of best places to work
Twitter Inc. was ranked second on Glassdoor Inc.'s list of best places to work last year. This year, it didn't crack the top 50.
Employee reviews about Twitter that were posted this year on Glassdoor, which collects anonymous salary data and opinions on companies, began to include complaints about how plans keep changing at the microblogging service as it shuffles leadership. Glassdoor's rating for Twitter is a 3.6 out of 5 this year, compared with 4.6 - which was the highest among technology companies - last year.
That pushed Twitter off Glassdoor's list of top 50 workplaces this year, adding to the issues that have confronted the San Francisco-based social network since going public in November 2013. Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo has switched up many of his lieutenants in the past year, as the company has grappled with slowing user growth and a stock price that has plunged 42 percent this year.
"There was an erosion of trust in senior leadership in 2014," Glassdoor CEO Robert Hohman said in an interview. "If you read the reviews, people point to a lot of internal reorgs in product and engineering. What I see is a company going through adolescence."
One Glassdoor reviewer this year said Twitter has "no long term plans" and that it's "full of chaos." Another lamented that "the leadership churn at the top is out of control."
Natalie Miyake, a spokeswoman for Twitter, said "employees share a mission and great pride in building a platform that enables our users to connect everyone to their world." She added that the company is hiring.
Google, Bain
Google Inc. is now Glassdoor users' first choice for workers, with a 4.5 rating, followed by management-consulting firm Bain & Co., with a 4.4 rating. Last year, the top company to work for was Bain, followed by Twitter.
Technology companies still take up 14 spots on the top 50 list, more than any other industry, according to Glassdoor. Apart from Google, other technology companies on the list include Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc. and Facebook Inc.
Part of Twitter's high marks last year were correlated to it going public, Hohman said. Technology companies often experience a challenging year after an initial public offering, with Facebook also struggling in the 12 months following its 2012 IPO, which has affected their Glassdoor rank.
"We've seen it at several companies, where the IPO year is big and the follow-on year is challenging," Hohman said.