The following was brought to our attention this morning:

Glassdoor just published their 50 best places to work… and I believe none of the Big 4 are on it. Surprise surprise?


So we checked it out and yes, it’s true that none of the Big 4 (or any accounting firm for that matter) appear on the Glassdoor 50 Employees’ Choice Awards for 2011.

It’s worth noting however, that the methodology for this particular list is driven entirely by audience participation. From the FAQs:

The Glassdoor list is the only list that truly represents employees’ choice. Unlike many workplace-related awards that require companies to self nominate, Glassdoor relies solely on the input from employees. All that is required for consideration is an employer must have had at least 25 employees complete a survey to be considered.

So you could probably conclude one of a two things: a) Fewer than 25 employees of each firm bothered to visit Glassdoor to sing their firm’s praises or b) the reviews were so incredibly negative that the firms landed nowhere near the Top 50.

Now, possibility “a” seems unlikely since there are plenty of people working at these firms that don’t have anything better to do than mindlessly surf the web and participate in seemingly innocuous surveys and whatnot. Possibility “b” seems a little more realistic, so we’ll explain our thinking:

Since this particular list doesn’t have an application process, it is merely up to some ambitious person in the marketing/Internet reputation department to take the initiative to spread the word about this campaign TO EVERYONE IN THEIR OFFICE. Besides the fact that asking employees to add one more thing to their already-impossible-to-conquer “to-do list,” these types of emails are largely met with eyerolls that would cause most people to topple over backwards in their chairs. But rather than simply delete the message, this wells up so much annoyed rage within the bitter Big 4 Bobs/Betsys out there that they immediately proceed to the survey to crucify their firm out of spite.

Or then again, maybe we’re just cynical. If you’ve got your own theory, do share.