Today Fortune released its 25th installment of its 100 Best Companies to Work For, a ranking we’ve covered off and on for the past 12 years. And the No. 1 bestest company for 2022, according to Fortune, is Cysco Systems. Congrats to them. In the professional services category, notables include Accenture at No. 6, Protiviti 15th, Bain & Co. 55th, and Ryan 60th. That category also includes seven public accounting firms that are among the 15 largest in the US by revenue. So we’ll start our coverage of the 2022 BCTWF with the highest-ranked among them: Deloitte at No. 24.
In the previous five years, Deloitte has been ranked:
Here’s why Deloitte made this year’s ranking, according to Fortune:
The pandemic made Deloitte take its employees’ mental health more seriously. In January 2021, the global consulting and accounting firm launched mental health goals for its operations in every country to meet within 18 months. Deloitte also worked with HSBC, Unilever, Salesforce, and other big employers to create a business pledge on workplace mental health; its 100 signatories have promised to develop specific plans to improve their employees’ mental well-being and to create more open workplace cultures around discussing this aspect of health. Bust as the pandemic slowly recedes, Deloitte is wrestling with the workplace fallout from another global crisis: In March 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine stoked public pressure on big Western companies doing business with Vladimir Putin’s regime, all of the Big Four accounting firms announced they would cut ties with their Russian operations. Deloitte, which says its withdrawal from Russia and Belarus will affect about 3,000 employees, promised to “support all impacted colleagues during this transition”; a spokesperson declined to provide specifics about what the assistance will entail.
After a tumultuous 2020, which included mass layoffs, 2021 was a fairly normal year in D-town. The firm continued to make money hand over fist globally, employees not only received raises (good or bad, depending on which Deloitter you talk to) but many also received mid-year salary adjustments, and 169 overachievers finally got to sit at the big kids’ table.
But despite all of this, many people at Deloitte (and throughout public accounting) ran for the exits in 2021 for greener pastures during the Great Resignation, so Deloitte had to try and find some warm bodies to fill seats while also retaining the warm bodies it already has before they turn cold. Trying to hire back people who the firm fired in 2020 wasn’t a good hiring strategy; however, an effective retention strategy was Deloitte & Touche offering its auditing professionals (second-years through senior managers) a one-time retention bonus, with the amounts varying by level (either $20,000 or $35,000). Deloitte’s tax practice did the same, offering its seniors and managers a one-time $20,000 retention bonus. The bonus was paid out for D&Ters in January, while tax Green Dotters will get theirs this month. But there’s a catch: Those who took the retention bonus must now stay at Deloitte for the next two years. If they end up getting a new job and leaving the firm between now and then, they must pay the retention bonus back in full.
Stats of note:
- Employees: 79,478
- Number of job openings: 5,461 (as of March 2022)
- Number of job applicants (last 12 months): 759,723
- Average number of applicants per opening: 33
- Number of new graduates hired: 7,272
- Percentage of women: 43.7%
- Percentage of minorities: 42.7%
- PTO limit (days): 40
- Number of sick days: N/A
We’ll continue our coverage of the Fortune 2022 BCTWF throughout this week.
