Are These 4 Companies Really the Best Places to Work?

April 15, 2014 — -- intro:

What are the best places to work in the U.S.? There's no lack of lists claiming to answer this question. Business Insider released its list of the 50 best places to work. It has little in common with Fortune's annual list of 100 best companies, released in January.

The number of differences extend further in their methodologies. Fortune utilizes company surveys collected by the Great Place to Work Institute. Business Insider's methodologyranked companies in the Fortune 500 using PayScale's salary and survey database, looking at six criteria factors: high job satisfaction, low job stress, high work-schedule flexibility, high job meaning, experienced median pay, and salary delta.

Meanwhile, Outside Magazine compiled its own list of 100 best places to work with the help of the Outdoor Industry Association, a trade group, and the Best Companies Group. For that list, companies with at least 15 employees in the U.S. filled out confidential employee satisfaction surveys about benefits, compensation, job satisfaction, environmental initiatives and community outreach. Companies in Outside Magazine's list are smaller and tend to lean toward employees with a penchant for the outdoors.

Here are the four firms that show up in more than one of the three lists:

quicklist:category: Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif. title: Google, Inc. text: Tech giant Google has repeatedly appeared at the top of Fortune's list, but was only number eight in Business Insider's rankings.

Though Google has dropped from the number two spot last year, Business Insider noted employees' high rates of work-schedule flexibility (83 percent) and job satisfaction (81 percent)" and median pay is $127,000 after five years, which is "very high compared to industry peers."

quicklist:category: Headquarters: San Diego, Calif. title: Qualcommtext: Semiconductor company Qualcomm was 32nd in Fortune's list but 13th in Business Insider's.

Business Insider pointed out that Qualcomm employees report "high rates of work-schedule flexibility (93 percent) and job satisfaction (80 percent)" while median pay is $113,000 after five years, which is "very high compared to industry peers."

quicklist:category: Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif. title: NetApptext: Data and cloud storage company NetApp ranked 33rd in Fortune's list and 16th in Business Insider's.

Fortune wrote, "Employees at this data-management and -protection company enjoy five paid days off a year to volunteer within their community."

quicklist:category: Headquarters: Oklahoma City, Okla. title: Chesapeake Energy text: Chesapeake Energy, which calls itself the second-largest producer of natural gas and the 10th largest producer of oil and natural gas liquids in the U.S., came in at 51 in Fortune's list and 75 in Outside's rankings.

Outside Magazine wrote back in August: "Chesapeake has the largest corporate mentoring program in Oklahoma. Now starting its 19th year, mentors meet weekly one-on-one with more than 500 students to help with homework and serve as positive role models."