Main image of article Tech Companies Care More About Balance Than You Think
Pleasantville Movie PosterTech companies, despite their reputations for Red Bull-fueled all-nighters, are apparently more respectful of work-life balance than most people think. MITRE, a non-profit that specializes in scientific and technical projects to support government organizations, took the top spot on Glassdoor's second annual list of the Top 25 Companies for Work-Life Balance. It earned a rating of 4.5 out of 5.  North Highland, a management consulting group based in Atlanta that includes an IT practice, followed with its own rating of 4.5. Other tech companies on the list were Agilent Technologies (No. 3, rated 4.4), SAS Institute (No. 4, rated 4.4), National Instruments (No. 7, 4.3), LinkedIn (No. 8, 4.3), FactSet (No. 9, 4.3), Rackspace (No. 11, 4.3), Orbitz (No. 12, 4.2), Novell, (No. 13, 4.2),  Citrix Systems (No. 19, 4.2), Hitachi Data Systems (No. 20, 4.2) and NAVTEQ (No. 23, 4.1). To be considered for the list, companies required to have 20 Glassdoor reviews between July 26, 2011, and July 25, 2012, and at least 10 reviews from July to July the previous year. What made these companies stand out? Said Scott Dobroski, Glassdoor's community expert:
When we look at the themes … employees are talking about feeling a great deal of pride in the company, they love the leadership, they feel it’s very transparent. Of course, they continue to talk about great perks such as workout sessions at work, free food,  flexible schedules, work-from-home options, but a lot of companies have those.... They talk about their work and life balance being very much in sync.
Facebook, which had ranked No. 7 in 2011, didn't make it in 2012. Dobroski said that in comments, workers talked of working extremely long hours. "One product manager said, 'You will work a zillion hours and still not be done with your work.'" Just as interesting as who made the list was who didn't -- not Apple (rated 3.7) nor Microsoft (rated 3.6) but Yahoo (rated 4.0) came close despite all the turmoil at the top. Said Dobrowski of the "almost" group, "The average rating for all companies was 3.4, so even though they didn’t crack the top 25, they’re still above average."

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