How do you feel about your current workplace? Three local corporations made it on the influential list of the 100 best places to work in 2017, as ranked by Fortune magazine.
Each year, Fortune partners with the independent third-party Great Places to Work for an in-depth study of large corporate workplaces. They issue anonymous surveys to employees to get insider reviews and check in on factors from office relationships to compensation stats and workforce diversity.
For 2017, three Southern California operations made the cut: Calabasas Hills-based Cheesecake Factory (ranked 48th in the survey), Santa Monica’s Activision Blizzard (66) and Santa Ana-based First American Financial Corporation (82).
How did the Cheesecake Factory end up ranked among the the very best places to work in the entire country? While we have to assume that an unlimited supply of cheesecake and those occasional Drake visits probably factored in somehow, the statistics Fortune actually cited included the access to sick days and health insurance even for part-time workers, a college tuition reimbursement program and flexible management practices. The company also gets high marks for diversity, with a workforce that is 61 percent people of color. The restaurant chain made a big jump in the last year; in 2016 they just squeaked onto the list at 98 and this year catapulted into the upper half.
The overall top spot on the list will come as little surprise. Google took the honor for the sixth year in a row, combining their famous list of on-campus perks with new initiatives to hire and retain women and people of color to boost their diversity and inclusiveness scores.
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