Employer Brand Rankings: October 2022
Happy Fall. In a beautiful turn of events, there was more good employer branding news than bad employer branding news in October. It must be the fresh air.
The Best
6. Wake County
The Wake County Board of Commissioners in North Carolina approved “wellness leave” for county employees, which will take effect next year.
According to a release from the county, “the new benefit offers two days of paid leave to full- and part-time employees, so they can take advantage of wellness activities, preventive care, and support service visits like therapy. Staff can also use Wellness Leave to manage any stress, anxiety, or depression that they or their immediate family members are experiencing.”
5. Fidelity
Fidelity investment bank will now pay full tuition, taxes, fees, and the cost of books for its entry-level customer service phone reps. The benefit is applicable for select two- and four-year degree programs.
4. Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai Health System in New York City has developed a new registry for tracking Covid-19 exposure among its workforce to better protect employees against infection. The pandemic isn’t over, btw, and the flu is back. And now something called RSV? Anyway, that rustling sound you hear is me putting my mask on.
According to a release from the org, the Employee Health COVID-19 REDCap Registry is “a cloud-based digital framework using the Research Electronic Data Capture web application—to track and reduce the spread of the virus across the Mount Sinai Health System including 8 hospitals and more than 400 outpatient practices.”
3. Quest Diagnostics
Clinical lab company Quest Diagnostics announced it will raise healthcare premiums for its highest-earning employees, and lower them for its lowest-earning employees.
CEO Steve Rusckowski told Yahoo Finance: “For 95% of our employees, there will be no increase in their payment. For 5% of those employees, there will be a fee increase, and that's primarily for the highest paid people at Quest Diagnostics. So real good progress of bending the cost curve for our own employees.
2. Bank of Ireland Group
The Bank of Ireland in, well, Ireland, will now offer paid menopause leave. Employees will be able to take up to 10 days for physical or psychological symptoms related to menopause.
1. San Diego Unified School District
The San Diego Unified School District, which comprises more than 200 institutions and employs more than 15,000 people, is attempting to provide affordable housing to its employees. The deal isn’t done yet, but funding for the measure is on the November ballot.
Kristen Taketa reports for the San Diego Union-Tribune: “The average asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego city is now $2,200 a month, according to real estate tracker CoStar. That’s more than half of what a teacher paid the district’s starting salary of $50,744 would make each month before taxes. The district hasn’t said how much the rent would be for any affordable housing, but officials said it would likely be priced at around half the market rate.”
The Worst
4. CNN
Employees at CNN got an ominous email on October 26 saying that layoffs are coming by the end of the year. Oliver Darcy, a senior media reporter at—yes, CNN—wrote about the announcement—in a sick twist—for CNN Business. Happy holidays.
Apparently, CEO Chris Licht sent a memo in which he said that “he had identified areas where changes will be made. In addition, he noted that there is ‘widespread concern over the global economic outlook’ and said that ‘we must factor that risk into our long-term planning.’
3. Um, all of Corporate Canada?
Canada’s “business community” got together and wrote a whiny letter to its sexy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, urging him to require government employees to return to the office.
Randy Thanthong-Knight for Bloomberg: “While many businesses have now implemented return-to-office plans, some governments are ‘significantly lagging’ in following suit, according to an open letter signed by 32 business associations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Business Council of Canada.
The private sector says the request is about restoring life and cash flow to downtown centers. OK, fine. It could also be that they want government employees to have no choice in the matter, just like their own employees.
2. Meta
Meta is laying off something like 20% of its staff despite burning bundles of money in Metaverse bonfires. (That’s a metaphor, of course. But who knows, give it time.) Investors aren’t happy.
1. Twitter
You knew this would be number one. Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, he’s been behaving like a business terrorist—flippantly throwing his weight around and intimidating workers like a sticky-fingered boy king. He’s already pushed out former executives, and he’s definitely going to lay off members of the rank-and-file.
Estimates for the layoff range from 10% to as much as 50% of the workforce, but at the writing of this article, we don’t yet know. Axios’s headline on the story reads, “It’s going to be a bloodbath.”
There are rumors floating that these are firings and not layoffs, which means Musk wouldn’t have to cash out stock for departing employees.
Also, it’ fun to have a rich villain to hate.
Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza writes about workplace culture, DEI, and hiring. Her work has appeared in Fast Company, From Day One, and InHerSight, among others.
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