CareerBliss’ 50 Happiest Companies in America List Unveils the Top Companies for Employees in 2012

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CareerBliss, the leading online career community helping people find joy and success at every step in their careers, announces the 50 Happiest Companies in America for 2012. Based on more than 100,000 independent employee-generated reviews, the unique list offers insight into what drives employee happiness. Companies from various industries made the coveted list, including financial giants such as Fidelity Investments and Morgan Stanley; utility companies; pharmaceutical corporations, such as Pfizer; and the United States Military. Ranking first overall is hotelier Hilton. Nordstrom, one of America’s most established retailers, claimed the No. 4 spot. CareerBliss’ 50 Happiest Companies in America awards offer distinctive insight into which companies are leading the way in work-life balance, job security and the key factors that foster employee happiness.

“These results highlight the possibility of creating a happy company within almost any industry. Companies from military to retail to technology can build and maintain great working environments for their employees while being successful in their businesses.”

The CareerBliss’ 50 Happiest Companies – Top 10

Rank	Company Name	Overall Bliss Rating*
1	Hilton Hotels	4.360
2	Fluor	4.238
3	Johnson & Johnson	4.236
4	Nordstrom	4.234
5	BASF	4.215
6	Centex	4.208
7	United States Air Force - USAF	4.206
8	Fidelity Investments	4.205
9	Ericsson	4.201
10	Chevron	4.198

*All data derived from 2011 employee generated reviews. Ranking on a scale of 1-5 scale – with an average rating over ten aspects of job happiness.

For a full list of the 50 Happiest Companies in America

How CareerBliss Determines The Top 50:

CareerBliss data evaluates the key factors which affect work happiness, including: work-life balance, one’s relationship with their boss and co-workers, their work environment, job resources, compensation, growth opportunities, company culture, company reputation, their daily tasks, and job control over the work that they do on a daily basis. The data accounts for how an employee values each factor. Each review is given an average score indicating where the company places between one and five.

Heidi Golledge, Chief Happiness Officer and co-founder of CareerBliss, says, “We are proud to honor the top companies in America who clearly understand that, even in a tough economy, their employees are integral to their success. The companies on our list each have a strong emphasis on keeping their employees happy, as evidenced by their incredibly positive reviews in all facets of employee happiness including work life balance and career growth. CareerBliss studied hundreds of thousands of employee reviews from more than 10,000 companies to find the 50 companies who we are honoring as the CareerBliss Happiest Companies in America for 2011.”

The 2012 awards yielded a number of new additions from the previous year. Matt Miller, CTO and co-founder of CareerBliss says, "It was interesting for us to see the change in companies from our 2010 data. For example, Google, which ranked number one in 2010, did not make our top fifty this year. Google has faced a competitive environment for retaining talent this year and with their competitors rapidly expanding the race for employees can impact overall happiness."

An added change from the 2010 data was the inclusion of retail and hospitality companies in the top ten list. Nordstrom, a customer-focused retailer, proves they are a leader in employee happiness. The national department store chain ranks fourth overall.

"We are honored to have such a great group of employees and we appreciate that they have chosen to recognize us in this way. Our goal is to create a great workplace for our employees and we will continue to focus on doing our best for them into the future," said Delena Sunday, executive vice president, human resources and diversity affairs for Nordstrom.

In addition to military, retail, hospitality, finance and consumer packaged goods organizations, staffing and recruiting companies made the top 50. Kelly Services, a professional staffing corporation offers an array of outsourcing and consulting services ranks 34^th on the list. With both full-time and contract employees, this Michigan-based company proves itself as a leader in innovation and employee workplace happiness.

“Kelly Services is honored to be recognized by CareerBliss as a `Happiest Place to Work’. This award is especially meaningful to us because it’s based on the feedback of both our full-time employees and our free agents – showing that when you connect talented people with meaningful work, and then champion their success, you create a company where people are excited to come to work and give their best every day,” Kelly Services CEO Carl Camden said.

What Drives Employee Happiness:

Senior management, a person’s colleagues and the tools a company provides to enable employee success ranked even higher than salary and benefits as factors that affect employee happiness. In addition, the company culture, flexibility with work hours and the physical work environment of a company had a larger impact than compensation.

Bradley Brummel, Ph.D. in workplace psychology says, “These results highlight the possibility of creating a happy company within almost any industry. Companies from military to retail to technology can build and maintain great working environments for their employees while being successful in their businesses.”

For more information about the CareerBliss Happiest Companies in America 2012

About CareerBliss

CareerBliss is an online career community designed to help everyone find happiness in the workplace. An information hub for everyone who works, employers, job seekers and recruiters, CareerBliss offers the ability to find out what makes them happy and the ability to seek that out in other jobs or improve it in their current one using our PhD Board of Advisors, more than six million independent company reviews and salary comparisons, and more than three million job listings.

For more information, visit: www.CareerBliss.com