On first consideration it doesn’t make sense: in the worst job market since the Great Depression, a company starts doing everything it can to make its employees happy. Instead of cutting back on basic benefits—“Unfortunately, we’ve had to make some tough decisions…”—it offers extraordinary perks. An all-company trip to the Olympic Games. Paid days to volunteer for a beach cleanup. Bonus checks for exercise.
What might sound like wasted dollars turns out to be the calculated strategy of a growing cadre of forward-thinking shops: spur employees to be engaged in their communities and live active lives and they’ll be more productive, creative, and committed. In four years of putting together Outside’s Best Places to Work, we’ve heard this refrain repeatedly. And yet here we are, stunned all over again by just how hard the winners are striving to provide the kind of work-life balance we imagined possible only in the best of economic times.
So if your job—or job hunt—has you beaten down, know that there are incredible opportunities out there. In fact, when deciding which of the 50 companies on this year’s list to send your résumé to (many are hiring), the challenge comes down to identifying the ones that could fulfill your wildest career dreams. Let us offer some guidance.
Comments
Great article. As always, Outside succeeds in depressing me and energizing me all at once. Reading Outside is like drinking a Red Bull and vodka - the highs of my dreams and past adventures, the lows of financial constraints and guilt from too many unrealized ideas and half-baked projects that weigh me down like armloads of kelp on a marathon swim crossing. A couple of questions, though, with all these perks, do employees of these Top 50 organizations still get their work done between 9 and 5-ish, or do they have to get home late and have a strained family life or a super understanding partner? Should people whose work is dedicated to a higher "social change" mission and not hollow antics or silly widgets expect this kind of work-life balance? My nonprofit offers free yoga, a summer flex schedule, and a lot more, but it's hard to imagine making this Top 50 list and still achieving our mission ...
Flag ThisAm I the only one who feels that this magazine is catering to the companies who advertise here? Many of the places to work listed here have products in the buying guides. Patagonia, Smartwool, Eddie Baur, Smith Optics, Brooks, etc.
Flag ThisAm I the only one who feels that this magazine is catering to the companies who advertise here? Many of the places to work listed here have products in the buying guides. Patagonia, Smartwool, Eddie Baur, Smith Optics, Brooks, etc.
Flag ThisKevin, there are just as many that I don't remember ever seeing in the magazine. But I think the takeaway from the fact that they are almost all outdoor industry companies is A) this is an outside industry magazine and the readers want to know about those types of companies; and B) I'm pretty confident that the outdoor industry companies are better at creating a bad ass workplace than almost anyone else. When I tell people I guide people into the hinterlands for a living, they think it's the sickest job ever. When my friend says "I work for Google" he just get's an "oh, cool!"
Flag Thisfor dave: your comment is justified, but kinda like the casino thing, your friends who just won big are eager to tell ya all about their winnings yet they never tell you about their losses Thes people who work these 50 jobs will have to do whatever it takes for the company to MAKE MONEY. if not, the business fails. It's that simple. Where I work, it's hotter'n hell in the summer, cold in the winter, pay is great, but everything else stinks. You don't come to work, you don't get paid. my 2Cents worth.
Flag Thisfor dave: your comment is justified, but kinda like the casino thing, your friends who just won big are eager to tell ya all about their winnings yet they never tell you about their losses Thes people who work these 50 jobs will have to do whatever it takes for the company to MAKE MONEY. if not, the business fails. It's that simple. Where I work, it's hotter'n hell in the summer, cold in the winter, pay is great, but everything else stinks. You don't come to work, you don't get paid. my 2Cents worth.
Flag ThisI agree that Outside caters to their advertisers...but they all do. Just as all the Big reviews come out in the "Buying Guides" whether its Outside or Backpacker or any of the others, catering to the advertisers trump any truly objective opinion about a product. Read the chat rooms and forums to get "real" information. If you are taking the opinion of any advertiser subsidized publication, you will never get the real story. That said, no advertisers no magazine
Flag Thisfor six summers i worked on dinosaur digging crews in n.e. wyoming,south dakota's pine ridge res (saber tooth cats), even indiana (mammoths). we worked sun up to sun down. i also had to cook for the crews, ranging in number from 5-15 workers. since we were a few miles from the old log cabin we slept in i had to cook the evening meal in a crock pot each day. i was at the working end of a shovel for hours. i found out wyoming has two seasons, winter and the fourth of july. i also listened to the wyo locals convince me that if you don't like the weather in wyoming, wait 15 minutes. they were right. enough said, where do i get in line for any of these jobs.........
Flag Thisfor six summers i worked on dinosaur digging crews in n.e. wyoming,south dakota's pine ridge res (saber tooth cats), even indiana (mammoths). we worked sun up to sun down. i also had to cook for the crews, ranging in number from 5-15 workers. since we were a few miles from the old log cabin we slept in i had to cook the evening meal in a crock pot each day. i was at the working end of a shovel for hours. i found out wyoming has two seasons, winter and the fourth of july. i also listened to the wyo locals convince me that if you don't like the weather in wyoming, wait 15 minutes. they were right. enough said, where do i get in line for any of these jobs.........
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