We typically focus on companies recognized as great places to work, whether through “best workplaces” lists or strong employee ratings. Today, we’re taking the opposite view—highlighting some of the lowest-rated workplaces according to employee reviews.
For this analysis, we limited the universe to S&P 500 companies with at least 500 employees and a minimum of 25 combined Glassdoor and Indeed reviews per quarter over the past five years. Our sentiment score weights recent reviews more heavily and also incorporates trend and dispersion.
We’ve also included 1-, 3-, and 5-year total shareholder returns. With the exception of Super Micro, every company on this list has meaningfully lagged the S&P 500 over three years (74.4%) and five years (99.5%). Over a ten-year horizon, only Super Micro, Norfolk Southern, and Generac have outperformed the index (275.7%).
Stay tuned as next week we will highlight the top 10 best places to work, as well as the top company in each sector.
What we’re reading:
- Purposeful Work Boosts Engagement, but Few Experience It: Employees with a strong sense of purpose at work are 5.6 times as likely to be engaged in their jobs as those with a low sense of purpose. Most organizations currently do not place a high value on personal or organizational purpose. When evaluating the importance of a range of factors in determining the success of a new hire, leaders and managers with hiring responsibilities ranked qualities related to purpose in the middle. Just 30% of respondents rated a strong sense of personal purpose along with passion for the organization’s mission as “very important.” By comparison, 77% indicated that communication skills are very important. (Gallup)
- Differentiating on Diversity: How Disclosing Workforce Diversity Influences Consumer Choice: Many companies are making efforts to diversify their workforces, motivated by documented operational performance benefits and increased pressure to “walk the talk” on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. One specific call to action from stakeholders is the public disclosure of intersectional diversity data in EEO-1s, which companies with 100+ employees must report each year to the federal government, but which companies rarely make publicly available. Conducting five online experiments to examine how consumers perceive transparency into an operation’s workforce diversity, we find no evidence that disclosing workforce diversity data undermines customer attitudes or behaviors toward the company, even when the disclosures reveal racial disparities across job categories. Instead, we find that consumers perceive firms that disclose their workforce diversity data to be more committed to DEI initiatives, view disclosing firms more positively, and are more likely to choose their offerings over those of non-disclosing firms. (Harvard DASH)
- The Long and Short of Job Tenure: Where Workers Put Down Roots or Move On: The median job seeker with a profile on Indeed had been in their job for two years and three months as of late 2024, according to Indeed’s job seeker-provided resume data. Workers in typically lower-paying roles, including in retail and food preparation, tend to have shorter stays, while workers in higher-paying and/or more regulated fields — including healthcare and legal work — stick around longer. (Indeed Hiring Lab)
- US outlines new approach for proxy disputes, seen as blow to shareholder activists: The top U.S. financial regulator on Monday changed the grounds on which companies may seek permission to skip votes on shareholder resolutions, a move seen as making it more difficult for activists to force votes on contentious topics such as climate change or workforce diversity. In a notice, opens new tab posted to its website on Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission said that at least through next June, it would no longer make rulings on common proxy objections, such as whether an activist’s proposal was filed late or if a filer owned enough shares. (Reuters)
- Innovative Human Capital and Stock Returns: A Global Perspective: We analyze the asset pricing implications of innovative human capital from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Our model features a separation of R&D staff from regular manpower in the production of knowledge and the final good, and predicts expected stock returns to increase with firm-level human capital investment. Additionally, labor market frictions for talent strengthen the predictability of stock returns. We then match international stocks to U.S. patent records, and show that firms with higher inventor-to-employee ratios subsequently experience higher stock returns. Moreover, such a relation is stronger in countries with stronger patent protection that prohibits inventor mobility and increases corresponding adjustment costs. (SSRN)
- Celebrated or penalised? Employers confuse staff over AI rules: Some employers are clear about AI, offering bonuses to staff who use it regularly and warning of possible disciplinary action if it is misused. Others have failed to set even minimum guidelines, leaving many workers confused as to how to deploy new tools in their jobs. The opacity surrounding company policies is resulting in staff running personal generative AI accounts in secret or discovering they have inadvertently breached the rules, according to lawyers and employment experts. (Financial Times)
- The Effects of Worker Voice on Manufacturing Pay and Productivity: What happens when manufacturing companies regularly incorporate worker feedback and ideas into their production processes? Productivity is generally higher—and so is production worker pay. (MIT Sloan)
- Inside Walmart’s Masterclass in Reputation Rehab: A decade ago, Walmart Inc. was among the most reviled companies in America. It was criticized for wiping out mom-and-pop retailers; for not paying its workers enough while making its founding family, the Waltons, one of the richest in the US; for creating a culture of cheap, disposable goods. It was so detested that communities rallied to keep Walmart stores out of their backyards. Today, the company is no longer corporate America’s No. 1 bogeyman. And when Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon steps down at the end of January, the rehabilitation of Walmart’s reputation will go down as one of the most important parts of his legacy. (Bloomberg)
- The Hidden Driver of Workforce Polarization: In recent years, organizations have become battlegrounds for debates on diversity, sustainability, health mandates, return-to-office policies, and corporate speech. Leaders often assume these disputes map neatly onto political identities: liberals vs. conservatives, progressives vs. traditionalists. But our studies suggest otherwise. Across thousands of respondents, we found that moral philosophy was a more powerful predictor of policy positions than ideology. (Harvard Business Review)
- How Are Companies Using Gen AI in 2025? A new report tracking the use of artificial intelligence at large American companies finds the technology is now deeply embedded into core functions and leaders are starting to see financial gains from it. (Knowledge @ Wharton)
- Backlash leaves diversity executives facing career uncertainty: America’s retreat from diversity efforts has left thousands of inclusion specialists worried about their careers. The move endangers the future of a profession that has catapulted women and people of colour to the top ranks of corporations, universities and government in recent years. (Financial Times)