Which Companies Have the Best and Worst Corporate Cultures in America?

Introduction

How many times have you gone into a store or a restaurant and thought to yourself, “Gee, this would be a great place to work?” Alternatively, after shopping or dining out (assuming you still do those sorts of things these days…), how often have you come away thinking, “Thank God I don’t have to work there!”

Now, if you are in your teens or twenties, such thoughts may indeed be much more relevant to your immediate employment thinking than those of us who are more advanced in our careers and our professions. Yet, even if we are “solid” with what we do and who we work for, these kinds of feelings do occur, and they are important, even if it is not ourselves that first comes to mind. In fact, famous corporate consultant Tom Peters, coauthor of perhaps one of the most important management books of all-time, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies, posed a one question test of how to evaluate the culture of a company. That question was a simple one: “Would you want your son or daughter to work here?”

How we perceive companies and their corporate culture is a complex dynamic today. Companies increasingly recognize that it is imperative not just to actively and intentionally manage their corporate culture, but to protect it and manage the public’s perception of their company’s culture as another aspect of their branding - both to attract new employees and to generate positive perceptions of the firm by consumers.

And so we have companies that are regarded for having “good” corporate cultures and take steps to brandish that image, such as Southwest Airlines, which not only uses its very intentionally “fun” corporate culture as a way to help keep its workers motivated (and attract new employees) and customers loyal to the airline, but also trains managers from companies and organizations around the world on the Southwest culture.

Being regarded as having a “good” corporate culture can pay significant marketing dividends for companies in terms of generating a positive vibe about the firm and producing loyal, satisfied customers. And especially in the highly competitive marketplace for talent that exists today, companies that have a positive perception of their corporate culture will draw more interest in their jobs than those who do not have that “good buzz” about their company. Perhaps there is no better example of this today than Chick-fil-A, a company that melds its reputation as a good place to work and with employees who go “above and beyond” in customer service as “twin towers” of its branding and marketing efforts.

On the other hand, companies can be regarded for having a poor corporate culture, which can have negative - significantly negative - consequences for the firm. Take McDonald’s for instance. McDonald’s has historically been regarded as one of America’s great marketing and branding success stories…

Today however, the fast food restaurant behemoth is seemingly mired in a constant strategic rebound, hampered not just by the changing tastes and nutritional priorities of Americans, but perhaps even more so by the perception that it has a problematic corporate culture. Once not so long ago, McDonald’s ran ad campaigns touting the company as being “America’s Best First Job,” as in fact it is for roughly 10% of U.S. workers…

Yet, today, even in an industry constantly plagued by high rates of worker turnover, McDonald’s struggles perhaps more than any other company in the fast food industry with constant staffing issues. Today, it is turning more and more to technology to solve its customer service problems that are in large part an outgrowth of the company’s turnover and staffing struggles, investing massively in kiosks in its restaurants and encouraging customers to order through its app to reduce the need for “human” workers for servicing its patrons.

When people “think” about McDonald’s and its workplace, rightly or wrongly what comes to mind all too often are poor customer service encounters that often go viral…

...and the fights that take place at McDonald’s - which sometimes involve McDonald’s workers…

…. and even sometimes McDonald’s managers!

Taken together, all of this leads to a public perception that McDonald’s does not have the kind of environment that many would want to patronize as a customer, let alone work in! This spells big trouble for a storied American brand, even if the perceptions of the company’s culture may not be entirely accurate in the minds of consumers! As one famous politician famously put it: “It is what it is!”

The Axios Harris Poll Survey on Corporate Reputation

Every year since 1999, the Harris Poll has conducted an annual survey of Americans to assess the public’s perceptions of companies and their brands. As such, their corporate reputation research work stands as one of the best assessments of both present and historical views of American consumers about major U.S. consumer-facing corporations. Partnering with the media firm, Axios, the 2021 survey results (2021 Axios Harris Poll 100) have recently been released.

Their methodology is actually quite interesting, as first they compile the rankings of the top 100 firms in terms of being the most visible, highest profile companies today. Each participant in their screening research was asked to name two companies that they believed had the best reputations in America today and the two firms that they felt had the worst reputations. Since those surveyed could name any company and any brand that came to the top of their minds in response to these two questions, there were a wide array of firms and products/services that were in the mix. The Axios/Harris Poll researchers then proceeded to refine the data to produce their list of the 100 most visible companies in America. This list is shown in Table 1 (The Most Visible Companies in America for 2021) below:

Table 1: The Most Visible Companies in America for 2021

Visibility Rank, Company, Reputation Rank

1. Amazon.com (#10 in Reputation Rankings).

2. Walmart (#83 in Reputation Rankings)

3. Apple (#16 in Reputation Rankings)

4. Facebook (#98 in Reputation Rankings)

5. Google (#60 in Reputation Rankings)

6. Target (#41 in Reputation Rankings)

7. Microsoft (#36 in Reputation Rankings)

8. Wells Fargo & Company (#95 in Reputation Rankings)

9. Nike (#62 in Reputation Rankings)

10. McDonald's (#73 in Reputation Rankings)

11. Chick-fil-A (#4 in Reputation Rankings)

12. Sears Holdings Corporation (#96 in Reputation Rankings)

13. AT&T (#86 in Reputation Rankings)

14. Ford Motor Company (#50 in Reputation Rankings)

15. Twitter (#93 in Reputation Rankings)

16. Costco (#9 in Reputation Rankings)

17. Samsung (#31 in Reputation Rankings)

18. Tesla Motors (#8 in Reputation Rankings)

19. Comcast (#92 in Reputation Rankings)

20. T-Mobile (#56 in Reputation Rankings)

21. Verizon Communications (#61 in Reputation Rankings)

22. The Trump Organization (#100 in Reputation Rankings)

23. The Coca-Cola Company (#58 in Reputation Rankings)

24. General Motors (#68 in Reputation Rankings)

25. The Home Depot (#45 in Reputation Rankings)

26. Best Buy (#48 in Reputation Rankings)

27. Toyota Motor Corporation (#18 in Reputation Rankings)

28. Bank of America (#77 in Reputation Rankings)

29. Yum! Brands (#70 in Reputation Rankings)

30. Lowe's (#22 in Reputation Rankings)

31. ExxonMobil (#80 in Reputation Rankings)

32. eBay (#66 in Reputation Rankings)

33. Starbucks Corporation (#65 in Reputation Rankings)

34. The Walt Disney Company (#37 in Reputation Rankings)

35. GameStop (#82 in Reputation Rankings)

36. Publix Supermarkets (#23 in Reputation Rankings)

37. The Kroger Company (#30 in Reputation Rankings)

38. Hobby Lobby (#53 in Reputation Rankings)

39. General Electric (#40 in Reputation Rankings)

40. IBM (#39 in Reputation Rankings)

41. Sony (#34 in Reputation Rankings)

42. Macy's (#64 in Reputation Rankings)

43. Fox Corporation (#99 in Reputation Rankings)

44. Johnson & Johnson (#72 in Reputation Rankings)

45. Burger King (#84 in Reputation Rankings)

46. Dollar General (#71 in Reputation Rankings)

47. Netflix (#38 in Reputation Rankings)

48. PepsiCo (#20 in Reputation Rankings)

49. Kohl's (#55 in Reputation Rankings)

50. Robinhood (#79 in Reputation Rankings)

51. CVS (CVS Health) (#24 in Reputation Rankings)

52. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (#54 in Reputation Rankings)

53. My Pillow (#91 in Reputation Rankings)

54. BP (#85 in Reputation Rankings)

55. JCPenney (#89 in Reputation Rankings)

56. HP, Inc. (#26 in Reputation Rankings)

57. Uber (#90 in Reputation Rankings)

58. USAA (#12 in Reputation Rankings)

59. Procter & Gamble Co. (#35 in Reputation Rankings)

60. Wish.com (#97 in Reputation Rankings)

61. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (#75 in Reputation Rankings)

62. Dollar Tree (#74 in Reputation Rankings)

63. Nordstrom (#63 in Reputation Rankings)

64. Walgreens (#46 in Reputation Rankings)

65. Adidas (#49 in Reputation Rankings)

66. Berkshire Hathaway (#27 in Reputation Rankings)

67. Nestle (#29 in Reputation Rankings)

68. Chipotle (#76 in Reputation Rankings)

69. State Farm Insurance (#52 in Reputation Rankings)

70. TikTok (#94 in Reputation Rankings)

71. United Airlines (#87 in Reputation Rankings)

72. Wegmans (#13 in Reputation Rankings)

73. Wendy's (#67 in Reputation Rankings)

74. Unilever (#15 in Reputation Rankings)

75. Honda Motor Company (#2 in Reputation Rankings)

76. American Express (#44 in Reputation Rankings)

77. UPS (#19 in Reputation Rankings)

78. Subaru (#14 in Reputation Rankings)

79. Citigroup (#43 in Reputation Rankings)

80. Pfizer (#7 in Reputation Rankings)

81. 3M Company (#25 in Reputation Rankings)

82. Chewy (#6 in Reputation Rankings)

83. Patagonia (#1 in Reputation Rankings)

84. REI (#11 in Reputation Rankings)

85. In-n-Out Burger (#17 in Reputation Rankings)

86. Electronic Arts, Inc. (#51 in Reputation Rankings)

87. FedEx Corporation (#33 in Reputation Rankings)

88. Reddit (#78 in Reputation Rankings)

89. Wayfair (#42 in Reputation Rankings)

90. SpaceX (#5 in Reputation Rankings)

91. Domino's Pizza (#57 in Reputation Rankings)

92. Delta Air Lines (#81 in Reputation Rankings)

93. IKEA (#21 in Reputation Rankings)

94. Paypal (#32 in Reputation Rankings)

95. Moderna (#3 in Reputation Rankings)

96. Huawei Technologies (#88 in Reputation Rankings)

97. Goya (#59 in Reputation Rankings)

98. Hulu (#28 in Reputation Rankings)

99. Kaiser Permanente (#47 in Reputation Rankings)

100. Royal Dutch Shell (#69 in Reputation Rankings)

Source Data: The Harris Poll, 2021 Axios Harris Poll 100.

As you can see, the 100 most visible companies were also ranked based on their corporate reputations. This was done by the Axios/Harris Poll researchers asking a much larger sample of the American public to assess how they regarded these 100 most visible companies on each of 7 dimensions that are integral to a company’s reputation. These were:

1. Trust – “Is this a company I trust?”
2. Ethics – “Does this company maintain high ethical standards?”
3. Citizenship – “Does this company share my values and support good causes?”
4. Culture – “Is this a good company to work for?”
5. Products and Services – “Does this company develop innovative products and services that I want and value?”
6. Vision – “Does this company have a clear vision for the future?”
7. Growth – “Is this a growing company?”

So, as you can see by examining Table 1, some of America’s most visible firms are not among the most highly regarded for their corporate reputations, and conversely, a number of the companies that consumers see as having the best corporate reputations today are far less known in the minds of the American public. In fact, there’s little correlation between the top 10 most visible companies (Amazon, Walmart, Apple, Facebook, Google, Target, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Nike and McDonald’s) and the top 10 most reputable companies (Patagonia, Honda, Moderna, Chick-fil-A, SpaceX, Chewy, Pfizer, Tesla, Costco and Amazon). That is a topic for another day and far more analysis, but it is safe to say that some of America’s best known companies and brands have a significant image problem in the minds of consumers, especially in the tech area.

The Highest and Lowest Regarded Companies for Corporate Culture Today

In this article, the focus is on the fourth dimension of corporate reputation - the company’s culture. To capture how Americans today regarded companies in regard to their corporate culture - or at least how it is perceived from the outside, the survey respondents were asked to respond to a simple question and only on companies with which they were familiar from a subset of the 100 most visible companies, that being: “Is this a good company to work for?”

As can be seen in Table 2 (The 25 Best Companies to Work for in America in 2021 and Their Culture Rating) below, the most highly regarded companies were closely correlated to the most highly regarded firms overall in the Axios/Harris Poll survey. Patagonia was the firm rated best overall in overall corporate reputation, and likewise, it was regarded as the company with the best overall organizational culture. Patagonia is a company that prides itself on being mission-driven and places a high emphasis on supporting its employees and causes.

As such, the company is not only perceived by consumers as having the “best” corporate culture today in the Axios/Harris Poll research, it was ranked by the public as the most ethical of the visible firms as well (See “Who Are the Most and Least Ethical Companies in America Today?” by this author). As you can see in Table 2 as well, the aforementioned Chick-fil-A was second to Patagonia, followed by Costco, which has a well-known reputation for making its worker pay and benefits far above those found elsewhere in the retail industry.

Table 2: The 25 Best Companies to Work for in America in 2021 and Their Culture Rating

NOTE: Index = 100

1. Patagonia (82.5)

2. Chick-fil-A (82.3)

3. Costco (81.8)

4. PepsiCo (81.7)

5. Honda Motor Company (81.6)

6. Subaru (81.6)

7. Chewy (81.2)

8. UPS (81.1)

9. USAA (81)

10. Publix Supermarkets (81)

11. REI (80.9)

12. SpaceX (80.8)

13. Pfizer (80.7)

14. Berkshire Hathaway (80.7)

15. Apple (80.3)

16. Unilever (80.1)

17. Wegmans (79.9)

18. Toyota Motor Corporation.79.8

19. Nestle (79.8)

20. FedEx Corporation (79.6)

21. Moderna (79.5)

22. Tesla Motors (79.4)

23. IKEA (79.4)

24. Hulu (79.4)

25. HP, Inc. (79.2)

Source Data: The Harris Poll, 2021 Axios Harris Poll 100.

On the flip side of the corporate culture equation, Table 3 (The 25 Worst Companies to Work for in America in 2021 and Their Culture Rating) below shows the most visible firms in America today that the public collectively perceives as having the worst company cultures at present. And so asking the public whether they would want to work for the company is - in essence - the same as whether they would want to have any association whatsoever with the company. With employment being a far stronger relationship than anything else a person could have with a company (i.e. as a customer, a supplier, a stockholder, etc.), these findings should really come as no surprise.

Table 3: The 25 Worst Companies to Work for in America in 2021 and Their Culture Rating

NOTE: Index = 100

100. The Trump Organization (55.2)

99. Sears Holdings Corporation (58.2)

98. Wish.com (59.8)

97. Fox Corporation (60.1)

96. Facebook (60.4)

95. Twitter (63.6)

94. Wells Fargo & Company (63.6)

93. TikTok (64.3)

92. Walmart (64.5)

91. Comcast (65.2)

90. JCPenney (65.3)

89. Uber (66.4)

88. My Pillow (66.9)

87. Huawei Technologies (67.2)

86. Burger King (67.5)

85. Dollar Tree (68.6)

84. United Airlines (68.9)

83. McDonald's (69.1)

82. Domino's Pizza (69.8)

81. AT&T (69.8)

80. Yum! Brands (70.2)

79. BP (70.4)

78. Delta Air Lines (70.6)

77. Chipotle (70.7)

76. GameStop (70.7)

Source Data: The Harris Poll, 2021 Axios Harris Poll 100.

As can be clearly seen, negative consumer perceptions of corporate culture are closely tied to their overall perception of the firm. Thus, the worst ranked companies on the corporate culture dimension are also the worst ranked firms overall. The list is led by the The Trump Organization, which is negatively perceived by much of the public due to its inherent connection with the former President, closely followed by Sears Holdings, the owners of what remains of the Sears and Kmart retail chains.

Analysis

So, what are the implications for management from these findings in regard to the cultural dimension of corporate reputation? Clearly today, in an increasingly competitive job market, being well-regarded for having a corporate culture that one could be proud of - and want to be associated with - is key for companies to both attract and retain top talent. To succeed today, it is thus more important than ever for companies to be able to pass the “Tom Peters Test:” Would you want your son or daughter to work here?

As a manager, you want to first build a good corporate culture, one that promotes and reinforces the core values of the company and works to serve both the firm’s employees and its customers. However, the task does not stop there, as today more than ever, one can - and should - market the corporate culture. As shown earlier, companies like Southwest Airlines and Chick-fil-A do this exceedingly well, intentionally promoting their corporate cultures as part of their overall marketing and branding strategies.

For companies that find themselves with struggles on the corporate culture front, the challenge is indeed one that calls for a great deal of soul searching, as their leaders need to really address just what is wrong with the perceptions of - and the realities within - their firms. Perhaps it is purely a PR problem. More likely however, there are fundamental issues that need to be addressed - in leadership, in the workplace, in policies, in decision making, in employee involvement, etc. As the saying goes, “spin” will only go so far. And today, in an age of constant information flows regarding companies, for firms that have poor cultural reputations, it is best for their leadership to try to actually improve the corporate culture to produce positive sentiments about the company, both internally and externally, rather than to try and make it a case for persuasion.

Corporate culture is in the end an intangible “thing.” Yet, a company’s culture can help it to produce very tangible results on the bottom line, if it is managed right.

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About David Wyld

David Wyld is a Professor of Strategic Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, publisher, executive educator, and experienced expert witness. You can view all of his work at https://authory.com/DavidWyld.

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