Today we look at the five biggest eCommerce companies currently shipping their wares across the U.S. Amazon, Apple, eBay, The Home Depot and Walmart all have shown mastery in courting online shoppers over the period where the nature of American shopping switched from wandering around a mall to browsing a website with your thumb. But we’re not concerned with ease of interface or speed of shipping or even width of selection today. Using Comparably’s set of employee-submitted data, we’re looking at the company cultures of these five giants, and at how satisfied the employees are that work for each of them.
OVERALL CULTURE
First to take one of our little gold trophies (for Overall Culture score) is The Home Depot, a company that has done exceedingly well in our culture showdowns before. Amazon takes second place, coming in three percentage points behind Home Depot. eBay and Apple clock respectable scores for 3rd and 4th place. Walmart has to settle for a C and last place in this first round.
Amazon: “The people who work at the ground level are generally wonderful to work with. Their diversity in culture and personality is refreshing.”
Apple: “You can feel the warmth and love at apple. If you are having a bad day before work your mood will be changed at work!”
eBay: “Tons of fun everyday. Everyone at eBay is one big family. We laugh every day. If you’re having a bad day or even an off day, there will be someone there that will cheer you up guaranteed.”
The Home Depot: “Great company to work at, The Home Depot is Home away from Home,u feel comfortable, I’m always happy and ready to put my apron on to help the customers and my fellow coworkers.”
Walmart: “Morale is low due to all the store leadership layoffs and consolidation of jobs, People feel they might be played off for robots, which is odd when what people want is more human interaction and help.”
CEO
Apple’s Tim Cook – who, like every Apple CEO that may follow him, has to struggle with the lasting cult of charisma of the late Steve Jobs – wins in the CEO category, which measures how employees feel about their Chief Executive. Second place goes to The Home Depot’s Craig Menear, and third goes to eBay’s Devin Wenig. That leaves “richest man who ever lived” Jeff Bezos in fourth place, which may be somewhat related to a backlash against his presumed celebrity status. Again, Walmart places last for their CEO Doug McMillon.
Amazon: “I think he’s out of touch with the demands on the associates at the fulfillment level. Amazon appears to be great but the employee is just a number.”
Apple: “Tim Cook is an excellent CEO, maybe in top 10 in the world. He genuinely wants to do the best for the world. So few Leaders could do this job and so few people understand this level of responsibility and complexity.”
eBay: “Devin is such a great CEO and supports and rewards us for hard work and dedication.”
The Home Depot: “He’s someone who wants to make the Home Depot the best hardware store in the world.”
Walmart: “The current CEO has the company headed in the right direction.”
COMPENSATION
Another of our five companies, eBay, takes the trophy for our third contest in the category of Compensation. eBay beat runners-up Home Depot, Apple, and Amazon by a relatively slim margin. In caboose position, again, is Walmart, where employees rated the compensation a full 18 points behind where eBay’s workers placed their own.
Amazon: “Amazon really needs to restructure their comp model and/or add a more dynamic element to both attract and retain talent.”
Apple: “Compensation is 10-20% below average for comparable roles in the same geographic location.”
eBay: “I get a 10% bonus of my entire salary at the end of the year based on how the company does as a whole.”
The Home Depot: “The best part about my compensation package is that I am getting the money I deserve for the work I put in.”
Walmart: “I’m a cashier and they never have enough cashiers working on weekends & holidays. I feel like I’m doing the job of two people and don’t get compensated for it. Another raise would be nice.”
PERKS & BENEFITS
It’s Apple taking its second win for Perks and Benefits, beating runner-up eBay by just one percentage point. Our three other companies all clocked unspectacular scores for their Perks and Benefits, with Amazon and The Home Depot’s C+ only looking respectable in light of Walmart’s depressing C- score.
Amazon: “In general, Amazon has a principle of ‘frugality’ so they don’t give employees anything they consider a “frill” but of course you get health insurance, a very low-matching 401k, $100 off amazon goods each year, and the stock. Stock is probably the best thing right now.”
Apple: “Fantastic health benefits. Tuition reimbursement up to the federally allowable maximum. Adoption assistance. Some student loan refinancing plans, if you make enough.”
eBay: “eBay offers medical, dental, and vision all starting your first day of work. They offer 401k and a stock option. They provide counseling services, adoption benefit, maternity and paternity leave, and so much more!!”
The Home Depot: “Basic health. A program for reduced meals, certain computers, reduced pricing on cars. I would rather have a discount on the goods the HD sells there.”
Walmart: “Health benefits are expensive and not very good. The associate discount on products is very good.”
DIVERSITY
The Home Depot pockets its second trophy today, in the Diversity category, which measures how people of color feel about the company in question. Amazon, Apple, and eBay ended up clustered with similar scores for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place. And – once again – we see Walmart apparently putting less effort into how their employees feel about their time working at the company.
Amazon: “It is unfortunately a lot of men working in engineering. Otherwise the work force is very diverse (I’m pretty sure a majority of my team, myself included, is not originally from America).”
Apple: “Good and getting better. Apple takes this very seriously and is working hard to make improvements. Ethnicity, Gender, Sexual orientation, Religion, Age – Apple is making real progress.”
eBay: “There’s a lot diversity. More than you’d imagine.”
The Home Depot: “A lot of diversity!”
Walmart: “Diversity is not as great as it used to be. People are hired from the neighborhood so the majority of people in a particular store are from that area.”
OUTLOOK
Amazon: “They will survive and conquer.”
Apple: “We have a lot of autonomy and permission to try new things.”
eBay: “I love that our company is all about helping the customer even at our own expense. Meaning we are encouraged to help our customer even if it comes out of eBays pocket.”
The Home Depot: “Home Depot has a very very good future ahead of them.”
Walmart: “Walmart usually comes out on top no matter the challenges.”
And with a third trophy in the Outlook category, The Home Depot wins the day. The final tally was three for Home Depot, two for Apple, one for eBay, and none this time for Walmart. From the information we’ve gleaned here, we can only conclude that Walmart acts least like a modern company that cares what its employees think. Here’s hoping they can turn it around.
