Science’s annual survey of Top Employers polls employees in the biotechnology, biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, and related industries to determine the driving characteristics of the best employers and to determine the 20 best employers in these industries. Respondents to the web-based survey were asked to rate companies based on 23 characteristics, including financial strength, easy adaptation to change, and a research-driven environment.
This year, Genentech, of San Francisco, California, receives the top honor in a ranking of the world’s most respected biopharmaceutical employers. The company has placed first eight times in the nine years that Science has carried out this survey. Monsanto of Saint Louis, Missouri, comes in a close second, with Vertex Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Massachusetts, completing the top three. This year’s survey also identified 17 other top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, making up the top 20 biopharma employers.
The rankings, determined from a study conducted by an independent research firm commissioned by the business office of the journal, will appear in a special feature of the 8 October 2010 issue Science.
Like Science's 2009 ranking of biopharma employers, the 2010 survey sought to identify the companies with the best reputations as employers, based on 2,444 survey responses from readers of Science and other survey invitees. Survey participants came from North America (73%), Europe (22%), and the Pacific Rim (5%); 88 percent worked in private industry.
Survey responses were analyzed by The Brighton Consulting Group, which used a mathematical process to assign a unique score to rate each company’s employer reputation. Each company received a ranking, for example, on the basis of whether it treats its employees with respect, whether its work-culture values align with employees’ personal values, and other factors.