Top companies list has a controversial winner

A recent publishing of the top companies for growing one’s career has had a surprising winner, prompting the question of just how accurate the list is.

LinkedIn released its Top Companies 2024 list, highlighting its pick for the best 25 businesses for growing one’s career, across Australia.

The winners were:

1. Commonwealth Bank
2. NAB
3. Telstra
4. Australian Super
5. Rest
6. Alphabet
7. Atlassian
8. Danaher Corporation
9. Canva
10. Adobe
11. ANZ
12. SAP
13. McKinsey & Company
14. Optus
15. ServiceNow
16. ResMed
17. Mastercard
18. Powerlink Queensland
19. Amazon
20. Volvo Group
21. Team Global Express
22. Medtronic
23. EY
24. Halliburton
25. Vestas

Taking the top spot was CommBank, a company that has made headlines recently due to underpayment issues.

Back in February, the company was hit with a $10.35 million fine after “knowingly and systematically” underpaying 7,402 CBA and CommSec employees a total of $16.07 million from 2015 to 2021.

The Fair Work Ombudsman noted: “CBA and CommSec failed to put adequate checks and safeguards in place to ensure the enterprise agreements and individual flexibility arrangements (IFAs) used for their employees were implemented in a lawful manner.”

“This included the companies failing to implement the required system of regular reconciliations and top-up payments necessary for ensuring their employees were receiving their basic lawful minimum entitlements.”

The fine was the largest of its kind in Australian history. Marcus Zeltzer, co-founder and managing director at Yellow Canary, highlighted a lack of oversight may be to blame.

“The court found that senior CBA staff were aware of the situation, yet appropriate risk mitigation, oversight, and corrective actions were not put in place. As such, underpayments continued to compound. The court’s findings underscore its stance on serious contraventions: lacking sufficient oversight and checks to review payroll compliance constitutes a serious contravention of the Fair Work Act,” said Zeltzer.

The methodology for data was taken prior to the controversy. According to LinkedIn, the period accounted for was 1 January 2023 through 31 December 2023. With the following drama, it’s possible CommBank would have missed out on the achievement.

The results were aggregated through data, ranking companies based on eight pillars: ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, educational background, and employee presence in the country.

“Whether it’s launching upskilling initiatives to accelerate employees’ artificial intelligence (AI) proficiency or offering flexible working arrangements. These are the companies leading the way not only in attracting workers, but retaining them in our ever-changing world of work,” said LinkedIn.

The moral of the story: take these lists with a grain of salt and do your own research before committing to a company, as the results may not be entirely accurate.