Laboring All Day

It's Labor Day 2012, the summer is official over, parents are cheering in unison as their children are heading back to school, and Americans (most of us) are enjoying a day off to celebrate the hard work that went into the "social and economic achievements" of our nation.

Labor Day was first celebrated on September 5th, 1882.  And now what was once known as the "workingman's holiday" is now a day where many of us pause to take a breath before vacation season ends and its time for us to go back to work.

Fittingly in their August issue, Outside Magazine listed the "Best Jobs".  The list is complied of large (250+ employees), medium (50-249 employees), and small (15-49 employees) companies.  The first thing that I noticed is that the the majority of the companies (28/30) were located west of the Mississippi River. Companies were judged based upon the results of employee surveys measuring each company's "benefits, compensation, office policies, and job satisfaction".

Large Companies

  1. New Belgium Brewing
  2. Cliff Bar
  3. Restoration Services

Many of you know that I recently made a career change from the private sector to the non-profit world.  The change was bitter sweet. I left a great group of people that I throughly loved working with, but now I get to work with the youth of Aldersgate as we navigate our role as Christians in a broken world.

How does your company stack up in the areas of "benefits, compensation, office policies, and job satisfaction"?  Would you say they could make the top 10??