Career

Why Is Salesforce One Of The Best Places to Work?

By Lucy Mazalon

Publications across the globe curate their own “Best Place to Work” lists, and it’s rare to see Salesforce not featured in the top ranks across different countries, from one year to the next.

So what makes Salesforce one of the best places to work? As a 73,500+ employee* corporation in the enterprise IT industry, you might expect Salesforce to have lost touch with their idyllic founding ethos – but you’d be wrong to assume that.

Salesforce is unique in many respects – equality and wellbeing have always been front of mind, alongside the other core values of trust, innovation, customer success, and (recently added) sustainability. Here are some of the initiatives Salesforce have pioneered over the years, with an emphasis on their more recent movements.

*Figures are for the fiscal year ended Jan 31, 2022

Salesforce Work Culture in 2022

There are multiple lists published annually. Based on anonymous feedback left by actual employees, the Glassdoor ranking is a good place to start. Salesforce came in at #1 in Glassdoor’s UK “2021 Best Places to Work.”

In 2022, Salesforce maintained a strong position, placing #3 in a very close race for Glassdoor’s UK rankings, #1 in Germany, snatching a position in the top 10 in the US and top 20 in Canada.

The FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® is another reputable list I’m sure many people have heard of. Salesforce wins #4 and is praised for working to close gender- or race-related gaps, allowing employees to opt for an in-office schedule that suits their needs, and the opening of the Trailblazer Ranch.

All these wellbeing initiatives have paid off – Salesforce Wins #2 in the UK’s “Best Workplaces™ for Wellbeing 2022.”

Company Culture

An amazing company culture is the most obvious common characteristic between all of the companies that rank on the “Best Places to Work” lists.

Salesforce are known for having a great culture, and many reviews on Glassdoor mention the culture specifically. Here are a few standout points that employees mention…

  • Volunteering: Philanthropy has been core to Salesforce’s culture since the very beginning when Salesforce implemented the 1-1-1 model. Employees are given a generous number of hours each quarter to “give back” to their local or international communities.
  • Work-life balance: While Salesforce delivers impressive profit margins, they also respect people’s lives by offering generous PTO and wellbeing reimbursements. They also run experiments such as “no meeting weeks” to curb rising burnout.
  • Diversity and inclusion: Employees appreciate the fair and safe work environment, where they will have an equal chance to excel in their careers. Salesforce appointed a Chief Equity Officer as early as 2015, which has certainly paid off.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, everyone got a taste of how much their company truly cares about them. Salesforce had the opportunity to practice what they preach.

As expected, Salesforce were a role model throughout the pandemic, supporting employees, customers, and the wider medical response teams (with free product licenses). Salesforce spearheaded the following:

  • Office closures: One of the first companies to announce they were closing all their major global offices on 17th March 2020.
  • Home-working environment: They offered employees financial support to ensure their home office was suitable, including support for physical and mental wellbeing.
  • Adopting a hybrid model: One of the largest employers to announce that the 9-5 workday is dead. They have stuck to their hybrid model since.

Leadership

Those in leadership positions must “live and breathe” the core company values to ensure they are adopted authentically throughout the organization.

Starting at the top, Marc Benioff, co-founder, chairman, and co-CEO of Salesforce, does a fantastic job. Bret Taylor, promoted to co-CEO in November 2021, is also a favorable leader.

The proof? 96% of employees approve of them as co-CEOs, making the pair some of the most liked leaders globally.

Source: Glassdoor

Social Consciousness

Contributing to the company culture is the moral stance that Salesforce’s leadership advocates.

The World Economic Forum holds an annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. When attending, Marc Benioff has been outspoken on his views. For example, in 2020 he stated:

“Capitalism as we have known it is dead. This obsession that we have with maximizing profits for shareholders alone has led to incredible inequality and a planetary emergency.” Yahoo Finance

  • Gender- and race-related pay gaps: Salesforce has conducted regular internal audits across its employee-base since 2015, and is spending millions to close discrepancies.
  • Freedom of speech: Salesforce will let workers break NDAs to report harassment and discrimination. You may also remember that a protestor made a spontaneous appearance during the Dreamforce ‘19 Keynote. “I value free speech in this country,” said Benioff, giving the individual 30 seconds to express their views.
  • Environmental: To address climate change, Salesforce made a Net Zero commitment – just how they plan to meet that is outlined in their Climate Action Plan. Salesforce want to enable their customers to do the same; Sustainability Cloud aims to “accelerate customers’ path to Net Zero, empowering organizations to track and reduce their carbon emissions and become a sustainable business”.

Salesforce have spoken out on other social-economic issues, such as Black Lives Matter, and very recently took a stance against abortion bans.

Compensation and Benefits

These are important boxes for any job seeker to check when searching for their next role. Having said that, often benefits won’t be able to outweigh the absence of an authentic and relatable culture – at Salesforce, employees get the best of both.

Compensation and benefits are frequently mentioned in Salesforce’s thousands of reviews on Glassdoor:

  • Compensation packages include bonuses and stock options (these can be viewed on Glassdoor, based on different roles).
  • Benefits packages.
  • Work perks include Salesforce office breakout areas, especially the Ohana floor and kitchens, deserve a shout-out. Employees do value the wide variety of snacks and drinks! Having been to Salesforce offices many times myself, I can only agree!

Final Thoughts

Salesforce is one of the best places to work, not only for the generous compensation, benefits, and culture, but also due to the initiatives spearheaded by leadership – they are frequently the first to advocate for certain socio-economic issues.

Let’s not forget the immense growth that Salesforce have experienced, and how they haven’t lost touch with their idyllic founding ethos.

With a sprawling partner ecosystem, made up of application vendors and consulting firms, Salesforce encourage partners to adopt similar values, making the ecosystem a great place to work, too.

As Glassdoor compiles anonymous employee feedback, it gives us rich and authentic insights into what makes Salesforce one of the best places to work – take a look for yourself!

Finally, to read further into how Salesforce built their company culture, as well as the trials and tribulations along the way, I recommend you read Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change by Marc Benioff, published in 2019.

The Author

Lucy Mazalon

Lucy is the Operations Director at Salesforce Ben. She is a 10x certified Marketing Champion and founder of The DRIP.

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