The 20 most highly rated companies to work for in Spain

Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2012. The rankings come from the Merco Personas 2012 study, and later editions will differ. Several companies have since changed: Banco Popular was taken over by Santander in 2017, Gas Natural is now Naturgy, REE is now part of Redeia, and Gamesa merged into Siemens Gamesa.

Every year, employees, university students, business school alumni, managers and talent management experts are surveyed for the Monitor Empresarial de Reputación Corporativa (Merco, a corporate reputation monitor) produced by the Instituto de Análisis e Investigación, to find out which companies make workers feel most professionally fulfilled at every level.

And here is the ranking, which we’ll go through in general terms, by the groups surveyed and by sector, as set out in the Merco Personas 2012 study. Which are the 20 companies these groups rate most highly in Spain?

1. Inditex
2. Mercadona
3. Banco Santander
4. Iberdrola
5. Telefónica
6. Microsoft
7. Repsol
8. BBVA
9. Google
10. Nestlé
11. Danone
12. Ikea
13. Siemens
14. Apple
15. El Corte Inglés
16. Mutua Madrileña
17. CaixaBank
18. Abengoa
19. Mapfre
20. Coca-Cola

As we can see, Inditex is the big winner, and by a wide margin: both employees and managers confirm that it is a company where initiative is valued and where people can grow professionally, as well as being a leader in its sector.

And now, apart from Inditex leading overall, which companies does each group rate most highly in Spain?

Employees rate these highest:

1. Inditex
2. Mercadona
3. Google
4. Banco Santander
5. Iberdrola

Managers rate these highest:

1. Inditex
2. Mercadona
3. Banco Santander
4. Ikea
5. Telefónica

Where do university students want to work?

1. Apple
2. Banco Santander
3. Google
4. BBVA
5. Inditex

Which companies does the general public like?

1. Danone
2. ONCE (the Spanish national organization for the blind)
3. Nestlé
4. Mercedes-Benz
5. Meliá Hotels

Moving on to sectors, as you might imagine, the favorite places to work in the financial sector are Santander and BBVA, followed by CaixaBank, Bankinter and Popular.

In the energy sector, the top picks are Iberdrola, Gas Natural and REE (Red Eléctrica de España). In infrastructure and services, the winner is Acciona, followed by Abertis and FCC, and in industrial technology, Siemens comes first, followed by Abengoa and Gamesa.

As you can see, there’s something for everyone, but there’s no doubt that Inditex and Mercadona have won the admiration of Spaniards for growing their business in times of crisis, as have two great Spanish classics, BBVA and Banco Santander.

Featured image: Jordiferrer, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.