The 10 best companies to work for in Spain, where money meets harmony

Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2010, and the ranking of companies it presents is from that year. Several have changed since: Banesto was absorbed by Santander in 2013, and La Caixa now operates as CaixaBank.

As we said in our previous article on the 10 companies that pay best, money isn’t everything, so here is a brief summary of the 10 best companies to work for, taking into account the employee benefits they offer, training, comfort, the working environment and how well they let you balance family and working life.

Thankfully, the list is headed by a Spanish company, which has no choice but to act like the great company it is, already well established across half the world.

1. Telefónica
2. Kimberly-Clark
3. Banesto
4. Coca-Cola España
5. Santander
6. LG
7. BBVA
8. Roche Farma
9. La Caixa
10. Inditex

It’s worth mentioning two companies that don’t appear in the ranking and would probably take first and second place. The leading company today when it comes to working environment is Google. If Google isn’t in this ranking, it’s simply because the company, although it has an office in Spain, is run from another country. I assume this is for tax reasons.

At Google, hiring isn’t decided only by the manager: all the employees have their say.

Google has developed an idea of work that many large and medium-sized companies should learn from. In Google’s offices, people are serious about their work precisely because there is no “seriousness”. In fact, they have even invented their own way of dressing, “dressing the Google way”: in short, come dressed however you like and however you feel comfortable.

One Google employee says that after more than 8 interviews with different people at the company, once she was chosen, they never checked her work or told her how to do her job: “Do it the way you know how; when we chose you, we were already counting on you doing it well.”

Google hands out shares to its employees, so the first to receive them became literally rich after the shares’ spectacular rise on the stock market.

Without a doubt, if you get the chance to work at Google, you will probably become part of the best working environment, and some of the best pay, on the planet.

The second company would be Microsoft, which has a style very similar to Google’s, but we can’t include it in this ranking because it isn’t established in Spain. Still, to give you an idea, Microsoft provides each and every one of its employees with a company car, a flat on the company’s premises, a gym, a recreation room, a free private restaurant, and so on.

Then again, our beloved Telefónica is improving too.

Further reading

• Differences between Hispanic and American business owners
• Common mistakes made by Spanish business owners
• How to start a business with no money

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