Here Are the 2021 LinkedIn Top Companies

After an extended drumroll, we are thrilled to be able to share the 2021 LinkedIn Top Companies, the annual guide that identifies the best places for professionals to grow their careers and develop skills.

This year we’ve selected the top companies in 20 countries (up from 11 in 2019) across five continents. After having to make the tough decision to cancel our Top Companies list last spring due to the upheaval caused by COVID-19, we’re looking forward to debuting a new methodology that focuses on finding the best businesses for employees to grow their careers. 

The lists show that regardless of what industry job seekers are interested in — banking, consulting, accounting, retail, health care, energy, technology, and more — there are companies really investing in helping their employees grow and develop. To find these companies, we considered seven pillars: ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunities, company affinity, gender diversity, and educational background (more on each of these below).

Lots of household names have made this year’s lists (that’s how they become household names) — Deloitte appears on 12, EY on 11, PwC and Accenture on 10, IBM on nine, Siemens on eight, and Amazon on seven. The lists bristle with other famous brands too, including Coca-Cola, adidas, IKEA, Nestlé, Volkswagen, and Apple. But the lists also include names that will be brand new to most readers – and many of the companies have products or services that helped navigate the new way of living during the pandemic.

Without further ado, here are the 2021 Top Companies:

To see the full list and report for any individual country, click on its name: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

How the pandemic impacted the lists

It’s no mistake that a dozen pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi, Novartis, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, made the lists as well as a dozen hospital and healthcare organizations, including Johnson & Johnson and UnitedHealth Group, and a half-dozen medical devices or health products companies. These sectors, always critical, have never been more needed than they were over the last year. And, in turn, their employees have never been more needed — or appreciated. 

In the U.S., for example, Kaiser Permanente provides employees with $3,000 per year for continued education and HCA Healthcare offers 70% wages if employees have no work as, say, patients opt out of elective medical procedures and doctor’s visits. 

As many of us spent more time than ever at home, companies that helped customers build more of a life at home thrived. Delivery drivers, the face of online retail, became one of the iconic figures of the pandemic. FedEx and UPS both made the U.S. list and have helped people during the shutdown stay connected with the outside world. Both are investing in employees, with UPS, for example, offering degree-earning courses to employees at no cost. 

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer and a go-to source for people building out their home offices or redoing their living room, made the Netherlands list. The Home Depot, which helped stay-at-home families with both indoor and outdoor projects, made the U.S. rankings in part because it is truly a company that has a culture of internal advancement — 90% of store leaders started as hourly associates.

How we determined the 2021 Top Companies

To compile our lists, we relied on in-depth research and LinkedIn data, examining seven pillars that arise out of key elements of career progression:

1. Ability to advance: Tracks how employees get promoted both within the company and when they land a new position externally (based on standardized job titles).
2. Skills growth: Looks at how employees are gaining skills while at the company using standardized LinkedIn skills.
3. Company stability: Tracks attrition over the past year as well as the percentage of employees that stay at the company for at least three years.
4. External opportunity: Looks at outreach on LinkedIn Recruiter across a company’s workforce as signaling demand for workers coming from these companies.
5. Company affinity: Tracks the number of connections among employees (controlling for company size), seeking to measure how supportive a company culture is.
6. Gender diversity: Measures gender parity within a company and its subsidiaries (this pillar was not included in the Japan report).
7. Educational background: Looks at the spread of educational attainment among employees, from no college degree through PhDs, and captures the commitment to recruiting professionals from a range of backgrounds.

How you can make your company a great place to grow a career — and become a go-to place for job seekers

For organizations that want to be an ideal place for professionals to grow their careers, the secret sauce usually has many ingredients, including world-class colleagues, an enviable bottom line, and a set of products or services that make a difference in people’s lives.

It also includes the elements we looked at in choosing our Top Companies, including gender diversity, the opportunity for skills growth, employee stability, advancement opportunities, and an open door for workers from a range of educational backgrounds. These are all aspects of the workplace in which HR and talent acquisition have both a role and a vested interest.

 Here are a few things you can do to improve your status as a go-to destination for career building:

• Improve your gender diversity: At most companies, this means hiring, developing, and promoting more women, though many companies are doing a good job getting women in the door. The Women in the Workplace 2020 report from McKinsey and LeanIn.Org shows that 47% of the entry-level positions in the United States are filled by women. Unfortunately, that number shrinks to 33% when looking at senior manager/director positions and 21% when looking at C-suite jobs.
  One way companies can stand out is to prioritize pay equity. Work flexibility, around both when and where people work, is also critical for attracting and retaining women. And so is having women in your organization’s leadership. Consider adapting the Rooney Rule when hiring for key roles, creating a referral program that targets women for senior roles, and developing and nurturing the talent you already have.
• Bolster retention: To lower attrition and improve stability, companies should give employees lots of opportunities to move — LinkedIn data shows that employees who are promoted or even move laterally are significantly more likely to be in a job three years later than someone who hasn’t moved. Sideways really is the new up. An increasing volume of research also shows that the more agency and autonomy you give workers, the more engaged they are and the longer they stick around.
• Offer opportunities for upskilling and reskilling: The first step for getting skills growth right may be to give yourself time. Get leadership buy-in for a reskilling effort, incorporate employee input, and roll out a smaller pilot program knowing that you’ll make adjustments along the way. And remember that learning isn’t just training, it’s doing. If you have an internal mobility program, consider making part-time gig or stretch assignments part of it.
• Drop the requirement for a four-year degree from jobs that don’t need them: Consider moving from a hiring process that focuses solely on titles and companies or degrees and schools to one that also explicitly values skills and abilities. Shift the emphasis of your job descriptions from requirements to responsibilities. When possible, include simulations, auditions, and work samples as part of your hiring process.

These are, of course, but a few of the steps a company can take (and yours may have already taken many of them) to be seen as a prime place for professionals to grow their careers. For other ideas, go to the individual country reports and dive into the specifics of how some of our top companies have become models for promoting professional growth.

Once again, congrats to all of this year’s Top Companies!

To receive blog posts like this one straight in your inbox, subscribe to the blog newsletter.