Fancy a bit of table football while working “flexible” hours, surrounded by “driven, engaged and passionate” colleagues who are “on a journey”? Then join the fun at online travel company Expedia, named as the best place to work in the UK.
The recruitment website Glassdoor crowned Expedia the 2016 Employees’ Choice Award winner after analysing a year’s worth of workers’ anonymous online reviews.
Expedia even toppled previous winner Google, helping push the search engine giant into eighth spot – quite some achievement given that Google added a music jamming room and sci-fi-themed “break-out areas” to its London offices four years ago.
To illustrate the virtues of its new winner, Glassdoor released a video of what appeared to be the workers’ paradise of Expedia. In a light-filled London office, smiling workers in T-shirts bonded and brainstormed over table football, or raced each other on a go-karting arcade game. And they were all happy, even when reviewing anonymously on Glassdoor. “I have been extremely impressed by how driven, engaged and passionate about the business they all are,” wrote one happy director.
Of course, even in paradise there will be tiny teething troubles. “Can be a pain having to do late evening calls. Having a manager in the US can sometimes be a little disconnecting,” said one worker of the company which has its headquarters in the US.
On the video, a smiling Andy Washington, the MD for Northern Europe explained: “It’s a global business. You have to be flexible in terms of the hours.”
You might be able to work there. Although if you quite like finishing work at around 5pm and could do without all that drive, engagement and passion on a wet Monday morning, you probably need not apply.
