Three Quarters of Big 4 Firms Made the Top 20 on LinkedIn’s Top Companies 2024 List

Would ya look at that, another “best companies” list. This time it’s the LinkedIn Top Companies 2024, released Tuesday. While all four firms have a spot on the list, only three of them can boast that they made the top 20 (of 50). You already know which three it is.

Here’s LinkedIn’s pitch:

Our 8th annual LinkedIn Top Companies list highlights the 50 best large workplaces to grow your career in the U.S. right now. Fueled by unique LinkedIn data, the methodology analyzes various facets of career progression like promotion rates, skill development and more among employees at each company. You can read more about how we compile the list at the bottom of the article.

This year’s honorees are proving that investment in the employee experience is vital in today’s workplaces. Whether it’s launching upskilling initiatives or offering flexible working arrangements, these are the companies leading the way in not only attracting workers, but retaining them in our ever-changing world of work.

JP Morgan Chase took overall #1 followed by Amazon and Wells Fargo. And then there’s the Big D at #4.

Right after Deloitte in the fifth spot (and missing a logo for some reason) is PwC.

We have to scroll down to #18 before we see another accounting firm and it’s EY.

KPMG shows up at #27.

The only other accounting firm on the list is BDO at 46.

It might be useful to share LinkedIn’s methodology for this particular list. It is, of course, deeply dependent on LinkedIn data.

Our methodology uses LinkedIn data to rank companies based on eight pillars that have been shown to lead to career progression: ability to advance; skills growth; company stability; external opportunity; company affinity; gender diversity; educational background and employee presence in the country. Ability to advance tracks employee promotions within a company and when they move to a new company, based on standardized job titles. Skills growth looks at how employees across the company are gaining skills while employed at the company, using standardized LinkedIn skills. Company stability tracks attrition over the past year, as well as the percentage of employees that stay at the company at least three years. External opportunity looks at Recruiter outreach across employees at the company, signaling demand for workers coming from these companies. Company affinity, which seeks to measure how supportive a company’s culture is, looks at connection volume on LinkedIn among employees, controlled for company size. Gender diversity measures gender parity within a company and its subsidiaries. Educational background examines the variety of educational attainment among employees, from no degree up to Ph.D. levels, reflecting a commitment to recruiting a wide range of professionals. Finally, employee presence in the country looks at the company’s number of employees in the country relative to other companies, as a means of capturing companies that provide a diverse work environment and more opportunities for career advancement and networking.

Peep the bolded part:

To be eligible, companies must have had 5,000 or more global employees with at least 500 in the country as of Dec. 31, 2023. Attrition can be no higher than 10% over the methodology time period, based on LinkedIn data. Similarly, organizations that have had layoffs of 10% or more of their workforce based on corporate announcements or public, reliable sources between Jan. 1, 2023 and the list launch, are not eligible. These decisions are made by the LinkedIn News team based on company statements and/or reputable news outlets. Only parent companies rank on the list; majority-owned subsidiaries and data about those subsidiaries are incorporated into the parent company score. The methodology time frame is Jan. 1, 2023 through Dec. 31, 2023. This analysis represents the world seen through the lens of LinkedIn data, drawn from the anonymized and aggregated profile information of LinkedIn’s members around the world.

The last time we covered Big 4 exits, Wall Street Journal had reported about 307,000 total Big 4 exits in 2023 through October, up 15.4% from the same period the prior year according to data from workplace data outlet Revelio Labs. The Big 4 business model has 15-20% turnover baked in, hence why they’ve been doing layoffs (announced and otherwise) this past year. We don’t have exact figures for each firm however outgoing EY CEO Carmine Di Sibio said last almost a year ago that his firm went from over 20 percent attrition down to 12 “pretty suddenly.”

We’ll assume LinkedIn went off people’s job-switching profile data to determine if a company qualifies for the list with attrition no greater than 10 percent. Because if not, brace yourselves for more layoffs.