Three flaming stars in real estate brokerage — Compass, Keller Williams Realty and eXp Realty — rank among the best places to work in 2019, according to job reviews site Glassdoor.
Editor’s note: The ratings cited are based on Glassdoor’s “2019 best places to work: Employees’ choice” list. The rankings that appear on Glassdoor’s individual company pages may differ.
Compass No. 32
Compass got some ammunition to back up its frequent claim to treat agents like royalty — an assertion occasionally called into question by some defections — by ranking as the top brokerage in Glassdoor’s 2019 list of “Best places to work.” With a 4.4 out of 5-star rating, the massively-funded startup placed 32 on Glassdoor’s list of the top large companies to work for.
Reflecting Compass’ success with positioning itself as a technology company — messaging whose validity has also come under scrutiny — Compass also grabbed a spot in a list of the top 15 best tech companies to work for compiled by TechCrunch, which the tech publication apparently culled from the larger Glassdoor rankings.
It’s a reminder that convincing the world that you are a tech company not only makes it easier to raise cash from investors but also raises the odds that you’ll grab media attention.
Keller Williams Realty No. 57
Keller Williams Realty — which claims well over 150,000 agents, a number that doesn’t seem to stop climbing — ranked as the 57th best large company to work for.
That earned the franchisor a spot among a privileged few in the brokerage world, but its position on the totem pole was notably lower than in 2018, when the company ranked 13th.
EXp Realty No. 49 (on the “small and medium” list)
Fast-expanding cloud-based brokerage eXp Realty has more agents than Compass, well over 10,000 compared to 7,000 for Compass as of late September. And yet the firm was apparently categorized as a “small and medium”-size company by Glassdoor, unlike Compass — which was considered a large company.
That only put eXp in the running for Glassdoor’s list of the best small and medium-size companies to work for, excluding the brokerage from the site’s list of large companies.
But eXp did the best with the hand it was dealt, ranking 49th on the small to medium-size list with a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars. That result marked a drop from eXp’s 2018 ranking of 12.
Had eXp been considered, like Compass, a large company by Glassdoor — which only would have been fair given that eXp has more agents than Compass — then eXp actually would have ranked higher than Compass, whose rating was 4.4 out of 5 stars, compared to eXp’s 4.7 rating.
In fact, were eXp included in the large company rankings, it might have topped the list. Its 4.7 rating is higher than the 4.6 rating received by the winner of large company rankings — Bain & Company.
Compass qualified for Glassdoor’s large company rankings because Compass has more than 1,000 full-time employees, according to spokeswoman Erika Sheridan. Most, if not all, of the company’s 7,000 agents are not a part of that group, and instead work as independent contractors. Nonetheless, she noted that “everyone with a Compass email address (employees, agents, and contractors alike) are eligible to provide feedback on Glassdoor.”
Sheridan added that, to qualify for Glassdoor’s list of the best small to medium businesses to work, a company must have between 201 and 500 full-time employees. Inman subsequently reached out to eXp Realty to ask how many full-time employees the firm has.
In addition to brokerage companies, a few other players in the real estate world were honored by Glassdoor: DocuSign (17 on the large company list), Equity Residential (43 on the large list) and Thrive Mortgage (38 on the medium to small list).
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Compass was ranked the 32nd best place to work in 2018 by Glassdoor. In fact, Compass’ CEO, Robert Reffkin, was ranked the 32nd best CEO by Glassdoor that year. This story has also been updated to note that Compass has more than 1,000 full-time employees, accounting for why it qualified for Glassdoor’s list of the best large companies to work for, according to a spokeswoman.
