100 Best Places to Work in IT 2009
Employer Profile
Why You Want to Work There
Top 10 ranking: No. 7 for diversity, No. 2 for training A culture of innovation and the opportunity to work with new technologies at this Basking Ridge, N.J., telecommunications company pay off with achievements like this one: Jan Shook, an IT employee, re-architected one of the company's fraud-detection systems in a way that drastically reduced its hardware requirements. The migration reduced 6 tons of legacy hardware to just 150 pounds of new equipment. As a result, the redesigned system uses about 95% less power: about 5,000 watts per hour, down from about 200,000. And Verizon's culture isn't just about technology: The Verizon Foundation, the company's philanthropic arm, aims to help solve serious social issues and bring about positive change in communities where the company does business. Employees can get involved through various matching and volunteer programs. The Matching Incentive Program, for example, makes dollar-for-dollar matches of contributions to nonprofits, colleges and universities up to $5,000 per year. In 2008, charitable work and contributions by employees were up more than 55% year-over-year, to more than 66,000 volunteer hours worked and $605,000 donated.
| Rank by company size | Large, No. 6 |
| Employee Statistics | |
| Total employees | 72,293 |
| Total IT employees | 1,784 |
| IT employee turnover in 2008 | 3% |
| IT employee promotions in 2008 | 9% |
| Training | |
| Training days offered per IT employee in 2008 | 12 |
| Training budget per IT employee in 2008 | $3,000 |
| Women in IT | |
| Total percentage of women within IT | 32% |
| Percentage of IT managers who are women | 29% |
| Percentage of IT staff who are women | 33% |
| Minorities in IT | |
| Total percentage of minorities within IT | 40% |
| Percentage of IT managers who are minorities | 33% |
| Percentage of IT staff who are minorities | 41% |
