Churn rate has a ton of other reasons, unless you want to pack so many different variables under 'happiness' that the term is meaningless.
But I guess if you're right, we have a test case: Uber will soon be perceived as Disneyland, because they have a massive hairball of a company happiness problem to deal with.
Every successful company has these problems. Success attracts ambitious people and many of these high achievers accomplish their goals ruthlessly. In this process some other people who have different priorities feel left behind. Its just the way of life.
Take all the ambitious people and throw a challenging problem at them that can humble them other than that there is PR. PR expert will come out and tell you that not all teams in uber are bad, some of them are really good and the routine stuff we hear about any other big company.
Trying to normalize this as growing pains or bored ambitious people(?!?) or whatever is simply false. I don't work there, but know people who have, and left, because it was such a toxic place. The point of my comment was that this was emphatically not a PR problem - it is a culture problem that obviously comes from the top of the firm.
Over all churn rate in the valley is pretty bad, uber cannot doing any worse than the other companies there.
Were these horrible places to work (as commonly reported)? Are they horrible places now? Who knows (certainly not me).
Uber itself is a victim here. They are going after some other big monopolies in the industry. It could be as simple as their mistakes are blown out of proportion to smear them by their competition. We see similar big co is bad stories once a while its not like Uber has a monopoly in treating employees badly.
Do you know of any big company that has a magic solution to this problem? Everyone has this problem but the end users perceive it differently depending on how the brand presents itself.
Because in the long run, they believe it to be cheaper because they can hire in college grads at a lower rate and think they are profiting because they should be versed in the newest stuff. In addition, this stuff (with larger companies) is good for business. This article is an example: Uber is getting bad publicity for treating workers badly, but other companies? Not so much because they promote a better image.
Do you know of any big company that has a magic solution to this problem? Everyone has this problem but the end users perceive it differently depending on how the brand presents itself.
For the recruitment thing? The best thing I can think of is by making sure people are educated. Beyond that, strong labor laws and separating health care from employment will help, but won't solve the issue.
As far as solving the "most folks are unhappy at work" - strong labor laws and health care. Outside of that, it is more up to the employer. While not everyone will be happy, you can make the majority of folks that stay there a while content - some places do this now.
The point is that yes, there is PR involved. However, not having a toxic workplace is another. It is an idiotic suggestion that the perception of how good it is to work at one company or another is purely a matter of PR. Engineers talk to each other and do very frank "what it was like to work for BigCo X" all over the place. I think you probably understand this but it doesn't really fit well with your agenda here.
Honestly, work at a lot of companies is a drag, for a lot of people. Big deal. However, stories like the ones coming out of Uber are far outside the norm, even if you think that the endless publicity about shiny happy people working at same of the other companies is a product of PR.
You are not able to handle a disagreement and called me all kinds of names. You should talk to your colleagues and see if they think you might be one of those overbearing colleagues who is contributing to a toxic culture by throwing a fit at everyone who disagrees with you.
I am not taking a side on this issue. Uber is a victim here. No one plans to have a toxic culture at work. I am just trying to put down the mob mentality by pointing out the obvious challenges.
I do not think the stories out of Uber are any out of ordinary. These are same stories that came out from finance industry and Hollywood. Success attracts problems like this. There is nothing you can do about it other than wait it out.
I work at a company, and I think generally, most people who work here are happy. And there's not much churn.