Microsoft most innovative place to work: Study

The findings showed that Facebook lags behind the others in cultivating a culture of creativity. Microsoft employees are more innovative than those at Apple.

"The study data tell us that in terms of adventurousness, Microsoft employees tend to be neck-and-neck with Apple's, and much more adventurous than Google, Facebook, or IBM employees," Samar Birwadker, Founder and CEO of Good&CO, was quoted as saying to fastcompany.com on Friday.

As a result of being among the first social media platforms on the Internet, Facebook may be considered among the most innovative companies in the world. However, its early successes have resulted in a more conservative effort to sustain them.

"They have (Facebook) always had that reputation [of being innovative], and I think that now becomes a subconscious thing, that Facebook is innovative, but the current place they are in as a business doesn't require them to personally be innovative," Birwadker said. 

"They (Facebook) invented social networks, and there's always been this layer of innovation," Birwadker explained adding, "but with more pressure on revenue, and especially on mobile and advertisements, I think we are seeing a lot less risk taking and adventurousness by their employees."

On the other hand, Microsoft is often perceived as less innovative, because the more established tech giant has lagged behind the growth of its competitors. 

Microsoft has always made a lot of money doing things the right, traditional, organised way, the study said. 

"But with the success of social platforms and companies like Google Microsoft realised that they need to focus on consumer first, whereas they have always been B2B," Birwadker stated, pointing out that with the arrival of Microsoft's latest CEO, Satya Nadella in 2014, this wave of innovative energy started.

Although the giants of the technology industry have a lock on employer branding by their quirky hiring practices, free food, and other perks that make work "fun", the analysis of the personalities of their staffs presents a different picture.

Companies like IBM, Facebook and Google aren't necessarily providing the working atmosphere that is reflected in their recruiting materials, the study showed.

"You can't have 10 people in a boardroom deciding what the culture of the company is. It is defined by the people who already work there," Birwadker noted, revealing that employees who discover that their company culture is different than advertised are more likely to leave.

In the study, published by Good&Co, the team analysed the psychometric data gained from anonymous personality quizzes completed by 4,364 tech employees of what they believe are perceived as the five most innovative companies in Silicon Valley: Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and IBM. 

In total, the two-year-long study also analysed 10 million responses from 2,50,000 users. Questions ranged from thoughts and feelings about networking to how they handle problems at work.