Microsoft and Google in world's top five best places to work

If you read as many tech sites as we do, you'll probably have stumbled across the occasional article showing an awesome office for a tech start-up, lavish new headquarters for a global tech giant, or some of the enviable perks that staff get to reward their hard work and long hours. But who's the best at taking care of their team?

The Great Place To Work Institute has made it their mission for the last 25 years to find some of the best workplaces in the world, and they've just published their top 25 multinational workplaces for 2012, narrowed down from 350 corporations under consideration, and there are quite a few tech brands in the final list this year. You can check out the full breakdown of finalists and profiles on each company on the Great Place To Work website, but here's the full list (we've highlighted the more relevant brands):

25. Mars
24. SC Johnson
23. Quintiles
22. Novo Nordisk
21. Cisco
20. McDonalds
19. Accor
18. American Express
17. General Mills
16. National Instruments
15. Intel
14. Monsanto
13. Telefónica
12. Ernst & Young
11. PepsiCo
10. Autodesk
9. Diageo
8. W L Gore & Associates
7. FedEx
6. Marriott
5. Microsoft
4. Kimberly-Clark
3. NetApp
2. Google
1. SAS Institute