Yahoo’s CEO must be doing something right; during the year Marissa Mayer has had the job employee satisfaction has hit a five-year high.

Mayer had said when she signed on her plan was to make Yahoo a desirable place to work, it seems now her efforts may have paid off.

The average employee satisfaction rating at Yahoo was 3.7 out of 5 in the time that Mayer has been CEO, according to data provided by a site that posts reviews from anonymous employees. Employee satisfaction at Yahoo under Mayer is at its highest level in the five years the site has been tracking it.

Mayer’s approval rating has been high too, an average of 85 per cent, compared to an average of about 30 per cent under her predecessors.

"Things were kind of stagnant under Bartz and Thompson," wrote one anonymous senior software engineer at the company, "Marissa Mayer has really stepped up to make life better for the employees and get rid of soul-crushing dysfunction."

Less soul-crushing though she may be, Ms Mayer is not without her critics. One former Yahoo executive says the company should not have gone ahead with its buyout of Tumblr; the $1.1 billion acquisition resembles the $3.2 billion purchase of GeoCities in 1999, which no longer exists.