Live and die by Glassdoor

Glassdoor is a big deal – if you’re a manager at a company, and you don’t review it often, you’re doing something wrong.  

Yes, employees use it to get insider views of the company, get interview tips, and evaluate offers.  Yes, recruiters pay a bunch of money to Glassdoor to capitalize on that audience by selling (from what I can tell) company page enhancements and ads targeting prospective employees.

But Glassdoor is much more than that.  Here are four things I use Glassdoor for that you should consider:

See the icebergs before they cause too much damage

The rule of thumb is that for every person who complains, there are 10 who feel the same way but didn’t complain.  Avoid viewing every critique as some combination of “poor fit”, “bitter ex-employee” or “it was them, not us”.   That may be true in some cases, but you should look at every negative (or constructive) review on Glassdoor as an opportunity to improve.   After all, even if the employee was awful, someone choose to hire them in the first place. 

Negative reviews on Glassdoor can also provide insight into larger structural problems at your company.  If one person complains about an issue, you might need a Band-Aid.  If there’s a chorus of people complaining about an issue, you might need major surgery.  Not looking or not addressing the problem is the same as not getting regular checkups from your doctor.   Ignorance might feel better in the short run, but in the long run, you’ll pay for your ignorance.

Put a human touch on the corporate black box

Glassdoor lets you respond to reviews, and we try to respond to all reviews, good and bad. In this example, our CEO thanked the employee for their complements:

In this example, our VP of Sales responded to a critique:

There’s tons of value in responding to Glassdoor reviews.  To name a few, it encourages employees to write more reviews (and be more thoughtful about them), it provides a counterpoint to negative reviews (just make sure to take the high road), and it provides another path to providing additional feedback.  Beyond that, however, it’s a useful “lifting of the veil” of the executives running the company.  The CEO is not just someone in the executive suite only interacting with his/her top lieutenants.  He listens and cares about what employees (and former employees) are saying, and takes the time to follow up and respond.    If this is your company’s culture (and it should be if it isn’t), Glassdoor is a useful way to highlight that.

Get intel on your competition

I check our competition’s Glassdoor employee reviews frequently.  Yes, there’s an element of schadenfreude when I catch a negative review of one of my competitors, but that’s not (entirely) why I look.  Glassdoor does a good job of preventing employees from revealing trade secrets – you won’t see a disgruntled employee lay out the blueprints for domination next year.  

BUT it is possible to catch trends, identify internal initiatives that employees like (or hate), or even add more data points to inform your overall understanding of your competitors’ strategies.  I have, more than a few times, been able to piece together what a company was doing with the help of information gleaned from postings.    You should view Glassdoor reviews of your competitors as pieces in a larger puzzle – you might just find the ones that make the picture clear. 

Of course, this cuts both ways.  You should also assume your competitors are looking at your reviews.  So given that, should you encourage your employees to use Glassdoor?  Yes.  Glassdoor provides transparency where it wouldn’t exist otherwise.   If your culture is such that you don’t want employees talking about your company, there’s likely a larger problem with your culture.  On the other hand, if you encourage Glassdoor usage, and your employees know you’re looking at and valuing their feedback, they’re more likely to be thoughtful (and appropriately discrete) about what they share.

(not a good strategy)