Glassdoor published its fresh list of Best Places to Work based on employee reviews.
Glassdoor.com is a Yelp of sorts for employees to review their employers.
It showcases anonymous employee reviews and ratings.
Big companies and hot start-ups orchestrate inclusion on these “Best Places to Work” lists.
They hire reputation management firms to help manage their Glassdoor image.
Stuff the Glassdoor site with positive employee reviews.
SMBs and non-technology companies won’t make a Glassdoor vanity list of top employers.
Nor do they have the budgets or manpower to pay a third party firm to manipulate their online image on Glassdoor and other sites.
For our clients, commercial insurance agent/brokers, the challenge is to – at a minimum – make sure your company’s Glassdoor reviews won’t hurt your efforts to attract and recruit potential employees.
Why?
Like it not, potential employees will read Glassdoor reviews when doing their due diligence on your company.
I know because they tell me that they do.
I’ve had a couple of candidates recently cite our client’s negative Glassdoor reviews as part of their reason for not moving forward with interviewing.
Now, most candidates are shrewd enough to know that Glassdoor feedback needs to be taken with a big grain of salt.
That Glassdoor feedback on a SMB business is such a small sample size that one or two angry, disgruntled ex-employees can affect the company’s overall rating and leave a mark.
My advice to clients: have a plan to encourage your many happy employees to post positive Glassdoor reviews to refresh and improve the overall impression.
Don’t script these employee Glassdoor reviews.
Don’t pay employees to do it.
Don’t ask every employee to do it at the same time either.
Do come up with a schedule – perhaps once a month – to remind yourself to remind your best and happiest employees to please go on Glassdoor and write a genuine, honest review about your company.
You can – assuming, of course, that your company is indeed a great place to work – turn Glassdoor reviews from a recruiting obstacle into a recruiting advantage.
