As a guy working in a small HR shop, I am subscribed to multiple forums, blogs, and websites. I like having a lot of information at my fingertips, and recently I ran across a great question I thought would be worth sharing.
I would also be interested in what others are doing. We have been monitoring the [Glassdoor] reviews but recently received a less than positive review and are looking for advice on the best way to respond. It seems to me like it’s more of a communications issue from an external perspective, but I would like to know what others are doing.
For those of you who are not familiar, Glassdoor.com is a site where employees can go to post reviews of the company, share anonymous pay data, etc. Applicants can also share questions asked, what the interview/candidate experience was like, and other details that might be helpful to the public.
The HR professional who presented the question above did it very well. Many companies are completely unaware of the Glassdoor site, and even those that are don’t make a habit of regularly monitoring the discussions around their brand. This is a key area for recruiters and HR professionals to keep tabs on the employer brand, since many of the topics discussed on the site (pay, benefits, recruiting…) all touch the HR profession.
I’ve talked about employer branding previously (Psst–Your Greatness is Showing), and while it’s not on the top of my mind every day, I still think about it often. We’re marketing our organizations every time we choose to respond to candidates in a timely manner (or not).
Many companies talk about their brand without regard for what the rest of the world thinks. And some HR pros even think that they can make up some pretty words to get their point across. Not going to happen.Â
Cliff’s Notes on how to manage Glassdoor reviews
If you want to manage your reviews on Glassdoor, start by treating employees and candidates well. Then if anything ends up getting posted on the site, you can respond accordingly with nothing to hide.
Will you sometimes get a nasty review, whether warranted or not? Sure! But then you respond to it publicly, tell your side of the story, and don’t shove your head in the sand and act like it never happened.
We want to be treated like big boys and girls. Let’s act like it! :-)
I am disappointed to see so many HR pros and organizations afraid to respond publicly to bad reviews. I think you should be extra careful in crafting a public response, but you should always respond. You should acknolwedge when someone says something about your brand and address it appropriately. I can remember one time I had an ugly comment on our company facebook page and when I responded, honestly and seriously from the heart the person apologized and admitted she didn’t understand the whole process/story and spoke out of turn. Guess what, she admitted that back to us publicly so everyone could see our entire conversation. I received so much positive feedback for addressing that persons concerns. Great post!
My company received a somewhat negative review on Glassdoor (our first and only) and for 24 hours we ran around trying to figure out what to do. Then a coworker of mine suggested we ask all of our employees to honestly review our company on Glassdoor. That way we can fix the internal issues and understand what our employees really want.
Now we have doubled our reviews and are at a 4.4 out of 5 stars!
I love Erin’s suggestion. I’ve seen HR managers actually claim that Glassdoor itself is writing the negative reviews as punishment for refusing to advertise with them–how out of touch is that? Like they have time to research our company and write specific, made-up complaints just to milk a few dollars out of us. Pretending there is no problem just makes the problem worse.
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