Tim Anderson

Sausalito, CA

Tim A (one of the Tim's here at Glassdoor) is the Director of Product Management. Before Glassdoor he worked at Flickr and Yahoo!

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Recent Posts by Tim

Make Millions, Get Fired!

Posted by • October 23rd, 2008 • zero
You

While it remains to be seen whether or not the bailout bill will curb top executive salaries and payouts, the topic of CEO compensation has always been the subject of controversy and gossip. In particular, the debate over severance packages circulates around what is fair and whether the executive should really be paid for a job that was not well done. One of the most memorable in recent history was the $210 million exit package awarded to Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli in 2007.

With all the moving and shaking in the job market, we started thinking: What is the going-rate to fire a CEO executive these days anyway? Is there any correlation between a CEOs approval rating and the quality of their severance package?

Thanks to SEC requirements, various public records and Glassdoor’s CEO approval ratings system, we wanted to see if there is any consistency in how severance packages have been awarded to CEOs that have recently been asked to see themselves out the door.

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Glassdoor Takes Its Own Medicine

Posted by • October 22nd, 2008 • more

We spend a lot of time here at Glassdoor thinking about transparency – how do we use it to help everyone make better career decisions?

We’ve been working on solving that fundamental question for awhile now, and to be honest – before we launched we weren’t really sure how our hard work would be received. Now that we’ve launched however, things have changed – we’re no longer just making “good guesses” – we’re fortunate to have an engaged community that will tell us what we’re doing well, and in some cases not so well.

Thankfully the feedback from users has been overwhelmingly positive, but in the spirit of practicing what we preach we wanted to share some of the feedback we’ve received from members of the Glassdoor community – the good, the bad and the ugly. So here it is for all to see:

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Yahoo! – Ménage à Mess

Posted by • October 16th, 2008 • more

Rumors are swirling around Yahoo! – is it going to be an AOL merger or a Microsoft buyout? It’s not surprising – rumors and speculation have become a favorite past-time when it comes to Yahoo! Everyone loves to pile on, but as a former Yahoo! employee – it’s getting harder and harder to watch.

Yahoo! Reviews

Overall Rating – 3.4

CEO Approval Rating (Jerry Yang) –

34% Approve (42% Disapprove)

AOL Reviews

Overall Rating – 2.8

CEO Approval Rating (Randy Falco) –

14% Approve (65% Disapprove)

Microsoft

Overall Rating – 3.7

CEO Approval Rating (Steve Ballmer) –

45% Approve (30% Disapprove)

I practically bled purple and yellow when I joined Yahoo!, but in the years that followed you could almost see the company lose it’s “mojo” (right along with their most talented employees). And as the race out of those purple and yellow doors began, I remember a conversation with one of my career mentors in which he said, “we’re going to become the next AOL, so get out while Yahoo! still means something.”

In the end it was great advice – I took it earlier this year and left shortly after Microsoft had given my Yahoo! stock a well-timed bump. But I didn’t think we’d still ...

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Better Late Than Never – September’s Review of the Month Winner

Posted by • October 14th, 2008 • one
Amazon.com Office in Seattle

We’ve been very busy at Glassdoor. Between adding new features, updating our CEO watch list, and reaching a Glassdoor milestone of 100k approved reviews and salaries – we have finally selected our “Review of the Month” winner for September. In case you aren’t familiar, each month we spotlight one Glassdoor employee review and award that user $500 (in this economy everyone could use the extra cash). This month’s winner is a former Product Manager at Amazon.com.

Amazon.com Office in Seattle

Balanced, thorough, and honest. That’s the best way to describe this month’s winning review. Though not the most positive, this Amazon.com review almost feels like advice from one friend to another. That’s what the Glassdoor community is all about. Take a look and we think you’ll agree why this review stands out:

The culture has a sense of fun to it but it masks disrespect for the people working for management. There is a clear assumption that management knows best in every way, and so they have to watch over every detail to ensure that the dumb workers do not screw something up. This will just suck your soul – there is no presumption that you know ...

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Glassdoor Breaks 100K and Keeps Getting Better

Posted by • October 9th, 2008 • one

It’s been awhile since we’ve done a product update (we’ve been caught up blogging about some of the economic news), but this week we pushed out a few product updates and I wanted to take this opportunity to give everyone the latest from the team.

About a week ago we achieved a major Glassdoor milestone – we crossed the 100,000 mark for total approved reviews and salaries. That’s a BIG number to hit in just over 100 days since launch – and we have users in over 90 countries to thank for this success. It’s become more and more obvious that the need for transparency in the workplace knows no boundaries, so we will continue working hard for you.

Thankfully with our “give-to-get” model, it should get easier and easier. It may not be obvious, but this big number is just the beginning. With our “give-to-get” model, the more we have to offer new users, the more likely they are to post their own review or salary (and join our community). And so it goes – it’s a model that supports itself – so thanks everyone for helping us get that ball rolling.

But that’s not the only ...

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eBay Layoffs – Will Donahoe Be Next?

Posted by • October 7th, 2008 • more
John Donahoe / CEO of eBay

So the economy is tanking and there’s no shortage of bad news out there, but for today we thought we’d take a break from talking about financial services to talk about a local high-tech favorite – eBay. 

Yesterday, John Donahoe, the new CEO of eBay, announced he would be “streamlining” – otherwise known as laying off 10% of their workforce and letting go of several hundred temporary positions (1,600 jobs in total). Layoffs by themselves are not surprising in this economy, but if you’ve been reading any of the eBay reviews from the last month you’d know that that employees themselves will be looking for John himself to be included in this round of cuts.

Company
CEO
Approval Rating

Motorola
Greg Brown
10.6%

Rain Bird
Anthony LaFetra
11.4%

AOL
Randy Falco
13.4%

EDS
Ron Rittenmeyer
13.5%

Computer Sciences
Mike Laphen
19.3%

Wal-Mart
H. Lee Scott Jr.
23.5%

eBay
John Donahoe
25.2%

Nortel Networks
Mike S. Zafirovski
25.5%

UBS
Marcel Rohner
27.0%

Sun Microsystems
Jonathan Schwartz
28.9%

With a dismal 25.2% CEO approval rating (among the 10 worst with 50 or more reviews), employees haven’t been holding back. Whether its managements need for yet another re-org, change upon change that shows a lack of understanding and appreciation for the eBay ecosystem, or concerns about management killing the “cash cow” or “golden goose” (take your pick) – eBay employees have been especially active on Glassdoor lately.

eBay is ...

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AIG – An Inside Look

Posted by • September 30th, 2008 • one

With everything that’s happening in the world of financial services, it’s becoming hard for us at Glassdoor to sit on the sidelines. So after reading Sunday’s New York Times article chronicling the crisis at AIG, I thought I’d take a look at what the AIG employees have been saying on Glassdoor.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VvGW98D3XA&hl=en&fs=1]

It wasn’t hard for me to find a few AIG reviews that just got it – maybe we should all be listening to employees on the inside? Take this one.

New Direction is needed badly – AIG Business Analyst, Wilmington, DE
“Management does poor job of communicating with employees. There does not seem to be much transparency between departments. Management tends to think things are better than they actually are. For instance, they have been in denial awhile now about exposure to sub-prime mortgages.”

Now that’s an analyst that saw the writing on the wall. And s/he wasn’t the only one to recognize communication as an issue for AIG, and most feel that AIG’s size is to blame. For example:

“Recently, the stock value has been killing us. Also, the size can be overwhelming at times. Communication is a challenge because of this. As a leader in the insurance ...

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Life Imitates Art? Office Depot, Staples and Dunder Mifflin

Posted by • September 25th, 2008 • more
Michael Scott (Dunder Miffllin Regional Manager), Ron Sargent (Staples CEO), Steve Odland (Office Depot CEO)

“What happens to a company if somebody takes a boss away? I will answer your question with a question. It’s like what happens to a chicken when you take its head away. It dies unless you find a new head. I need to find which one of these people has the skills to be a chicken head,” – Michael Scott, Regional Manager, Dunder Mifflin

With CEO approval ratings of 5 percent and 56 percent respectively, perhaps CEOs Steve Odland (Office Depot) and Ron Sargent (Staples) would be wise to heed the wisdom of the dysfunctional but loveable regional manager of fictitious office supply business Dunder Mifflin.

Michael Scott (Dunder Miffllin Regional Manager), Ron Sargent (Staples CEO), Steve Odland (Office Depot CEO)

There’s a saying that sometimes fact is stranger than fiction. In order to maintain the integrity of our data, we carefully examine each and every company review that comes into Glassdoor and, well, we couldn’t agree more (you’ve already seen the salaries!). So, after scores of reviews from Office Depot, where employees give CEO Steve Odland a measly 5 percent approval rating (84% disapprove); and Staples whose CEO Ron Sargent is holding steady with a 56% approval rating ...

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WaMu CEO Bites the Dust – Who’s Next?

Posted by • September 18th, 2008 • one

Last month, we posted on the CEOs with the lowest approval ratings following oustings of the CEOs of Alcatel-Lucent and AMD. Recently, WaMu CEO Kelly Killinger, who has been one of Glassdoor.com’s lowest rated CEOs since launch, was given his walking papers. While only 10% of employees said they approved of Killinger, three out of four (75%) said they disapprove.

Some employees may be asking the board what took so long. Last week, new CEO Alan Fishman assumed the top job asserting that he believes WaMu has a future as an independent company. Time will tell.

CEO transition is hard for any company, but in adversity there is often opportunity. In reading reviews from Washington Mutual’s headquarters employees, Fishman could bode well by walking the halls and taking some time to focus internally and listen to the advice from his employees….and even address some of their (perceived?) inequities:

Morale problems – Take responsibility for decisions that cause the stock price to drop, during layoffs show that you are being affected as well as the folks on the ground doing the work.
Good times gone. Stop listening only to what your directs are telling you. Get out there among the rank and file for a ...

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August’s Review of the Month

Posted by • September 9th, 2008 • zero

We’re proud to announce this month’s review comes from a Hewlett Packard employee who works out of the Boise, Idaho office. As we took a look through our most recent reviews voted helpful by our community, this one caught our eye…not because it was filled with glowing praise for Hewlett Packard, but because it presented a real inside look with a balanced and constructive tone — the good, the bad along with some direct advice to senior management.

The good.
“Most employees are of the highest caliber – intelligent, experienced, respectful, interesting and interested.”

“The opportunity to have flexible work options provides more choices to fit your lifestyle (telecommuting, job sharing, flex time, etc.)”

The not so good.
“The short-term cost controls may drive the stock price up and put Mark Hurd on the cover of BusinessWeek but are definitely putting the company’s mid-to-long term innovation and growth at risk.”

“Employee morale is at an all-time low. Senior management decisions appear to be based solely on internal politics and expense reduction without any clearly defined, customer winning strategies. The customer-focused, solution-centric, people-powered environment this great company was originally built upon (the formidable HP Way) is gone.”

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