12 years ago, Glassdoor started with a simple idea, a gut instinct that workplace transparency mattered. We knew that a job was and still remains one of the most important facets of our lives, and we set out to shine a light on something that was once shrouded in secrecy — company culture.
Today, with over 55 million reviews, salaries and insights on over a million employers, we have helped the world focus on company culture, so it’s only fitting that we have an amazing culture ourselves.
Our culture is what we are most proud of. It’s our personality. It’s what defines us.
And at the foundation of every company’s culture is its values. Our mission has been the same since day one: to help people everywhere find a job and company they love. That is our North Star, the compass we use to guide every decision we make. It is our “why.” Why we exist and why we strive for success.
Our values underpin everything we do and are the “how” behind the work we do.
With this in mind, Glassdoor leadership and employees spent several months defining Glassdoor’s values. We did not want to create a laundry list of generic traits like integrity, honesty and excellence. Sure, those are all very important, however, we expect everyone to operate with those principles.
Instead, we approached the process by considering, one, what is distinctively Glassdoor and, two, what is most essential to our success.
Ultimately, Glassdoor identified four company values:
- Transparency
- Innovation
- Good People
- Grit
These are the values that are most distinctively Glassdoor, and most essential to our future success. Here is what these four values mean to us:
WE ARE TRANSPARENT
We are open and honest. We share information – the good and the bad – so we can continuously learn, collaborate and make the right decisions.
“We not only build transparency in our products, but we operate with transparency as one of our key company values,” says Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong. “Glassdoor’s success is defined by the decisions we make, both big and small. Today, at our scale, we are required to make hundreds if not thousands of decisions as a company every single day. If we make the right decisions, we’ll win. If we make the wrong ones, we won’t. And the best way we can set ourselves up to make the right decisions is to make sure that every person in our company has access to all the necessary information to make their decisions. And the way to do this is to operate transparently.”
WE ARE INNOVATIVE
We actively pursue new and different ways to further Glassdoor’s mission. We forge our own path by challenging the status quo.
“We were the first site in the world that dared to anonymously review what it’s like to work at a company,” says Sutherland-Wong. “It was a highly disruptive move and made us a highly innovative company. Innovation continues to be our lifeblood.”
WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE
We work together with integrity, respect and compassion for one another. We have fun together. We are inclusive, fair and humble while remaining confident. We do the right thing, period.
“Being good people to me is about us being humble, confident and strong,” says Sutherland-Wong. “But the importance of this value isn’t just about it making us warm and fuzzy. We know, because we are Glassdoor, how impactful the way people interact with one another in a workplace impacts your engagement at work. That’s why we seek to attract people who align to this value, and why we hold ourselves accountable to act in this way.”
WE HAVE GRIT
We are resilient, resourceful and scrappy. We see challenges as opportunities. With passion and courage, we come together to get the job done.
“We are not a company that values glitz and glamor. If you’re only in it for the glitz and glamor, you’re not going to survive the long haul to achieving greatness.We seek to achieve greatness, and for that, you need grit.”
Glassdoor’s values are recently revamped, and are the principles that are woven into every team member and the day-to-day decisions we make. They are not just emblazoned on an office wall, but they are values we live out every single day across all of our offices around the world.
Take a look at how Glassdoor team members approach and embody our Core Values: