As the saying goes both at work, and in life, “Feedback is a Gift”. When it comes to your employee engagement measurements, one great way to see how you’re doing as an organization, and improve the conditions for your employees, is by listening and responding to your company Glassdoor reviews.
There are many benefits to investing in your company Glassdoor reviews. For starters, reviews are an important part of a company’s brand and recruitment strategy, as people consider reviews by employees and former employees to be a more reliable source of information than company awards and public accolades. Additionally, online employer reviews seem to influence not only participants’ opinions of the company, but also their expectation of how other people would view it. Finally, participants who saw a positive review about a company formed a better opinion, felt more eager to apply and to recommend it, and would even sacrifice part of their salary to work there, compared to those candidates who saw a negative or neutral review.
Related: How to Respond to Negative Glassdoor Reviews
If you want to attract top talent, don’t ignore your company's Glassdoor reviews! In fact, reviews should be continuously collected within the organization throughout each year, so that your page is not filled with those “polarizing” reviews of disgruntled employees, who may have been let go in the past.
Amerah Egab, Brand Manager shares her list of top “Do’s and Don’ts” to consider when creating a process for collecting reviews at your organization:
Do:
- Make sure you’re asking everyone within the organization to participate in submitting reviews, not just cherry-picking the ones you know are engaged. You’ll want to create a fair sample size, so consider asking people to submit reviews at meetings where the majority of staff are present, like town halls for example!
- Communicate ahead of time, letting people know that this request is in the pipeline. Without this step, employees might feel like they are being put on the spot, or being targeted for an unknown reason.
- Make sure employees know that submitting reviews are voluntary, and most importantly, kept anonymous! This should feel like a very non-personal transaction. Employees should not feel like they are being forced, or swayed. Rather, it should be mentioned as a reminder in a memo or brought up casually in meetings.
- Give people a template to follow. By doing this, you can keep a pulse on the tone, take away some of the heavy work from people, and increase the likelihood that employees are staying consistent with the company brand.
Related: The ROI of Employer Brand
Don’t:
- Follow up with employees to see whose submitted reviews and who did not. Individual employees should not be approached, and should not be made to feel pressured to submit reviews.
- Try not to ask brand new employees to write a Glassdoor review - they don't have a genuine feel for the company yet, so it's most optimal to give it some time. Glassdoor recommends asking for feedback from new employees at the 90-day mark or the 1 year anniversary.
- Get upset or lash out when there is critical feedback. When happy employees share items they wish were improved, it helps better prepare new talent that is considering taking up a position about some issues that may exist within the company. This makes the overall review more valuable and authentic to job seekers.
Related: Templates for HR Pros: How to Respond to Reviews
Egab says that “as employers seek to manage their brand, they need to be aware that many superficial positive reviews are often not enough to win individuals with many career options. The more depth a review has, that more likely it will be taken seriously and used to assess an employment opportunity.”
Reviews are a way to give current employees an outlet for feedback, and potential candidates market insights into what it's really like to work at the company. Empathize with the employee population and ask for their participation in an honest and transparent way. Remember that Glassdoor shouldn't be turned into a game or a measure of how HR is doing, but instead used as another source of engagement and root cause issues!
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How to Respond to Reviews
