A little over a year ago I sat down with my leader and our communications manager to discuss my new role and a particular platform they’d like me to take responsibility for: Glassdoor.
If the truth be told, I knew very little about it. I’d seen our rating suddenly appear within the careers pages of our website and, given my curious nature, I clicked through to see what it was all about. The page was unappealing, the reviews were scarce and I couldn’t help but think we’d placed ourselves uncomfortably into the firing line.
I couldn’t be more wrong.
In the weeks that followed I began my research into the platform and drew my comparisons to sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor. Let’s be honest, if you’re going to buy a new product or book your next holiday you’re going to be checking the reviews first, right? So why wouldn’t you be doing the same for your next potential employer?
Looking for a new job is practically a fulltime job in itself, so it’s no wonder that job seekers are actively pulling on all resources to help them in their quest to find their next role.
A colleague once asked me if I’d be worried about seeing negative reviews on our page, I responded with: “I would actually welcome them”. Allowing them enough time to digest what I said, I pleasantly smiled back to the ‘are you serious’ framed stare and followed up with: “Hearing people tell us what they really think about working here, whether that’s good, bad or indifferent, helps us to improve as an employer, helps us to learn from what people are saying about us and helps us to adapt”.
We’d be naïve, as an employer, to think everything is perfect. Glassdoor is a channel for colleagues and former employees to share in their experiences, and anonymously too. This gives assurance to the person posting the review but also credibility to the audience, and employer, of what has been said.
Bromford is still relatively new to Glassdoor but already we’re reaping the rewards of investing in our profile. In 18 months we’ve increased our review numbers from 11 to over 80, with the average employer rating up from 4.1 to 4.6, and in 2017 we were credited as being the 3rd Best Place to Work in the UK by Glassdoor, our first ever placing in the award, ahead of the likes of Facebook, Salesforce and Apple.
If you’re new to Glassdoor, or yet to join, here are my top 5 tips to get you going:
Have a presence
The reviews will be there, even if you’re not! Adopt your page (it’s really easy to do) and start to build your company brand within the profile. This is your opportunity to share your story through company updates, blogs, photos, videos, and by the reviews that are posted about you!
[Related: Glassdoor at a Glance]
Respond…to everything
Nobody wants to see a bad review about their organisation but they do get posted, and ignoring them won’t make them go away. In fact, if you don’t respond you’re probably doing even more damage to your reputation by not acknowledging somebody’s grievance or opinion. So be polite and let them know you’re listening. Don’t sit on it, make a point of responding promptly and learn from what they have to say.
[Related: How to Respond to Reviews Templates]
Encourage colleagues to get involved
Your colleagues are your company’s biggest advocates, and the custodians of your culture, so make sure you engage them. Just because Glassdoor has the best part of 6 million monthly active users in the UK, don’t assume that all of your workforce know what it is and how it works. Give them some narrative and explain the benefits of capturing their views.
Don’t forget the ones that got away
Colleagues will leave you, that’s inevitable, and there’ll be some that never quite get through your door and make it to day one. Both of these sets of people can provide you with some invaluable insight – so reach out to them! You could use your ATS to generate emails to candidates who apply for your roles who you could ask for feedback about your recruitment process, and your HR team could screen your leavers for you, how you do it is entirely up to you.
[Related: The ROI of Employer Brand]
Share the feedback
Make sure you communicate the learning from your Glassdoor profile with the rest of your organisation. Somebody posted a glowing review about a role they had in the maintenance team? Let the manager know. Is someone unhappy about the interview process they went through? Let the recruiters know. Are people loving the benefits you offer? Let HR know what people are saying – and promote the comments via social to let potential candidates know what employees think! But make sure you look beyond the reviews, you’ll be collecting a whole host of data from your profile which is invaluable to your Talent and Resourcing strategy and will help in the build and management of your company brand. Candidate demographics, job clicks, page visits and followers are just some of the things worthy of your attention.
Glassdoor’s growth in the past couple of years has been pretty phenomenal, something you cannot afford to ignore. If you do, it’s likely that your competitors will have a profile and before long your colleagues and future talent will be looking over their shoulders to see what’s being said about working there. So maybe now is the time to look at that page of yours.
Andy Johnson is an Engagement Specialist at Bromford. This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse. Reprinted with permission.