What do employees really think about your company? How do they rate senior management, career opportunities and culture and values?
Glassdoor, the TripAdvisor-style employee review and rating community for organisations closed a $70 million fundraising round last week.
If you’ve never used it to look up your company and see what has been written about your organisation, do it. Today.
But read this first and listen to the short podcast below to discover what you may have missed and why it’s worth checking out.
The podcast was recorded by Stephen Waddington, @wadds, a name that will be familiar to my regular readers.
He is a Director at Ketchum Europe and has just finished his outstanding term as President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).
Stephen also co-wrote the book #Brandvandals, which is a must-read if you’re interested in all things reputation related – do add it to your book list for this year.
You’ll find an interview with me in one of the chapters where I talk about corporate reputation and transparency.
He interviewed Joe Wiggins @JoeWi, (pictured below) who leads public relations for Glassdoor in Europe and explores opportunities for organisations to engage with the community.
Writing on his blog, Stephen says: “The Glassdoor community is a reputation management platform for any organisation in the business of hiring people, as well as a jobs site. It is used by jobseekers looking to discover what it’s like to work for an organisation, or to research salaries and interview questions, for example.
“There are more than 7.5 million pieces of content such as reviews, salaries, and interview reports, on 340,000 companies. Glassdoor reportedly has 27 million members worldwide and 20 million unique visits a month, half of which are from a mobile device.”
I looked up Royal Mail here in the UK to see what Glassdoor (or more accurately, Royal Mail employees), reveal about working there.
You can see it’s rated 3 out of 5 stars, 59% recommend the company to a friend, 47% approve of the CEO and there are unaltered comments and feedback.
Organisations have the opportunity to respond – but not filter – feedback, and I think that’s important to maintain the integrity and honesty of the site.
Want to know more? Listen to the podcast below:
So what does this mean for IC pros?
A good comms pro is someone who knows the reality of their workplace.
That’s not just what your employees state when they tick boxes once a year in an annual survey, but what they really feel day-to-day about working for your organisation – and what they tell their friends and family.
I recommend looking up your company on Glassdoor if you’ve never done so.
The site has been around since 2007 and describes itself as: “the world’s most transparent career community that is changing the way people find jobs, and companies recruit top talent.”
I’ve blogged many times about the blurring of lines between internal and external communication. For me, Glassdoor is a brilliant example of that – your employees can share exactly what it is like to work at your organisation and so do in a public place, where past, current and future employees can get a glimpse into your workplace.
What does it look like?
An example of the ratings system can be seen on this page – this is how employees rate Twitter – you can see they score the various areas, and this culminates in overall stats and generates an impression of what the company is like to work for.
How do your employees rate your CEO? Do they think you have a positive business outlook?
How big is it?
Glassdoor holds a growing database of 6 million company reviews, CEO approval ratings, salary reports, interview reviews and questions, benefits reviews, office photos and more.
Unlike other jobs sites, all of this information is entirely shared by those who know a company best — the employees. Glassdoor is available via its mobile app on iOS and Android platforms.
I like reading articles that Glassdoor publish. For example last year they revealed The Top 10 CEOs as rated by employees. The links below take you to their company pages, and in order they were:
1. GlaxoSmithKline, Andrew Witty, 100% approval rating
2. Rolls Royce, John Rishton, 97% approval rating
3. John Lewis, Charlie Mayfield, 97% approval rating
4. Waitrose, Mark Price, 96% approval rating
5. Barclays, Antony Jenkins, 89% approval rating
6. Accenture, Pierre Nanterme, 89% approval rating
7. BP, Robert Dudley, 88% approval rating
8. Sainsbury’s, Justin King, 86% approval rating
9. dunnhumby, Simon Hay, 86% approval rating
10. Vodafone, Vittorio Colao, 83% approval rating
Thanks Stephen for this podcast, it was a good listen and I hope readers of my blog find it as useful as I did.
You can find out more information about Glassdoor online: Glassdoor Blog, Glassdoor Talent Solutions Blog and follow the company on 
Twitter, 
Facebook, 
Google+ and 
LinkedIn.
Talking of jobs, if you’re on the hunt for a new role, do keep an eye on my jobs page where I list the latest comms vacancies.
Thank you to everyone who has got in touch since I shared news of my newborn twins making their way into the world on Christmas Day. I’ve been overwhelmed by your kind messages, thank you. We’re all doing well and enjoying discovering life as a family of five.
I’ve rediscovered the #nightfeed hashtag on Twitter when I’m up in the wee hours keeping them fed and amused, and am loving getting to know my sons.
Rachel
Post author: Rachel Miller
First published on All Things IC blog 13 January 2015.
Want to learn about internal communication?
Sign up to an All Things IC one-day Masterclass
Great post. Yes, Glassdoor melds two of the biggest concerns for organisations: (1) how to best use their employees to achieve corporate objectives (2) how to manage their reputation positively with the outside world.
In the social age if a company is good, its employees will say so. If the company isn’t good, employees will say that, too. Euan Semple tells a story about David Weinberger – co author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and New Clues being scolded for writing a scathing online product review. His retort was something like “if you don’t want me to write sh#t reviews, Don’t produce sh#t products.”