What is Glassdoor and What is it Used For?
You’ve likely heard both employers and employees talking about Glassdoor… but what is it? Does it impact your business? Well, the truth is that it could be influencing perception of your business without you even realizing it. Why? Let's find out!
Glassdoor is a platform of particular interest to employees and job seekers… but what is it, exactly? And can it ultimately impact your business? The short answer to that question is "Yes!"—in fact, it could be influencing perception of your business without you even realizing it. Why? Let's find out!
What's Glassdoor?
Essentially, the original aim of the website was to provide the world with a database of employers and their ratings. However, the service has expanded over the years and now contains many other features.
Primarily, employers should think about Glassdoor because existing and former employees may have left reviews about the company. From an HR perspective, this is an excellent opportunity to learn about the job satisfaction level of existing employees as well as complaints and commendations from employees who have recently left. By monitoring employee feedback like this, you can adjust policies when possible and try to address areas of concern.
If most former employees leave negative reviews about the business, you can be sure of a fundamental issue somewhere in the business. Every year, more candidates use platforms like Glassdoor to get an insight into a company before applying for a job or attending an interview. If most former employees leave scathing reviews, you'll soon notice that the number of applications for each job dwindles.
On the other hand, having a positive reputation on Glassdoor could allow the brand to attract the very best talent. People see that the company is a great place to work and can't wait to get their applications sent.
In short, Glassdoor is an entry point for your talent pipeline and you should be dedicated to monitoring & managing it.
As you'll see when perusing the website, employees can leave reviews/feedback for several different areas, including:
● Career opportunities
● Senior management
● Learning and development
● Company culture
● Compensation and benefits
With this, you can see what existing, and former employees like about working for the company and what they dislike. Ultimately, you could identify a potential reason why some people leave the company (if the exit interview didn't shed any light on the situation or perhaps there was something they didn’t tell you!).
As a business, Glassdoor could be the recruitment tool you didn't know you needed. As well as employee reviews, the platform also has a job search engine and various other features. As a result, it has moved alongside platforms like LinkedIn as a key part of brands' digital presence for recruitment. Users on the platform can provide information - such as job descriptions and salaries - without revealing their identity. Therefore, it's one of the most reliable, anonymous employer databases on the internet.
Purposes of Glassdoor
As we've seen, businesses and their HR departments can use Glassdoor to gauge the opinion of the brand according to existing and former workers. Often, this information is helpful for management, HR, and talent teams.
Elsewhere, recruiters use Glassdoor to post jobs, read interview reviews, get feedback from candidates, and more. Meanwhile, employees can tell the world what they think of their employer without risking backlash from management. By providing constructive criticism, employees may just encourage the business to change its ways. When using Glassdoor, employees feel empowered because their voice is finally heard.
Additionally, we shouldn't forget candidates. According to some reports, as many as 50 million people visit Glassdoor each month with millions of jobs posted each year. Candidates can not only browse these postings but also see what employees think of the company (this reduces the likelihood of ending up in a bad work environment!).
With over 70 million company reviews on Glassdoor, this is the go-to platform for employers, employees, recruiters, candidates, and HR teams.
For all these reasons and more it’s critical that your brand not only monitor your Glassdoor but have a plan in place for responding to reviews and implementing feedback throughout the organization.
Need help getting started? The Lumino team monitors and manages Glassdoor for several global companies. Reach out to shout@luminodigital.com for a free consultation!