Has your company truly leveraged the power of Glassdoor to build trust with employees and candidates? If you’re anything like Glassdoor power users, you know it’s an ongoing process with some ups and downs. Recently we gathered representatives from 4 companies who’ve embraced Glassdoor to find out just how they do it.
The Power Panel, How to Recruit with Glassdoor featured the following speakers: Traci Scovel, Talent Innovation & Marketing Lead, Genentech, Sheila Campbell, Sr Manager, Recruiting Programs, Expedia, Karen Hague, Vice President, Human Resources, Grocery Outlet, and Britt Ryan, Head of Recruiting, Entelo.
Here is some of the top advice they shared along with some tips and facts to support staying engaged with Glassdoor.
1. Make Responding to Reviews a Team Sport
With over 14,000 employees and 1,300 Glassdoor reviews, Genentech has created a prioritization matrix and guidelines for responding, and takes the opportunity to bring the appropriate part of the business when required.
Entelo, as a startup with less than 200 employees, usually gets the CEO or the appropriate department head involved when a response is required. “It not just about responding to the good reviews, it’s about responding to the not so good reviews,” said Ryan. “It shows transparency and sincerity.”
- Responding to reviews can’t be overlooked. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Glassdoor users agree their perception of a company improves after seeing an employer respond to a review. (Glassdoor.com U.S. Site Survey, August 2016)
2. Drive Leadership Buy-in With Business Value
Expedia used data on the number of reviews and Glassdoor site traffic to get leadership engaged. For Grocery Outlet, the branding was the most compelling message for company leaders. “If we don’t say something about our brand, someone else will,” said Hague. “It’s a big opportunity to respond and protect our brand.”
- Consider the number of visitors to your Glassdoor profile as you would other marketing channels, such as your website and careers page. After all, you never know which of them are your current and future customers: research shows that people’s perceptions of their hotel stay can change after reading a negative employee review.
3. Use the Opportunity to Engage the Team
Hague shared an example in which Grocery Outlet received a review that was pertinent to a particular team. The team leader used the opportunity to address the issue with her staff. “It gives us the opportunity to be open and honest,” she said. “It meant a lot to the team.”
Similarly, Expedia received negative feedback about the tight office space prior to a planned move. In responses, they shared more about the plans for the new space. Expedia was able to spin a negative into a positive while also being transparent by acknowledging the difficulty of the tight quarters prior to the move.
- Glassdoor reviews are an important way of staying on top of your culture. Of all company reviews on Glassdoor, 53% are from current employees and 47% are from former employees (as measured at the time of review). (Glassdoor Internal Data, March 2017)
4. Encourage Reviews
Most Entelo applicants and hires have read Glassdoor reviews, and Entelo approaches asking for reviews as a way of giving back--even with candidates who don’t make it to the final round. Genentech suggests employees give reviews at different times throughout the year, and seeks to ensure diversity in reviews by encouraging reviews within employee resource groups. “Giving people the opportunity to be heard helps evolve and nurture the culture,” said Scovel. Genentech has also recently started encouraging reviews at exit interviews. Expedia sends out reminders to new hires at 4 months, and is starting to encourage reviews for those reaching 3 or 5 year anniversaries in order to broaden the perspective on the culture that candidates see on Glassdoor.
- Keeping up a steady stream of reviews helps keep candidates informed of your current culture. The majority of Glassdoor users read at least 7 reviews before forming an opinion of a company. (Glassdoor.com U.S. Site Survey, August 2016)
5. Leverage Analytics
In addition to looking at overall Glassdoor profile visits, Expedia correlates the number of reviews it gets to the number of invitations for reviews that were sent. They also track trends in employee sentiment (positive vs negative) in reviews and compare them to the employee survey. This helps Expedia spot any issues that they can take action on, as well as positive items they can highlight with candidates.
Genentech’s people analytics team is beginning to use data from Glassdoor to find directional trends that might predict future outcomes, allowing the company to intervene before a problem spreads too far.
- Include Glassdoor data in your monthly HR dashboard. This will help you and your leaders stay up to date on employee trends--and be armed with positive reviews to help win over candidates.
