THE HIDDEN COST OF NOT MANAGING EMPLOYEE REVIEWS OR FEEDBACK- A PALE EMPLOYER BRAND
Employee review sites are turning out to be a considerable challenge for HR managers. The ability to put any information, on any forum and provide inaccurate or incomplete information anonymously is something that Human Resource Managers are struggling to comprehend with.
The challenge is multifold as brand management was generally under marketing purview and Reputation Management or Employee Feedback / Review Management is a new role / responsibility that the HR Managers must own.
Negative Ratings or Reviews by current / former employees can be dampening on potential employees applying for positions within the organization.
“Organizations review is a massive issue, specifically when being done for senior roles. Potential employees do a lot of research on the kind of feedback that is provided by employees and once you have read through few reviews you can filter and understand the issues in the organization. This can change the perspective of employees and their intent to join the organization.”
— Ajay Bhatia, Senior HR professional
HOW DO NEGATIVE REVIEWS IMPACT HIRING / RECRUITMENT?
Every month only Glass Door receives 30 million unique visitors, there are 8 – 9 more websites that offer an opportunity to current / former employees to review their existing and past companies.
A survey done by Indeed states that 83% of Job Seekers are influenced by Company Reviews. Another survey by Corporate Responsibility highlights, “Even Desperate Job Seekers won’t work for a company with Bad Reputation”.
These numbers and facts are sure to give any recruiter a headache, when they not only have to answer persistent questions on why the company is low on reviews but also see great candidates declining the offers because of reviews.
Research indicates that your cost of hiring can go up by 30% if your organizations ratings is less than 3.5 on Glassdoor.
IMPACT OF NEGATIVE REVIEWS ON BUSINESS?
As Yelp or other B2C review sites used to offer insights on the services provided to consumers, Glassdoor and other employee review sites offer an opportunity for businesses to identify if they should give business to a specific organization.
As an example, would you give a mission critical software project to a business whose employees have mentioned about the lack of professionalism in leadership team on an employee review site.
This will also be a challenge when companies are looking for acquisitions. No large organization would like to acquire a company with unhappy employees.
While there is no large-scale research done on how much Glass door reviews impact business decisions but a leaked internal meeting presentation from Salesforce confirms that Salesforce looks at Glassdoor reviews and CEO ratings before making acquisitions.
CEO RATINGS AND ITS AFFECT ON YOUR EMPLOYER BRAND.
All ratings on Glassdoor are anonymous and you cannot name a specific individual, however, it is completely different when it comes to the CEO. Every former / current employee reviewing an organization has an option of providing a rating to the CEO.
These ratings are now widely publicized and Glassdoor also has awards for the top 100 ranked CEO’s. This has created an additional challenge for the CEO’s and the leadership team.
The CEO’s need to ensure more transparency and must take steps to ensure that communications reach out to all employees across the organizations, while leadership team needs to ensure that they open effective communication channels for all employees.
Negative ratings of the CEO can also impact the organizations positioning in the market and impact acquisitions and potential new opportunities for the CEO.
In marketing terms word of mouth is one of the most effective ways of marketing and social media is this era’s word of mouth, where people don’t shy away from sharing every experience no matter personal or professional.
These feedbacks or reviews have considerable impact on potential employees, investors and even board members have a hawk eye on the ratings. The HR leaders can no longer afford to ignore these ratings without having serious implications on hiring programs and recruiting good employees.
