21st March, 2023 - Webinar replay

Introducing Glassdoor with special guest Jill Cotton

Phil Bray 0:00
This is our first ever Lunch and Learn session. So, nobody’s cameras are on, apart form myself, Abi and Jill. So I hope you’ve all got something to, to be able to eat. As we talk through today’s session. So for this first session delighted to be joined by me, as usual, but Jill Cotton from Glassdoor. And Glassdoor is something that I’ve been talking about, quite passionately over the course of the past few months to anybody who will listen really, so, I’m delighted that today’s first Lunch and Learn session is going to be with Jill from Glassdoor. I thought we’d start with a bit of housekeeping, Abi if that’s okay, about how we’re going to do this. First time we’ve done it, so it might change, but do you want to just talk about how we’re going to do this today Abi?

Abi Robinson 0:52
Yeah, of course. Hi, everyone. And thanks Jill for being here, It’s a great first session really looking forward to it. So anybody who’s been to a Yardstick webinar before, much of the same rules, if you have any trouble with sound, you can’t see us, anything like that, then just drop a message in the chat. And we’ll do what we can. But as you know, from the webinars, these sessions work well with lots of engagement. Jill is more than happy to answer any questions that you might have. That are off-script, that have been burning away at you, that you’re just desperate to know about Glassdoor. So please put anything that you want to ask in the chat or the q&a. And I’ll keep an eye on it and then we can feed those questions in appropriate opportunities. We’ve got 40 minutes access to Jill, absolutely amazing opportunity to ask any questions you’ve got, so please do take that if there’s anything you want to ask.

Phil Bray 1:37
Cheers Abi. Now, one of things I’ve been saying for a while is that employee/ers are going to have to engage with Glassdoor at some point in the future either proactively or reactively. So I think the filthiest place to start, Jill if you don’t mind, is could you just explain a bit about what Glassdoor is, for those people who don’t already know?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 2:00
Sure. Well, really good to be here, thank you very much for inviting me to take part and to just explain a little bit more about Glassdoor. Glassdoor launched 15 years ago. And the reason why it launched is to bring radical transparency to the workplace. The reason for this is that when you look, and think about the way that people were hired, and the way that companies operated, often the power was with the employer. So they knew lots about potential candidates by their CV by interviews, but actually, it was really difficult for a job hunter to find out more about the company other than what might be on a company website, or whatever the company were willing to offer. What Glassdoor did was provide a platform in which current employees and plastic employees could give real life insights into what it’s actually like to work at a company. The way that we do this is that in order to access Glassdoor, it’s a give to get system. So, in order to access all the insights that we have about companies, you need to give a review about a company you’re currently working for, or someone that you’ve recently worked for. We ask you to share what’s great about that place, pros. We ask you to share some things that you are not so keen on, so the cons. And we also ask you to give advice to management. And then within that, we ask you to rate out of five very specific workplace features, so, what is work life balance like in that company? How would you rate the CEO? What do you see about business outlook? What do you think about senior leadership or about diversity, equity, inclusion? This means that we now have about two and a half million companies who are on Glassdoor, and from this, we have about 150 million employee reviews. So this is a really, really rich data source that shows you what is it truly like to work in a company from the perspective of an employee. And the reason why companies might want to consider Glassdoor is, A) it’s free, it’s free all round. You can get a paid for service, but it is free. But it offers you that kind of real time insight into what employees are thinking and feeling about you as an employer right now, right at that very moment and right at that very time. And it allows you to see where your successes are, and the things that perhaps aren’t quite meeting the expectations of your workforce.

Phil Bray 4:39
And it’s certainly been incredibly valuable, It’s been massively valuable for us at Yardstick. Both from a position of being able to you know, recruits are looking at our Glassdoor reviews, and it’s incredibly powerful. And looking at some of the names on the webinar here, I can see a lot of the people on the webinar are employers and others are managers within businesses. For you, what do you think are the key benefits to businesses, of having reviews on the platform on Glassdoor?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 5:10
Sure, well, whether or not you want reviews on Glassdoor can’t really be determined by the employer. As soon as an employee goes on and delivers that first review for your company, then that profile is created. And you as an employer, have the opportunity to claim that profile. And by claim the profile, I mean that you can control what someone sees when they land on your page. So you can have all of your contact details there, you can upload recent photos, you can put in a small kind of summary as to like this is who we think that we are as a company. And why you would want to do it? We know that transparent work cultures are the most successful type of work cultures. But being transparent is actually really tricky. It feels uncomfortable, it feels like you’re laying yourself bare. And by being open about this is who we are, this is what we want. This is the type of person that we’re after as well, that can feel really hard because we live in a society where we’re not necessarily you know, we have the stiff British upper lip, and we’re not necessarily used to being that open or that conversational. What Glassdoor can do, is be that kind of stepping stone inbetween. We know that employees are actively looking for transparency. We know that for example, when you include a salary range on a job adverts, three in four people would be more likely to apply for a job advert that include a salary range. We know that things such as mental health and more increasingly important for when people are looking about what their next career step might be and what the work life balance might be. And that sort of thing is really difficult to dig out of a job advert, or indeed out of any initial interviews. What Glassdoor does is provide that kind of in between space that shows actually, this is what we are really like as a company, this is us being open this is us being transparent. Because what all of our research shows is that, you may well offer a great salary, and that may well tempt people in and lure people away from your competitors. So you have a great salary, you get that talent in. But it’s not a really great salary that keeps a person in their position. The thing that keeps a person happy in their job is if the culture, if their personal culture and their personal values align with that of the company. So I would say as a company, why do you need something like Glassdoor? Because it gives you an opportunity to really own your mission, own your culture, own your values, and really shout about it and find like minded employees who want to join you to progress your company as far as it can go.

Phil Bray 8:12
We’re working within the financial services space, and when I talk to the owners of financial advice, financial planning, investment management businesses, I was saying just before we came on, that often when I talk about this concept to them, of their employees, past or present or current leaving reviews for them online, you often get an employer shaped hole in the wall. And it looks as though there’s nothing they would like to do less. So question for the attendees today, it’d be really interesting to understand what you might be nervous about, when it comes to asking employees past or present to leave a review on Glassdoor. And whilst maybe some of those questions are coming in and those thoughts are coming in from the audience. Jill, what are the what are the myths about Glassdoor? What are the things that you hear about on a regular basis that just aren’t true? dispel a few myths for us.

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 9:12
Sure. I think there’s a big myth that we’re a rant site. We have a lot of research into this, that shows that we’re not and I can share links in everything afterwards, so you can look at the methodology. Everything that we do is backed up by data science and by research. Because employees can’t just come in and tell us everything they hate about a company. You have to give the pros you have to give the cons you have to give the advice to management and you have to give the ratings. And because we do that with a huge number of people, it means that you end up with really well balanced reviews. Yes, there will be some outliers, that have really really amazing reviews and those which are really really poor, but the huge majority will offer really practical insights. We also have a minimum wordcount for each of those sections. So you can’t just write ‘no cons, no pros’, you have to give really meaningful, insightful information that will actually help someone else who’s considering coming to you as a company. And I’ve just seen there, one of the questions is, is this the same for small business owners as the same as large business owners? I would argue, yes. Big businesses will take something different from Glassdoor to what small businesses will do. It’s super important to listen to employee voice, and it doesn’t matter what size of business you are, it can be difficult to make the time to actively do that. What we find is that often there’s a disconnect between what employers think their workers want, versus what their workers actually want. And what Glassdoor does is it allows companies to go in, it offers insights into actually this is the lived experience of all the measures and policies that you might have in place. This is what people are genuinely thinking about. And because employees can offer these insights on an anonymous basis, it means that they can do that with full honesty with no kind of worry that there’s going to be repercussions to anything that they say. We have extremely tight community guidelines. So for example, an employee can’t go on and call out Abi who might be a co worker to say, Abi, she’s a terror, she makes the whole place toxic, and stuff like that is not allowed, you’re only allowed to name anyone who is on C suite level and above. So a lot of work has gone into protect companies so that they are not damaged in any way, but also employees so that they can they feel that they genuinely have a safe space in which they can talk openly and honestly, about their employee experience.

Phil Bray 12:08
How are reviews moderated Jill?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 12:11
We have two layers of moderation. The first is computer, so like AI, moderation. So it goes through all of our processes, like word analysis, and a whole range of other different tech. It picks out reviews that just don’t feel right, and anything that doesn’t feel right goes to human moderation. So we have those two layers. On our website, there’s some really quick and simple videos so that you can see how our moderation works.
I think going back to your previous question of what are some of the other myths, some of the other myths are, if I’m a big enough employer, I can ask for reviews to be taken down? No, unfortunately, you can’t. And you might not like the reviews which are on there. Or you might love the reviews which are on there and want to only showcase those ones. But as long as a review meets our community guidelines, then a review does stay on there. Another myth might be that you can buy Glassdoor reviews, no, I can’t say that I work, for example, for McDonald’s and leave a scathing review for about McDonald’s unless I have to go through a verification process to prove that I actually worked for McDonald’s as well. So we do a lot to protect both sides of the party, so that actually both feel confident that the insights that have been gained by the platform are truthful, are honest, and will help both parties.

Phil Bray 13:43
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been saying for a long time that, they’re a bit like Google reviews really, for the service that’s been delivered. That employers are going to have to engage with Glassdoor at some point in the next few years, either proactively, or reactively. When a review comes in, and we’ve seen a few firms where they’ve had to do it reactively because their first review is a negative review. And that happened to Yardstick, our first review we had about 18 months ago, was a negative review. And that kind of switched me on to the power of Glassdoor. And since then, we’ve asked our employees to leave reviews and given them no guidance just, ‘would you go and leave a review?’ for current and former employees. But, if somebody does leave a negative review for their current or maybe more likely past employer I don’t know, What advice have you got for the employer? How should they react to a negative review?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 14:48
Yeah, we need to remember that not all negative reviews are shockingly bad, there may well be some things that you disagree with, particularly if you work within a larger organisation, there’s going to be some people who have been hired who just weren’t right either for the company or weren’t a right fit for the job, or perhaps the line manager wasn’t right, but it’s not indicative of the company culture as a whole. I would recommend to respond to all Glassdoor reviews, we know that 8 in 10 people who are currently job-seeking come to Glassdoor to check out in some way or another, what is being said about the company. So if you choose to ignore all the reviews, which are given both positive and negative, then that silence is also equally saying something, it might be suggesting that you’re not actively engaging with your employees, that you’re not listening to the employee voice. The reason why we make it possible for companies to respond to reviews is so that if you disagree with what’s been said, then you have that right of response, and it can be it’s there, it’s public, and you can acknowledge that this is one person’s opinion, but perhaps is not indicative of the work culture as a whole, as far as you see it. And equally, if it’s a positive review, lean into that too, and say, thanks very much for calling that out. Perhaps someone is particularly championing the flexibility that you offer within your practice, and say, yes we have worked hard over the last 12 months to understand what our employees want. We know that flexibility is important, potentially, because quite a number of our staff have caring responsibilities, flexibility really helps with that, we’re glad that this has been called out as well. So that ability to respond really helps you as an employer shape the narrative, shape the conversation that’s being had. Because if you don’t respond at all, the conversation is still being had, but your voice just isn’t part of it.

Phil Bray 16:54
If anybody who’s on the call has got any Glassdoor reviews, and has got any questions about how to leave a reply, just give us a shout, put something in the chat, and I’m sure we can come up with some answers for you. Did I hear you right when you said that 80% of job seekers look at Glassdoor reviews before what before submitting an application or before being interviewed?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 17:14
Before being interviewed, so we know that, more and more people want more information about the type of company that they’re going to work for. When the pandemic kind of changed all of our lives three years ago, the relationship between employee employer completely imploded, and it changed. How we work, where we work, what’s expected of workers, all of that up-ended. And as a result of that, we are still seeing that many, many companies, including those in the finance sector, are finding it hard to hire. And not only they find it hard to hire, they are finding it hard to hire the people with the right skills, who want to kind of work in the right way as well. All of these things mean that actually when I come now to look for my next role, I, as a worker, potentially my list of demands, or my list of needs, that I want to be met by my new employer has grown to what it was a couple of years ago. I’m now definitely expecting more flexibility within the work schedule that’s presented to me, I might want more technology to be supplied to me in order for me to be able to work effectively as well. These are probably demands that I wouldn’t have felt that I was able to ask for three years ago. So a lot of the way that we work in the world of work has just changed. We know that employees are able to demand more, and they’re actually getting it, because it’s super difficult to hire people at the moment. I don’t know if anyone here on the call is finding it difficult to to access talent, find the right people. What we are finding is that because it is so difficult to hire at the moment, companies are having to cast their net further and further afield to attract people to roles. This means that they are potentially networking in groups that they are less familiar with, that they might be outreaching to people who have non traditional CVs that they might be looking at as well. And this is why having a really strong employer brand is even more crucial because if you can’t find the talent where you used to find talent, and people who already knew about your company or knew about your brand or knew about your style of work and you’re having to go further afield, if no one really knows what you’re about, what your mission is, what you might be like to work for, then why would I leave the job that I’m in at the moment, and come to work for you rather than a competitor? Really building upon your employer brand means that people know exactly what to expect if they were to come to work for you. And they’re not hearing it from the mouth of management, they’re hearing it from the mouths of the people who are currently working there at the moment.

Phil Bray 20:10
That’s a great point, and the other thing that I would say to this is, if a potential client is searching for a business, and I’ve been referred to one of the financial planning businesses on this call, I’m going to google them, either because I’ve been recommended to more than one firm, or because I just want to find some basic information such as their telephone number, and Glassdoor reviews are indexed in those Google search results. If someone scrolls down the search results page, they will see the Glassdoor reviews, so it’s an insight into the company’s culture, not just for potential employees, but also for potential clients. And I think that’s something that’s probably missed.

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 20:53
Yeah, no, I agree. Like all of the information that that you see on Glassdoor is public. Employers have, even with the free profile, you’re able to kind of gain deeper insights into actually, you know, are there trends over time? Say for example, if you’ve implemented a particular policy, or introduced, say that you introduce paternity leave, for example, extended paternity leave 12 months ago, you’re able to track particular words and look to see whether or not that’s actually having any impact on your workforce at all. But you’re right, all of this information is public. And because our SEO team do quite a good job, it means that when you Google a company name, and want to find out more about them, Glassdoor often ranked somewhere there. So it’s not only potential job hunters that you’re talking to, but it’s also your current employees as well. So you know, is this I might be within a marketing team, but is my experience the same as someone else? Who potentially is in the sales team? Is this you know, one company culture? Or is it very much dependent on whoever is line managing me, but you’re right as well potential other companies who might be working with you, and business opportunities, they will be looking for more information about who you are, how you operate, and what you might be like as a business.

Phil Bray 22:23
If Glassdoor reviews are positive for current employees, future employees and potential clients and existing clients as well, because they’ll want to know, if they are clients of a business with the right culture. How do you go about getting more of them? What are the best ways of getting more reviews on Glassdoor?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 22:41
You simply just need to ask. We only allow one person to upload one review per employee per year. And the reason for that is because it just makes the whole system a lot fairer. So if it were me, and I were managing the Glassdoor profile, what we do is that we regularly ask people to do and to upload their reviews. And a really good time to do it is once someone joins so that you can find out actually honestly, what was that interview like process like for that person? The interview insights are really useful, you know, was the interview process too long? Did it feel just right? Was being asked to do like a 20, page, PowerPoint presentation, just too much? All of those insights can come out. And a six month or a one year anniversary is often just a good time after someone’s settled into the role, you know, is all the company culture that you’re putting forward? Is that really being felt by someone after they’ve settled in? I would just ask for it really regularly. There are really simple guides on Glassdoor of this is how to ask for a review. And I wouldn’t guide people as to this is what we want you to say, and I particularly wouldn’t do that, because our algorithms pick up if we think that reviews might be fraudulent, and that’s pretty simple to tell because there’s often specific words or key phrases which are being used repetitively. But again, it’s about embracing transparency. Let people, your employees, tell you genuinely what it’s like to work at your company and use Glassdoor to do that. And we know that some companies when they have town halls, or monthly meetings, particularly within HR teams often refer to the Glassdoor reviews to see whether or not there’s things that need to be improved, or the things which are working really well how can we make them even better or just shout about them more internally as well.

Phil Bray 24:55
So the short answer to getting more reviews is just ask. And did you say that you could only leave, each employee can only one review per year? Is that right.

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 25:07
One review per year, yeah.

Phil Bray 25:10
And what about employees who have left? How would you manage that process?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 25:15
Sure, I think that exit interviews are super, super crucial, because they are a point in time where someone, they no longer have anything to give to you. They can be completely honest about their, their insights and thoughts about the company, what worked well, and the reasons why they’re leaving as well. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. When someone leaves, they may well write interviews, or reviews about you anyway. So bring it up, when you have that exit interview. Don’t be afraid of it. Just because someone’s leaving doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for a bad reason doesn’t necessarily mean that they think that you’re a bad employer. Again, I would just lean into that transparency and make the most of it.

Phil Bray 26:06
So one of the, if we’re asking current employees to leave a review, we’re obviously sending them, if I ask Abi to leave a review, or one of the team here, I’m sending them to a site to leave a review for me. But the other side of Glassdoor is advertising jobs isn’t advertising vacancies? Yeah. How do you respond to the challenge that I’ve had from employers, that they don’t feel comfortable sending their staff to a site, to leave a review, where they’re a couple of clicks away from searching for other jobs.

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 26:41
I mean, that is possible at any given time, at any given moment, there are always going to be other jobs out there, there are more jobs out there at the moment than there ever has been. In fact, when I look today, there are 30,000 finance jobs currently live on Glassdoor. But, if an employee is happy in their role, they won’t be looking. And we have a whole bunch of research that shows the things that keeps a person happy in their role. And it’s mainly three things. 1) It’s whether or not their cultural values aligns with that of the company, tick. 2) Is the strength of senior leadership. Do they trust, do they believe in the senior leadership? If they do, they’re going to stay. 3) It’s career opportunities, do they see that there are career opportunities for them to develop, their learning, their skills. If you do touch those three elements, then we know that people will stay in their jobs. When they are happier in their jobs, i.e. they give higher ratings out of five on Glassdoor, we know that they are significantly less likely to be clicking onto other job adverts. So there’s some research that I can show and share with everyone afterwards, that shows the higher the Glassdoor rating, the less likely the employee is to be looking for other opportunities. And that’s because, you know, if you we’re enjoying your job, why would you look elsewhere, unless you kind of don’t hit one of those 3 drivers? I might leave because actually, I’ve reached the end of my career opportunities with this company, and I can only move on by going somewhere else. I might leave because actually, I don’t trust that the senior leadership is going to drive the business in the direction that I want. Or I might leave because actually, I’m really passionate about sustainability, for example, and I know that your sustainability policies and practices don’t meet my personal ideals. So yeah, I would if you can hit those three things, don’t be afraid by sending people to Glassdoor, because if you have a great company culture, why would they be looking elsewhere? And actually, if you think that people are going to start looking elsewhere, that’s precisely why you need to send them to Glassdoor because then they will tell you, even if they can’t tell you to their face, or in one to ones, I want to leave this company because I don’t agree with X, Y, or Z or I would stay with this company, If only they would do this. It just gives you that honest insight into the workings of employees at any given time.

Phil Bray 29:26
So there is a link then between the happiness of an employee and the rating they therefore consequently give and the likelihood of them going and leaving the review then go into click and look at jobs.

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 29:38
Yeah, so I’ll share that with you afterwards. And this isn’t ‘Gen pop, 2000 people say this’ this is based on millions upon millions of reviews. Glassdoor has an in house economics research team, they are the team who look after all of our data, they adhere to a really strict code of conduct. So any claims that they make, has to be done upon very scientific analysis of our data, adhering to a specific code. So that’s why we can make the claim such as if you are happier in your job and you’re leaving a more satisfied rating on Glassdoor, we know that you’re less likely to click apply as well elsewhere. But it’s also just common sense. Like, if I’m happy in my role, why would I be looking elsewhere? Even if I see that there might be other opportunities, actually, I know what I’ve got in my current role, and I can also via Glassdoor, see that other people might be experiencing the same sorts of experiences I can. And that’s why when we talk about this informed decision making, it’s super important. I wouldn’t just up and leave where I am to take another role somewhere else not knowing that I would have the flexibility that I’ve got now, or not knowing whether or not I’ve got the same amount of holiday leave, for example. Being able to make informed decisions is super important, and that kind of level of knowledge, since the pandemic has become increasingly important for job hunters, and for your existing staff.

Phil Bray 31:18
If reviews are a positive thing, and we’ve talked about how to how to get more of them, how does an employer benchmark, and put into some sort of context, their overall scores, you know, the recommend-a-friend rating, and the score out of 5? How do they benchmark their score against others’? It might be worth just starting that Jill if you don’t mind, with just explaining how the scoring system works. And then how does an employer put it into some sort of context?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 31:48
So when you go on to Glassdoor, you’ll see that there is a score that’s out of 5, and this is because we ask employees to rate a whole different bunch of different workplace factors out of 5. If I were to see a company that only had 5 stars, I would be slightly suspicious, I haven’t because no company is perfect. No company is perfect. There’s always improvements that can be made. So what does good look like? The overall, average score of a company is 3.7. There are some elements which are slightly less, I think things like career opportunities, compensation and benefits is slightly lower, the average there is about 3.3. But things like work life balance and culture and values, the average there is about 3.5. So that’s kind of what good looks like. When you go to Glassdoor, what you are seeing is an overall score that is cumulative of all time. So it’s not just the rating of your company for the last 12 months. It’s the rating of your company since that first profile was uploaded onto the platform. And the way that you can kind of interpret each of these scores, and how you can benchmark yourself against competitors when you’re an employer, there are a range of different tools which are available at the free level, and then a range of different more tools which are available if you have paid support from Glassdoor. But it does allow you to kind of say, right, if I am McDonald’s, and I need to hire a whole bunch of workers, what do people at McDonald’s think about working for my company versus KFC or Burger King? And that sort of industry wide analysis is available, then as you begin to pay for Glassdoor services, that level of analysis becomes really quite detailed. And even as a brief profile, you’re able to benchmark yourself against your competitors.

Phil Bray 33:56
And, by the way, we’ve got about five minutes left, so if anybody’s got any questions that they want to answer, do put them in the chat or the q&a, because I want to make sure everyone leaves with their questions answered. So just put them in the chat or the q&a. If you are an employer, who has worked hard to get more reviews on the site, his left replies, done all the things that you’ve talked about, what else can employers do to showcase their reviews? And demonstrate that they are a great place to work? ,

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 34:33
We see employers use Glassdoor in lots of different ways. That can be really basic from the bottom of their email signature, they shout out what their overall score might be on Glassdoor, we have an annual Best Places to Work list, so if they’re included on that, then quite often that’s included as well. Definitely within HR teams, it’s something that comes across in communication or in job adverts. You’re able to kind of point towards it. Glassdoor offers this unique insight into what the people who work for you genuinely think what it’s like to work for at that time. That is a really super powerful calling card when it comes to hiring, but it’s also a super powerful calling card when it comes to retaining your staff as well. We know that some companies might shout out some things, potentially in monthly meetings, or they put it on their social media. It’s really up to the company to use it however, they want to.

Phil Bray 35:42
Are there any restrictions on what firms can do? On what firms can do with their Glassdoor reviews to promote them, there’s no restrictions?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 35:50
No, there’s no restriction. So everything that’s on Glassdoor is completely public, it’s open, anyone can kind of take it at any time. So employers can do as they want, we actually make things like our logo and everything super simple to download. There’s a dedicated employer section on the website, I’ll definitely share a link to that, that kind of takes you through his examples of best practice of how you can use the Glassdoor logo, how you can talk about us. But you know, if you’ve got a company culture that’s worthwhile shouting about, and that you want to shout about, Glassdoor offers an independent platform that enables the leadership to say, this isn’t just us who think that we’re a great place to work for, it’s actually our employees are telling us we’re a super place to work for too.

Phil Bray 36:46
Just wrapping up now, if you were to give two or three, definitely dos from an employer perspective, and two or three definitely don’ts, things not to do on Glassdoor. What would you add to those two lists?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 37:00
Definitely do, claim your profile. Because even if you are not engaging with your profile, your employees and potential staff for the future will be engaging on Glassdoor in some way, we know that people come to Glassdoor every time that they are checking out new jobs to go for. So claim your profile it’s totally free to do, it enables you to shape the conversation. Definitely do respond to reviews as well – the positive, the negative and everything in between. Definitely don’t, don’t tell people what to write in their reviews, invite people to give reviews, but then it has to be their honest opinion. When companies try to do that, people will just call it out in the review, saying my company told me to write this, but it’s not what I think. And definitely don’t, don’t be afraid to embrace transparency. As I said, right at the start, it does feel uncomfortable, particularly if this isn’t the way that you’ve been used to operating, but employees want to know what they’re signing up for, your current employee base want to know that their experience of the company is the same as the person next to them. When you have a transparent work culture, it makes that work culture more equitable, and that’s super important as we move forward.

Phil Bray 38:20
And finally, just you guys got massive data set there. Actually, before we go into that, you mentioned earlier the best firms to work for. How does that work? And how to add a firm’s, apart from having a great culture with a great business and great reviews, how do they get onto that list?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 38:41
So any company with a profile on Glassdoor is automatically eligible. This isn’t something that companies apply for, it’s not something that you pay money for. We consider all companies but here specifically in the UK, we only consider companies with more than 1000 employees anywhere in the world. And you need a minimum of 30 reviews from UK based employees over a period of the last 12 months. And it’s what have those employees in the last 12 months said about you. And that’s kind of from all areas. So we’re looking for really good quality reviews, which companies or employees saying you know, these these are the employers who have stepped up over the last year, who have supported me, who I felt that I’ve been able to develop my career with, where I’m happy to work. Those are the people who make that list.

Phil Bray 39:34
Brilliant. Thank you. Well, I hope that I’m not sure what people’s view of Glassdoor was before today, It would be interesting to know, and maybe put something in the in the chat, whether your opinions of Glassdoor have changed, and if they have, how they have done based on the last 40 minutes with Jill. That will be really nice way to finish. Abi, have we got any questions?

Abi Robinson 40:00
Yeah, so if just for a firm who haven’t got a Glassdoor profile, bit scared about starting, just need that first push, what would you say is the best way of getting started? Would you do a kind of mass – ‘This is what we’re doing, we’re starting Glassdoor for all these transparent reasons, and here’s why we’re doing it, can you give us a review?’ Or would you go to people individually? And ask for reviews that way?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 40:22
No, I mean, because if you do it individually, then you’re starting to bring bias into the equation, and part of the point about being transparent is that you want to make sure that you have equality within the workplace. So I would be brave, I would open it up. Yes, you are going to have people who don’t like some elements of the way that they work. But the vast majority of people will probably say quite complimentary things. We know that 79% of the people who are leaving reviews on Glassdoor are overall satisfied with their job. So the vast majority of people are happy in the jobs that they’re in. I would claim your profile, because that then allows you to kind of upload pictures showcase, upload news and stuff, shout about the things that you’re really proud about. On the employer section, there’s kind of step-by-step guides of how do I do this? Where do I start? But if it were me, I would reach out to your employee base and say, ‘actually, this is what we’re looking to do, can you upload a review?’ Remember, they can only upload one review per year, so it doesn’t need to be immediate. But yeah, just I would actively encourage it throughout the year, just keep up that constant, communication from an employee perspective, it means that actually, my boss is willing to listen to the views that I have.

Phil Bray 41:51
One final question from Guy, I’m going to read this out, rather than trying to summarise it. We had a look at Glassdoor site, and lo and behold, there’s a review in our name. And it’s 5 stars, so happy days. But, it’s a company with exactly the same name as us. Except we’re based in the UK that company is based in India. And the review is from someone in Nashville, Tennessee. We’d like to think we’re growing, but not that far. So what should guy and his firm do? Do they set up a duplicate listing? Or do they come to Glassdoor, and leave the current listing? What should they what should they do?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 42:30
So there is, support@glassdoor.com, that is their support address, I would set up. There are obviously so many company names in the world, only so many different ways that you’d want to describe a finance business perhaps. So there are multiple times where there are people with similar names or almost identical names, but each employer has their own unique employer ID. So it’s key that when you issue communications about ‘can you please upload your reviews this month team, or this year team.’ If you share the precise profile page that will stop anyone else uploading a review to an incorrect employer with a similar name.

Phil Bray 43:18
Thanks, Jill. Guy, I hope that helps you. Jill, thank you for a wonderful session, it’s everything I hoped it would be. Because I’ve been talking about Glassdoor for ages, and it’s brilliant to have you on here talking about it as well. So we’ll make the recording available to everyone who attended today. We’ll probably put it on social media as well, if that’s okay, Jill?

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 43:41
Yeah.

Phil Bray 43:42
Or at least on our website. And just for everybody who’s not aware, we’ve got tomorrow’s webinar. It’s all about Google reviews. So today’s been about reviews from employees on Glassdoor. Tomorrow is all about Google reviews from your clients. So we’ve got that tomorrow. The next Lunch and Learn session will be later on in April, when we’ve got the wonderful Eileen Murphy coming on talking about how advisors can use their back office systems to to record marketing data. So it is going to be incredibly useful for that. But there’s no more questions, I shall let everyone go back to their, what they call it the what’s the lunch shift, the post lunch shift call. I’m not quite sure what it’s called, but it’s a bit of downtime after lunch, maybe. Thank you, Jill, really, really enjoyed that. Thank you, Abi. See everybody soon.

Jill Cotton – Glassdoor 44:34
Thank you.

Abi Robinson 44:35
See you.