Employers… We Have A Problem!

Your company is seeking a new employee. Your HR department runs a new employee needed ad and posts it on the various job boards. Candidates see and click on your job ad eager to apply and then see this, and they think better of it and pass you up!

This happens way more often than you might image…

The candidate sees a very poor “company rating”, usually accompanied by very negative comments. Something like this:

• “Stay away from this place”
• “Terrible place to work”
• “Management is clueless”

Reputation matters.

Here’s the problem, even the very best of companies is going to have negative comments and reviews like this from time to time. It is unavoidable. But companies that don’t proactively address it, and don’t have a sound “people game” will continue to be plagued by this element!

When my wife is about to buy something online, she always reads every product review before making a decision. So it is with candidates looking at your company reviews and ratings.  In Today’s social media marketplace, bad companies with bad culture and environments have no place to hide.

Here is an example of Glassdoor’s rating policy. You can see from the elements rated, companies that don’t measure up across the board will suffer in public relations…

Glassdoor ratings policy:

¹ Ratings are based on a 20-question survey that evaluate 8 key workplace factors including: Senior Leadership, Communication, Employee Morale, Career Opportunities, Work/Life Balance, Compensation and Benefits, Recognition and Feedback, and Fairness and Respect

The net result of having a poor company rating is that the better candidates simply pass you up. In this word-of-mouth economy, other peoples’ experiences weigh heavily in the calculus of others. Unfortunately, with a less-than-stellar rating, you have to recruit ten times as many candidates to find the ones that are willing to work for you anyway. That is very costly and unproductive. Not to mention that the fall out rate and turnover is so high that the system starts to implode on itself. It really is a recipe for disaster.

In this social media driven culture, everything becomes public, good, bad or ugly. These days companies MUST get way out in front of this and have a sound game plan in place! Upper management must drive a robust people strategy that fosters loyalty and workplace satisfaction in employees, just as importantly as it does in seeking customer satisfaction from is customers!