Move over, Yelp; bad customer reviews aren’t the only negative feedback hurting businesses today. Poor employee reviews, ratings and a bad rap as an employer can scare top talent away, leaving you unable to attract the high performing candidates you’re looking for.
How a Bad Brand Reputation With Employees Can Scare Top Talent Away
What Candidates and Customers Might See that Could Scare Top Talent Away
Unhappy candidates and employees can turn to sites like Glassdoor and leave anonymous reviews about a business. They can rate a company from 1-5 stars and leave a detailed review which includes pros and cons of the company as well as advice to management.
These employer reviews become part of the public domain, and may turn up in searches not only by future job candidates but with potential customers, vendors and lenders as well. The strength of your company culture could impact your ability to attract top talent, clients, partners and investors.
Imagine that you’re a job candidate who has been offered a job with Company X. You decide to do a little research before deciding whether to accept the offer, negotiate for more money or turn them down and wait for a different opportunity. When you Google Company X reviews, this pops up:
Current Employee
3-Stars – Doesn’t Recommend
Title: Work Hard and Keep Your Head Down
Pros: High Quality Product, Excellent Union Benefits and Backing (You’ll need it!) -Strong Community Involvement
Cons: -Rampant Favoritism -Total Lack of Communication –Discrimination -High School Politics
Advice to Management: Uphold the SAME standards for all employees. Everyone (even management) should be held to the same standards, policies, etc. -All the time. (Not just when you need to fire someone…)
Still think you want to take this job?
Chances are that if you come across this review, even if there are other reviews that are more positive, you will be inclined to pass on this opportunity. Even more so if you are a candidate whose skills are in high demand or who would be leaving an organization with a strong company culture to take the next step in their career.
The Moment of Truth: What Would Your Employees Have to Say?
You won’t know how staff are feeling about the company and their roles within it if you never ask. Conducting anonymous satisfaction surveys that allow staff to rate satisfaction with various aspects of the workplace and give them opportunities to share suggestions is a great place to start. Act on suggestions when you can and where they have merit. Acknowledge suggestions (even if you cannot act on them) so that staff will know that they were at least considered.
Likewise, be thoughtful in the way that you select candidates for interviews and the process you ask them to endure. Make sure you keep them informed throughout the process and don’t leave them hanging. Whether you extend a job offer or not, consider getting feedback from candidates about your recruiting and hiring process for insights you can use to make improvements.
Brands that Scare Top Talent Away Today Sacrifice Tomorrow’s New Hires, Too
As it turns out, Yelp might just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to review sites that can hurt an organization’s reputation, and in turn negatively impact its ability to grow. Recruiting sites like Glassdoor give current and former employees and even mere candidates the ability to weigh in with a review and rating of employers.
Talented candidates that research employers before accepting a job offer or even submitting a resume could pass your company by if they find that other candidates you have interviewed or former employees had negative things to say about your company culture.
Certainly you don’t want to scare top talent away, but that’s not the worst of it. Not only do poor reviews on Glassdoor and similar sites affect your ability to attract top performers to your staff, but reviews on recruiting and hiring sites can also turn up in online search results which means they can cost your company new business and sales as well.
Consider some of these statistics from survey results published by Corporate Responsibility (CR) Magazine and Cielo as it pertains to an organization’s ability to attract high performing employees if they have a less-than-stellar reputation when it comes to organizational culture:
- 86% of females and 67% of males would not join a company with a bad reputation
- 46% would require a pay increase of 50 percent or more to consider taking a position at a company with a bad reputation
- 92% would leave their current jobs if offered a role in a company with an excellent reputation
Make sure your plan for brand reputation management extends to its reputation with internal customers and even candidates who are interviewed for open positions, whether they are ultimately hired or not.
