Removedigital Glassdoor In my work as an executive coach, I will sometimes peruse the Glassdoor comments of both client companies and prospective client companies. It helps me to get a better sense of what some of the key issues within an organization might be - or so I thought. Some questions have always run through my mind about the feedback expressed on websites like Glassdoor: 1. How representative is the feedback expressed? 2. Are those that are disgruntled with their company more likely to post on Glassdoor than those who are happy, thereby creating an unrealistic skewing of the data toward the negative? 3. Even if the feedback is reasonably accurate, how much does it matter? In doing some deeper research into this I discovered two main things. First, the data found on Glassdoor isn't very accurate. Second, leaders still need to pay attention to it because, like it or not, prospective employees do give some weight to that they see on Glassdoor and other similar sites. Data Accuracy, or Lack Thereof According to a detailed study cited in How Good Is Glass Door: "... There was virtually no correlation - the overall Glassdoor star rating was a very poor indicator of what it is really like to work at a company". Further, "We conservatively estimate that a company's negative employees are 5 to 8 times more likely to post a review on Glassdoor than their positive employees". Clearly, the data appearing on Glassdoor leave a lot to be desired. In fact, it seems like these ratings can easily be so wrong that they can have a very misleading impact both on prospective employees and on the employers (should they choose to pay attention to them).
But let's look closer. First, I am sure that most savvy prospective employees (and those are the ones you most want to hire, right?) will know to take Glassdoor ratings with a large grain of salt. If they see over-arching patterns in the comments that repeatedly show similar issues, they will likely take notice. And if they see a similar pattern of positive comments they will likely take notice too. Anything else, while it may be a bit disconcerting and lead a prospective employee to question the employer, isn't likely to carry too much weight with the employees that you most want.