Own Your Digital Presence: Review Sites

Glassdoor is a popular site for prospective employees to visit during their job search. When considering whether to apply for a role or accept a job offer, they can read reviews from former and current employees to get a better understanding of what it is really like to work for that company. These reviews can act as a canary in a coal mine for candidates; enough negativity could cost you dearly.

The sad fact is that this could lose you your ideal candidate, regardless of the truthfulness of the review. Those seeds of doubt are already planted, and it’s very difficult to uproot them. This is why it’s important to respond to each and every review ¬ good, bad, and ugly – efficiently and with as much grace as possible.

Managing online reviews

Responsibility for your Glassdoor profile – or any other platform on which people can review your organization – should fall on both the HR and marketing teams. The HR team’s handle on employee engagement and marketing’s writing skills compliment each other beautifully here. Together, they can manage the situation with an appropriate response.

While it could seem like a good idea to only engage with negative reviews, it’s best to respond to each and every one. This shows a level of effort that many candidates will respect and gives your responses more credibility.

Some key points to remember when answering reviews:

• Respond to every review within a reasonable and agreed timescale (e.g. 24 hours).
• Acknowledge what has been said and do not become defensive or try to excuse any negatives.
• When replying to a negative comment, ask the individual who has left the negative review to contact you directly for further feedback.
• Outline a plan of action to overcome or resolve any issues moving forward.

If you’re looking to increase likelihood of a positive review, schedule exit interviews with candidates who are leaving. You should meet with them about two weeks before they leave so that you can get ahead of any concerns or complaints they may have and rectify the situation. And remember to follow up to ensure that they’re leaving on a good note.

You should put just one person from your marketing team in charge of responding to reviews. This person should be very familiar with social media and understand why this kind of engagement is important. They should also be a skilled writer who can compose engaging copy.

Improve the review score of your business

Many of the complaints you’ll read in these reviews will discuss of progression opportunities, poor working culture/environment, insufficient compensation, work-life balance, or and micromanagement. Each response your marketing professional writes should be unique and original, but it’s important that they know how to handle these situations specifically.

Additionally, make sure your other employees know that they can talk to you about these concerns at any time – preferably before they choose to leave. You should welcome open conversation and perhaps conduct staff engagement surveys, 360 feedback forms, and regular reviews.

This level of transparency is extremely important to the growing workforce, so making these efforts could truly improve your team. It may even reduce any negative feedback. An open conversation may not save you from losing every employee, but it could eliminate hard feelings.

If you would like any more information, or to discuss how we can help with your recruitment process, reach out to one of our expert recruiters today.