When prospective employees jump online and search Google for "reviews" of a workplace, what do they see?
Most likely they will land on a website hosting anonymous reviews, showing a "score" with 1 to 5 stars and reviews from anonymous employees. Well, maybe they are employees.
The Review Site Trap
These anonymous reviews are provided by anyone on the internet who wants to log in and submit their feedback. There is really no telling whether they are (or were) an actual employee. In fact, these reviews could be automatically written by bots (computer programs that can pretend to be people), internet trolls, spiteful ex-employees, activists, or just about anyone. Rarely are the responses detailed: these sites ask users for an overall score, a general review, and perhaps some thoughts about the CEO. Written comments, frequently negative, are dominated by vague statements like "grow up," "pay is terrible," or "leadership is lost." Worst of all, these sites don't provide any method for meaningful responses. At best, employers can post a reply, which is typically a form response saying something like, "we're sorry, please reach out to our employee experience team via email" or "we're glad you like working here."
Even when reviews are provided by real employees, these sites generate much more comment from unhappy employees than happy employees, meaning that the ratings are badly skewed to the negative. People who have something bad to say are much more likely to seek out public ratings sites and post negative reviews (perhaps five-times as likely, or even more). This results in negative reviews being drastically overrepresented in the workplace results, and those negative reviews can be posted over and over again by angry ex-employees because there is no function in these sites that reliably prevents a person (maybe a former employee or maybe not) from posting multiple reviews.
This is no way to share accurate information and support great workplaces.
Our Better Way
At Amazing Workplace, we've built a better way. We already provide a groundbreaking, anonymous Employee Happiness Survey and the world's first happiness improvement platform. So we thought, why not let the workplaces on our platform share the results of the employee surveys for the world to see? Our workplace pages at www.amazingworkplace.com/workplaces host scores, awards, and reviews from companies who survey with us. They also showcase Amazing Workplace Certification that we issue to the very best workplaces.
When workplaces share their own survey results and reviews, they take control of the story. So when workplaces find unhelpful or inaccurate feedback on review and ranking sites, our participating workplaces are empowered to share their link to their real employee feedback. They can say, for example, "We appreciate the conversation. For the latest, accurate information about our workplace please visit our verified workplace profile at www.amazingworkplace.com/workplaces. Our survey results show more than 70% of current, actual employees at our workplace report being happy or very happy."
How do we know they are actual employees? Amazing Workplace acts as a third party, guaranteeing the quality of the information. We ensure that survey results are anonymous (can't be connected to individual participants), and that the surveys are only taken by actual, current employees.
Amazing Workplace helps workplaces respond directly to anonymous employee feedback within the organization, not on the public page. It's not helpful to post critical feedback online for the world to see. Instead we give workplaces to tools to celebrate what's great about their workplaces, acknowledge the areas that need improvement, and take action to keep improving toward their amazing goals.
Sound Interesting?
Reach out to us at info@amazingworkplace.com or instantly nominate your workplace here! We're ready to help you tell your own happy workplace story.