In this Episode Matt Alder talks to Joe Wiggins, Senior PR manager Europe at Glassdoor.
Glassdoor describes itself as the world’s most transparent career community that is changing the way people find jobs, and companies recruit top talent. Over the last few years it has expanded operations significantly from its original base in California and now has a presence in the UK, Germany and France with more country launches being planned.
In the interview Matt and Joe discuss the reception Glassdoor has had in these countries and the types of companies whose employees are engaging with the site the most. They talk through how the transparency of Glassdoor is making companies think differently about their employer brand and Joe gives some great tips on what employers can do to ensure they are managing their reputation in the most impactful way.
There's been more of scientific discovery, more of technical advancement and material progress in your lifetime and mind, at all the ages of history. Hi everyone and welcome to episode 5 of the Recreating Future Podcast. Today's interview is with Glassdoor. I was particularly excited to interview Glassdoor, I last spoke to them in a video interview three years ago on a trip to San Francisco. Since then they've expanded into Europe and I was keen to find out how that had gone and what the reaction had been in various European countries. It's quite a wide ranging interview, there's a number of topics that we discussed but of particular interest might be the section around how Glassdoor is changing the way that employers need to think about employer branding with a level of transparency that it's offering. Towards the end of the interview there's some great practical tips on what you can do as an employer to get the most out of Glassdoor in terms of enhancing your reputation. So here's an interview, it's with Joe Wiggins who is the Senior PR Manager for Glassdoor and I head up the PR and comms for Glassdoor in Europe and currently that covers UK, France, and Germany. It's my job really to get the word out about Glassdoor in those countries and to educate people of what Glassdoor is and what the opportunities are. I guess I cover PR and social media and content marketing and that kind of stuff. That's really interesting because I first kind of came across all met some people from Glassdoor a couple of years ago out in San Francisco, I remember I did a video interview out there and very much you guys were talking about how you were going to expand in Europe and what you thought the likely reaction would be. Now you've done that, what has the reaction been in countries like the UK, France, and Germany to the whole concept of Glassdoor? Well obviously we're still very new in Europe generally and particularly Germany and France but just sort of dealing with the UK specifically first of all I think generally here in the UK we're probably about a year and a half, maybe two years behind the US in terms of general awareness and adoption and that kind of thing. So we've really been active, fully active in the UK for about 12 months now, we've been actively selling to employers and we've been actively building the community and getting people to come to the site and add new content and all that sort of stuff. I would say that broadly people are really really excited about Glassdoor, I very rarely come across someone who you know doesn't see that it's a great idea and doesn't see that it's I guess an inevitable kind of consequence of the wave of transparency that is flowing through all sorts of different industries and it's really just the next I think evolution of what happened with social media and that sort of thing and the customer service industry about seven years ago, six, seven years ago, this is just the next step except it's your employees talking about you as a brand rather than your customers. So I think it's good that we've already been through that process to a certain extent but I would say that there is still some hesitation as to people understanding where the content comes from and what they should actually do with it and one of the questions that seems to be on the lips of HR recruitment people in the UK at the moment is who should own Glassdoor so who should be responsible for it, what function within a company, is it an HR issue, is it a reputation issue and I suppose who should pay for it as well, the question that people are asking, but generally I mean we before we go into these countries we have quite a lot of content and so we already have a certain level of sort of organic awareness and content already which is great, we're not sort of starting from a standing start in any country that we launch into, but the reaction has been good in France and Germany as well, we only launched in Germany just a few weeks ago really in January and already we're really really pleased with all the key metrics that we look at like site visits and new content and all that sort of stuff, so it certainly exceeded our expectations and we found that German audience in particular are coming to the site and spending quite a lot of time on the site, being quite thorough and looking at all different aspects like jobs, content, salaries and salaries particularly as it is quite novelty for Germany and from France too but for Germany where it's quite a boo to talk about salary, it's probably the information that no one wants to talk about but everyone wants to know. Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, I would say it would be very, very positive and of course jobs you could love it, but it's I think naturally taking time to filter through larger organisations and people to really adopt it with gustos but yeah we're very happy so far. That's cool and so I suppose sort of coming back to the UK because you've been here a little bit longer, you know you mentioned content that was all there organically all that kind of stuff, how much content is there from job seekers and employers, sorry employees reviewing their companies in the UK and is there a particular size or type of company that you tend to get the most for or is it across the board? Well we've got roughly speaking about 250,000 bits of content for the UK so that's reviews and the salaries and interview questions and that sort of thing and that covers around about 25,000 employers in the UK so yeah pretty decent numbers and it's a range of different types of companies but we're more likely to have more content on larger companies because they've got more employees and also international companies so as word of kind of glass doors spread it can spread within a company so off the top of my head some of the brands from the UK that we would have a lot of content on would be Tesco and Azda and other retailers and banks like RBS, companies like Sky and Vodafone and sorts of companies, it's not necessarily skewed towards any particular industry but you know we do have quite a lot of data on business services companies, sort of consultancies like Deloitte and EY and in the big accountancy firms, financial services particularly banks, retailers and also a lot of tech and IT firms as well but you know we have reviews from people that sort of stack shelves or work in a warehouse for Sainsbury's just as much as we do sort of analysts that work at Deloitte so it's quite a range really you know lots of reviews and postmen as well interesting I mean that is what I think that's what makes it I think a fantastic resource for employers as well in terms of obviously finding out about what people really think about their work experience and I mean obviously this is having I think this whole kind of move towards transparency is having a significant effect on the kind of a whole concept of what's an employer brand, I mean how do you think you know glass stories is going about changing the way that employers should think about their employer brand? I think it's changing employer brand because it's the voice of the crowd which is coming through now so the biggest thing that employers need to think about is you know your employer brand is not your sort of employee employer value proposition you know think the thing that you want people to say it's what people really say and if those two things you know your idea of the brand and then what's actually being said sort of at the cold face if those things don't match then I think that is the interesting piece here it's making those two things match and and glass door is merely sort of opening the lid really and shining a light on that you know potential discrepancy and you know we always kind of say like like a consumer brand if you like you know your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room and that's what people are doing on glass door they're talking about you as in you know the employer your brand with under the sort of the freedom of transparency and anonymity so I think that is the interesting piece to how employer branding is changing and that leads to the next sort of step which is you know employers need to be active and engaging with this community in a part of that dialogue and I think it's that two way kind of dialogue which is really important now and going back to what I was saying earlier about social media companies should already be doing that with their consumer brand but just to now apply those same principles that they've learned to to employ a brand and how to improve that I think it's really exciting and there are lots and lots of companies who have employees who are you know sort of very happy with their job and are really really happy to share that on on glass door and I mean what a fantastic endorsement and an actual piece of marketing for you as an employer to have people unprompted saying you know it's a great place to work and you know you really should be leveraging leveraging that absolutely just before we I kind of started recording this you were talking about conversations you've been having with PR agencies where who are kind of realizing that you know glass door had a right wider role in terms of company reputation so can you sort of talk us through that a little bit in terms of you know how you're seeing the sort of effect of glass door beyond you know the recruiting and HR silos within within organizations yeah well I am yeah as a PR person myself you know I I like to sort of reach out to my peers in the in the PR industry and I think that there is a really important point here about sort of company reputation and that sites like glass door are not just looked at by potential employees and job seekers but it could be any kind of stakeholder it could be it could be clients or potential clients it could be partners suppliers it could be journalist it could be all sorts of influencers it could be investors it could be shareholders so last year they kind of dawned on me when I saw venture capital companies tweeting that as you know part of their due diligence before they invest money in a company they're checking that company out on glass door to see you know to get the inside track and what it's like to work there you know and clearly you know if you're gonna invest money in a company you're gonna want to make sure that the staff that are you know producing whatever it is you know the goods or the service are happy in their job because we all know that that sort of happy workforce is more productive and stays longer and all that kind of stuff and so it actually goes way beyond you know HR and sort of talent acquisition issues and opportunities to part of your broader suite of you know managing your corporate reputation and that's why I think PR people should be all over glass door and should be you know if they're in an agency using it for their own purposes I need to attract sort of the best PR professionals to make and work for them but also to be able to advise their clients on how to use best use glass door you know to leverage it for their brands so yeah I think that we've only just scratched the surface here but it's important to remember that it could be absolutely anyone looking at glass door and for multiple different purposes so that's why I think it's really important to as I said before you know engage and be a part of it and you know don't be scared of negative reviews and and all that kind of stuff but it's not natural for a company to be a little bit fearful I suppose of something new yeah yeah in that sense we're probably you know like I said about a year and a half a couple years behind the US in terms of this sort of thing being adopted and becoming mainstream still early days here and what would you you know what's your advice to a company that has very few reviews or you know worse has you know reviews that are quite negative is there anything that they can do I know you obviously have sort of various products and services and things like that but what would you what would you kind of advise in general to a company who had realized the importance of glass door but didn't really have a you know a particularly good platform to build on as it were yeah well I think our research shows that a job seeker will make up their mind about a company with only reading you know maybe four to seven reviews okay so actually you don't need you don't necessarily need hundreds and hundreds of reviews and you know clearly if you're a sort of small to middle sized company then that's not even going to be an option for you so I would say that if you have a not very many reviews then encourage encourage your people to leave reviews particularly if you only have a small number and they're you know they're less than flattering yeah I would I would encourage companies to you know balance that out by getting the people that are you know sort of happy where they work and presumably that is the case to to start leaving reviews and just to kind of equalize it out a little bit okay and one of the things I we tend to ask people if they have a small number of views and those reviews are are you know not great is well is what people are saying true yeah so this is not just about sort of the gloss and then the polish and the reputation but do you do you actually have a you know a potential a problem in the business something that you can improve and that you need to actually face up to so that's an important point yeah absolutely yeah I would encourage people you know absolutely encourage your your people your brand a massive if you it's brand a master's to leave reviews but also you know take out a free employer account and monitor those reviews and track them and start responding to reviews so off the top of my head one example I was looking at earlier today's Virgin Holidays they only have I think 15 reviews on Glassdoor at this early stage but the MD of Virgin Holidays is responding to some of those reviews and cool fantastic which is great and I think that is the way forward if you've got a negative review and you know bear in mind something I will say to people this is that's one person's opinion yeah this is an aggregation of people's opinions and different people view their job in different ways and everyone is going to have a different opinion about what is good and what is bad so I would say you know don't be don't fear those negative reviews and if you respond it really takes the sting out of it I think it knew this is it yeah extend and it just looks so much better for anyone looking at that it looks like you care it looks like you are acknowledging you know feedback and comments and kind of you know being brave enough to sort of say say something back and that you know potentially you show that you're doing something about it and we found that we have around about sixty nine seventy percent of the people job seekers their their opinion of a company that they see responding to a negative review that their opinion shoots right up when they see that kind of openness from your lawyer that's that's it yeah encourage reviews and respond to reviews and embrace the transparency really fantastic you know that's some that that's that's fantastic advice so final question so you know what's what's next what's next for you guys where you know where where's where's glass door you know what are you doing next where are you going what's the what's the next sort of 18 months look like well we're on a really exciting kind of hyper growth phase at the moment it's still early days in Europe but definitely going to see more announcements about new country launches from us this year and beyond it's you know we're working on some of those right now so you know watch this space cool and yeah I think we can already see from the level of content that we have in different countries around Europe particularly there's a hunger for this information and so we're going to go for it and really try to kind of produce localized sites and apps for people in different countries so that's what we're focusing on at the moment you know we've raised a bunch of money for sort of international expansion which is really really exciting so yeah that that's probably you know where we're focused at the moment it's really really important to grow the community and to you know get to that sort of critical mass of content so yeah we're really focused in UK and Europe about kind of you know getting new members and getting new content and that's what that kind of thing but yeah lots lots lots to come I think in the next year 18 months and beyond as well fantastic well thank you very very much for your time and thanks for thanks for sharing your thoughts with us that's a pleasure Joe Wiggins from Glassdoor there thanks very much for listening to episode five of the recruiting feature podcast you can subscribe to future episodes on iTunes or indeed any podcasting app you can find out more about the show and listen to past episodes at www R F podcasts dot com thanks again for listening y'all. the next year. 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In this Episode Matt Alder talks to Joe Wiggins, Senior PR manager Europe at Glassdoor.
Glassdoor describes itself as the world’s most transparent career community that is changing the way people find jobs, and companies recruit top talent. Over the last few years it has expanded operations significantly from its original base in California and now has a presence in the UK, Germany and France with more country launches being planned.In the interview Matt and Joe discuss the reception Glassdoor has had in these countries and the types of companies whose employees are engaging with the site the most. They talk through how the transparency of Glassdoor is making companies think differently about their employer brand and Joe gives some great tips on what employers can do to ensure they are managing their reputation in the most impactful way.
