What are your employees saying about you?

If you are still using a physical suggestion box in your workplace, you may want to consider throwing it in the trash. Gone are the days when employees come to talk to you in person about their concerns or take advantage of an office suggestion box. Today, applicants and employees go online to read about a company’s culture, pay and benefits and to post about their personal experience. Do you know what is being said online about your company?

According to an article in February 2017 SHRM magazine, Glassdoor’s CEO Robert Hohman reports that 72 percent of workers say they are “OK” or “satisfied” with their jobs and companies. And the average CEO rating is 67 percent.

Employers are scrambling to figure out how to manage their online presence. Did you know that if a current or former employee posts something on Glassdoor that isn’t true that it won’t be taken down? In fact, this popular website will only consider removing posts if a non-management employee is named or profanity is used. Other than that, what is posted by a disgruntled employee stays online indefinitely.

From an HR viewpoint, we recommend you start by doing the following:

• Type your company name in the search bar and see what you find. You may see posts on several popular social media sites that should be read and addressed.

• If you find that negative comments are being made, first stop and reflect as to why. Perhaps you are experiencing a cultural shift in leadership, downsizing, merging companies or rapidly expanding.

• Posts regarding missed meal periods, long hours, safety issues or harassing behavior cannot be ignored. Conduct an immediate investigation to ensure that all workplace laws are being followed. If you find there are practices out of compliance, contact your employment counsel right away for legal guidance.

• Devise a strategy for responding to applicant and employee comments. In most cases not responding at all isn’t recommended. Will that be the owner, CEO or HR? Then decide how you plan to respond. Your responses should be authentic, fair and forthright.

• When responding, do your best to put yourself in the commenter’s shoes. Whether or not there is truth to the anonymous posts, there is some level of dissatisfaction taking place in the organization and you need to understand why.

• Create online alerts with various sites such as Glassdoor, Twitter and Facebook to automatically email you when your company is named in a post so that you remain informed.

• Encourage (but don’t require) your happy employees to post online about their experience to create a balanced picture of what it is really like to work for you.

• Take advantage of free employer branding accounts on sites like Glassdoor where you can tell the full (exciting) story of your workplace, including pay, work-life balance, benefits, culture, growth opportunities, photos, etc.

Our HR consultants are available to discuss the importance of establishing and maintaining your online employer brand.

Want to read the full newsletter?  Become an HR Business Partner and receive our monthly updates by email.

As an HR Business Partner, you receive:

• Unlimited phone consultation by certified HR consultants Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

• Free monthly legal seminars for designated representative

• Breaking employment news & best practices

• Discounted project rates

• Peace of mind