One of the first things this employee retention speaker does when preparing to give a presentation to the leaders of an organization is to check out comments that can be found on sites such as Glassdoor, Indeed, and Facebook about my client. Often, it becomes apparent that the people that are posting reviews are some of the chronic complainers and whiners that most organizations seem to have. That being said, this employee retention author does not dismiss them out of hand. Where there is smoke there might be fire.
If you are serious about your employee retention strategies, you have to look at what people are saying about your organization. It can be tough if you are a leader or an HR person to read the comments but it’s imperative that you have an open mind. You have to also look for trends in the comments. Is there a common theme? If so, perhaps it’s an area that needs to be looked at. This employee recruitment speaker sees the comments that people make as actually doing the organization a favor. They are giving you another data point that can possibly help you to improve. You just have to have the guts to look at the things.
Another key point is to not immediately dismiss the comments because you are defensive. The comments will be there regardless. Use them to benefit the organization to get better. The other action that is important to take is to compare the comments on these social media sites to data you are picking up in exit interviews, stay interviews, engagement studies, etc. If you are seeing a trend, then it’s time to start to get nervous. Also, look at if certain common comments are coming from different areas of the organization. If you are hearing the same comments from the office staff as from the people that work in the manufacturing area, it’s often indicative of a systemic issue that the organization needs to address.
Comments from sites such as Glassdoor can be worth their weight in gold…if you look at them. Not looking at them is foolhardy because you can almost guarantee prospective employees are looking at them. If you see something that may be amiss, act on it, and deal with the issue. Sitting back and ignoring it is not only crazy…it’s bad for your employee retention and for your business.
