Discuss negative Glassdoor reviews with my new employer?
July 24, 2017 11:06 AM Subscribe
I have a new job that I am starting in a week. Just now, I have discovered that my new employer's Glassdoor rating has gone down significantly. A wave of one-star reviews from former emplyees were added quite recently, criticising the managememet for under-appreciating/compensating the technical staff and the CEO for mood issues and lack of concern for junior/non-management employees. Given this is a small company without much information on Glassdoor (headcount ~50), these reviews now consitute the majority of the reviews on that site. I feel quite concerned about these reviews. Should I bring them up during my first days at work? Or should I wait and observe?
time to bring it up would have been when you were considering the offer. Now it's time to observe and see what's true -- but it might be a good idea too to keep your network warm.
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:15 AM on July 24, 2017 [15 favorites]
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:15 AM on July 24, 2017 [15 favorites]
"Underappreciated" is exactly code for "undercompensated". The vast majority of employees only care about the compensation they get from their employer and are just too polite to directly say they aren't getting paid enough.
You just got hired. If you're undercompensated, why did you take the job?
My guess is that you think you're being paid enough, as you took the job. Hence, there's nothing here to discuss.
posted by saeculorum at 11:16 AM on July 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
You just got hired. If you're undercompensated, why did you take the job?
My guess is that you think you're being paid enough, as you took the job. Hence, there's nothing here to discuss.
posted by saeculorum at 11:16 AM on July 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
A wave of one-star reviews from former emplyees were added quite recently, criticising the managememet for under-appreciating/compensating the technical staff and the CEO for mood issues and lack of concern for junior/non-management employees. Given this is a small company without much information on Glassdoor (headcount ~50), these reviews now consitute the majority of the reviews on that site.
Unless you have reason to know that this company had some significant layoffs or other turnover just before you started, I'd point out here that I don't know if Glassdoor actually confirms identities or employment before letting you post comments, but for a company of that size, to have that many "former" employees commenting in a short period of time seems fishier on the part of the people writing the reviews than on the part of the company. I'm usually very much on the labor side of stuff, but anonymous commenting tends to invite abuse and review sites should always be taken with a very large grain of salt.
posted by Sequence at 11:21 AM on July 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Unless you have reason to know that this company had some significant layoffs or other turnover just before you started, I'd point out here that I don't know if Glassdoor actually confirms identities or employment before letting you post comments, but for a company of that size, to have that many "former" employees commenting in a short period of time seems fishier on the part of the people writing the reviews than on the part of the company. I'm usually very much on the labor side of stuff, but anonymous commenting tends to invite abuse and review sites should always be taken with a very large grain of salt.
posted by Sequence at 11:21 AM on July 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
"Underappreciated" is exactly code for "undercompensated". The vast majority of employees only care about the compensation they get from their employer and are just too polite to directly say they aren't getting paid enough.
I don't think this is true at all. People work at jobs they love for lower pay all the time. And people can be paid well but feel unappreciated.
That said, I can't imagine any good coming from bringing this up after you've already accepted the job. Your boss would most likely end up feeling somewhat defensive about it, and you'll have gotten off on the wrong foot. Sequence is right - this sounds fishy on the part of the posters.
posted by FencingGal at 11:28 AM on July 24, 2017 [7 favorites]
I don't think this is true at all. People work at jobs they love for lower pay all the time. And people can be paid well but feel unappreciated.
That said, I can't imagine any good coming from bringing this up after you've already accepted the job. Your boss would most likely end up feeling somewhat defensive about it, and you'll have gotten off on the wrong foot. Sequence is right - this sounds fishy on the part of the posters.
posted by FencingGal at 11:28 AM on July 24, 2017 [7 favorites]
Not just no, but hell no. At least with a supervisor, but really with anybody until you get the lay of the various personalities. The absolute last thing you want is to make a first impression that you're the type who is looking for a reason to bail. Not that you are, I would absolutely be worried when you see signs of mass turnover. If you find, after a few weeks, that there's a peer you trust not to blab, I would ask then.
posted by wnissen at 11:47 AM on July 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by wnissen at 11:47 AM on July 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Glassdoor is pretty accurate. At the same time, it'll be a sore subject. Zero percentage in bringing it up.
posted by MattD at 11:49 AM on July 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by MattD at 11:49 AM on July 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: The consensus is pretty clear. I will be waiting and mapping out the lay of the land.
posted by clair-obscur at 12:02 PM on July 24, 2017
posted by clair-obscur at 12:02 PM on July 24, 2017
Don't bring it up, there's no point. A small shop probably monitors it anyway--if they don't already know, they will soon. But don't discount Glassdoor. My husband's prior employer, an objectively nightmarish horrorshow run by a psychopath, has terrible Glassdoor ratings (and then the occasional totally fake 4-star rating that is completely transparent in its provenance) and nobody stays there more than a year, hence the large number of them. It does happen. There are really places like that.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:13 PM on July 24, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:13 PM on July 24, 2017 [6 favorites]
Is it a suspiciously round number of bad reviews? I ask because a friend of mine recently had her small business receive 100 bad customer reviews-- from people who were not her customers (and were not even in the same country as her business; she is in the process of getting them removed but it is surprisingly slow and awful).
Obviously her situation wasn't Glassdoor since it was customer reviews, but still a large pile all at once is either this sort of sabotage, or something quite bad happened in the business that you will inevitably hear about anyway.
Once you figure out which, if it is unfair bad reviews, you might consider mentioning it (to the relevant people in the company). If not, well, that's why you keep the network warm while you figure out what is up.
posted by nat at 12:30 PM on July 24, 2017
Obviously her situation wasn't Glassdoor since it was customer reviews, but still a large pile all at once is either this sort of sabotage, or something quite bad happened in the business that you will inevitably hear about anyway.
Once you figure out which, if it is unfair bad reviews, you might consider mentioning it (to the relevant people in the company). If not, well, that's why you keep the network warm while you figure out what is up.
posted by nat at 12:30 PM on July 24, 2017
Say nothing but keep actively job-hunting. Your company's reviews sound like one of my old company's reviews. It was absolutely a valid red flag.
posted by Owlcat at 7:24 PM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Owlcat at 7:24 PM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
My small organization has a number of very, very negative reviews on Glassdoor that are not written maliciously, but do speak frankly and fairly about a particular leadership issue with our organization. They're legit. They're mostly from former employees because a) our rate of turnover is very high...there are a LOT of recent former employees, and b) once someone talked about the elephant in the room, others felt emboldened to confirm it.
I agree with the advice to say nothing, but to consider it to be a red flag and keep your eyes open in case you want to jump earlier rather than later. Maybe once you've worked there awhile it will be obvious that there is a disgruntled division that is not being entirely fair. Or maybe you'll see evidence of some crappy practices that echo the poor reviews and you'll be glad you didn't get toooooooo invested in the place.
posted by desuetude at 11:40 PM on July 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
I agree with the advice to say nothing, but to consider it to be a red flag and keep your eyes open in case you want to jump earlier rather than later. Maybe once you've worked there awhile it will be obvious that there is a disgruntled division that is not being entirely fair. Or maybe you'll see evidence of some crappy practices that echo the poor reviews and you'll be glad you didn't get toooooooo invested in the place.
posted by desuetude at 11:40 PM on July 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
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I don't know that people really set too much store by Glassdoor, especially for small organizations. I would wait and see what you observe, unless your job has something directly to do with employee experience - such as HR or internal training. If there's something you see there as an actionable item for you to take on, it would make sense to mention it. If not, just store it away in your mental file as you gradually figured out what happened in that org before you came aboard.
posted by Miko at 11:13 AM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]