Employee review sites like Glassdoor can improve your company’s reputation and help you attract quality candidates. Here are seven ways to encourage employees to leave positive Glassdoor reviews.
[Read more: What to Do When an Employee Leaves]
Explain why it’s important
When you ask employees to leave a Glassdoor review, explain why it matters to your company. Explain the function of Glassdoor and why employee feedback is so important.
Obviously, employee feedback helps the company, but it's a good idea to explain that it also benefits employees. When employees leave honest feedback, management can address any underlying problems.
Encourage employees to be honest
Hopefully, your employees will all leave positive, five-star reviews, but you want to encourage honesty above all else. Let employees know that all reviews are confidential and that Glassdoor will protect their identity, so they never have to fear retaliation.
Don’t pressure employees to leave positive reviews or try to manipulate your Glassdoor ranking in any way. Other companies have been exposed doing this, and it only damaged their reputations.
[Read more: What to Do When a Competitor Is Poaching Employees]
Ask everyone
Glassdoor recommends asking all your employees to participate, not just the employees you know are engaged and likely to leave positive ratings. Let your employees know this request is coming ahead of time so no one feels put on the spot.
However, don’t ask for feedback too soon since brand-new employees don’t have enough information about the company yet. Wait until employees have been with the company for at least 90 days before asking them to leave a Glassdoor review.
Obviously, employee feedback helps the company, but it's a good idea to explain that it also benefits employees.
Make the process as easy as possible
Leaving a review can be intimidating for many employees, and some may not know what to write. You can make this easier for your employees by providing them with a template to follow. Let them know the template is optional, but they’re welcome to use it if it makes the process easier.
Never bribe employees to leave reviews
You should never incentivize employees to leave Glassdoor reviews. This includes offering monetary compensation or other perks in exchange for a review. When you try to bribe employees to leave reviews, their feedback is inauthentic and doesn’t accurately represent what it’s like to work at your company.
Not only is it unethical, but it’s against Glassdoor’s policies. If Glassdoor finds out you bribed employees to leave reviews, they’ll take those reviews down immediately.
[Read more: How to Create an Employee Handbook]
Respond to every review
It’s essential to respond to every review left for your company, whether the review is good or bad. Negative reviews can be hard to take, and you may want to try to ignore or hide them. But responding to negative feedback can actually help your company in the long run.
According to a Glassdoor survey, 62% of job seekers view companies that respond to employee reviews more positively. Responding to negative reviews shows that you take all employee feedback seriously and are actively working to improve the employee experience.
Ask employees for reviews regularly
It’s not enough to send your employees one email asking them to leave reviews — you need to continue to ask regularly. It’s likely that the majority of your employees won’t leave a review the first time for a variety of reasons, so you want to give them another opportunity in the future.
However, you don’t want to ask too often — sending a request every six months is often enough. And you want to personalize your request based on the employee, their position, and how long they’ve been with the company.
If you need help figuring out how to ask for reviews, Glassdoor provides nine different templates you can use.
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