I use Glassdoor reviews but, as with all online reviews, I apply some judgement. For example, I tend to discount reviews that have the flavour of being by a disgruntled employee trying to lash out. Equally, I try to detect very well written glowing reviews that sound like they may have been written by an HR or PR team. Of course, you never can tell, but in the reviews that feel like they might be genuine, I then look for common themes across multiple reviews over time around organisation politics/culture, incentives, leadership, people development, morale, workload sustainability, focus on customer value etc. (These are the same skills I have developed over the years when looking at hotel and restauramnt reviews!)
If there are enough reviews, then there can be a subset that give some insights into the organisation culture, values, and effectiveness. Because of this, I take the Glassdoor metrics with a grain of salt, as they are based on all reviews. So, for example, there can be a strong positive bias in a small company with few reviews using the platform for promotional purposes.
It is one of many soures of information out there, and I think it can be helpful.
Thought I'd revisit this topic again this time looking at some of the negative reviews which provide some useful inside information.
Without naming specific ASX companies, here is one I found regarding a diagnostic company:
And here is another one for a small tech company. I don't know much about Ruby so I can't comment on the view below:
And a few more this time for a small medtech company
Some valuable insights in the issues faced by small companies balancing employee retention and welfare while growing their business. It is probably no wonder the bigger the company is, the easier it is to retain top talent and hit milestones.
Of course, it could be different if the company is working on some bespoke technology which no one has heard of before yet has the potential to change lives.
I've been using glassdoor less and less. It's quite easy to put in a fake review and say the company is really good to work with. I suppose the upside is that it in a way is a bit of advertising for the company to attract the best talent!
Sometimes you have to read through the reviews quite carefully. There was one review on Beamtree where the employee mentioned they were sometimes falling behind on deploying trials to customers which I thought was insightful.
I still find the ASX reports / presentations are the best sources of information:
One example (sorry for spruiking DVP again - definitely not financial advice after the continual uptrend on no news in the past few weeks!)
Glass door is a useful information point, i always consider the type of business. I rarely expect a retailer to be rated well for example
Does anyone have any insight into Glassdoor reviews? Are they fairly reliable? Is it possible for a disgruntled ex-employee to create multiple accounts to leave more than one poor review?
I'm assuming yes to all of the above but would love some input from people who have used this site to assess a company before.
Thanks.