Have you taken a look at your company’s Glassdoor reviews lately?  If you’re in charge of handling HR investigations at your company, you’re probably heavily focused on internal data.  What inappropriate behavior was reported to managers or the HR group?  How was the case handled?  Was it substantiated?  Is the employee still with the company?  Did they subsequently sue or seek arbitration?


In reality, there are plenty of employees that don’t report hostile work environments to the company at all, because they fear retaliation.  That doesn’t mean they don’t find a place to vent, however – and one of the most common ones is on Glassdoor.  In fact, with further analysis you might learn even more about your company from Glassdoor than you already have, including how much money your company can recapture by improving its culture.  Here are three areas where Glassdoor can provide insight.

What inappropriate behavior is most common?  While current and former employees are happy to post the bad behavior they experienced directly, they’ll also post things that weren’t directed at them, such as unethical sales practices or an environment where employees hate their own customers.

Where your company’s earnings are headed? A just-completed academic study found that firms experiencing improvements in Glassdoor ratings significantly financially outperform those with declines in Glassdoor ratings.  In fact, the study authors were even able to forecast positive earnings announcement surprises based on changes in Glassdoor reviews.

How hard it will be to recruit new employees? Fifty percent of your interested candidates look at your Glassdoor reviews before taking a job.  Those candidates represent the ones that are most engaged in the job-seeking process – they want to be confident in the company before they’ll apply for or accept a job within it.  That is not new news to the HR world. However, what may be new news is that not only will you lose half of your candidates if your Glassdoor rating is poor, the ones that you are able to bring on as employees because they didn’t see your Glassdoor rating will be more likely to quit.

What does all of this mean?  If your Glassdoor reviews are full of allegations of improper behavior, but you aren’t receiving any complaints, your company is squandering future earnings potential!  Convincing your employees that complaints won’t jeopardize their career can generate far more revenue than it costs.  Addressing instances where employees were treated badly will improve financial results. Using complaints to uncover and address cultural deficits can transform a company’s financial results.  In short, the return on investment for investigations that lead to cultural improvements is immense.

To learn how CMTS:HR can help your company more effectively handle workplace investigations, call us at 855-636-5361 or email us at Team_CMTSHR@CMTSHR.com.