The importance of online reviews goes beyond the consumer level – they are also significant factors in measuring a company’s reputation.
And the power is real. According to a survey by Glassdoor, 92 percent of employees would consider changing jobs if they were offered a role with a company with an excellent corporate reputation. In addition, the same study revealed that a third of job seekers are only interested in applying for a position in an organization that has at least a three-star rating.
Positive employee reviews attract highly qualified candidates. But, conversely, negative feedback drives them away. CarrerArc reports that more than half of job applicants would stop the application process if they found negative employee reviews for an organization.
Hiring is one of the top challenges for many companies. For this reason, you need to be aware of what your current and former personnel think about your organization so you can create processes to improve employee experience.
In this article, we help you navigate negative employee reviews by exploring the following topics:
- The impact of negative employee reviews
- How to respond to negative reviews
- How to prevent negative employee reviews
- How to improve your employee NPS score
The Impact of Negative Employee Reviews
Employee review sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, CareerBliss, Vault and Kununu offer insights into how employees view your company. For job seekers, it gives them a better understanding of the work environment and professional culture, allowing them to envision themselves as part of the organization. But unfortunately, when people come across negative Glassdoor employee reviews, it puts your company in a bad light.
However, unfavorable employee reviews not only influence the decision of job applicants, but they also bring the following consequences:
- Damage the company’s reputation: A negative reputation creates a lousy company image, harming its trustworthiness and credibility.
- Harm employee retention: Being known for the wrong reasons discourages current employees from staying in their current job positions.
- Turn clients away from the company: Your prospective clients may check your company’s Glassdoor profile before deciding to hire you. Making a wrong impression can mean losing potential customers.
Your reputation is one of your most important intangible assets. So you need to stay on top of negative Glassdoor employee reviews to create a robust online presence that validates your company as a credible organization.
How To Respond to a Negative Review
If you run a business or company, knowing how to respond to a negative review is an invaluable skill that directly impacts your bottom line. No one expects any entity to be perfect, and receiving negative feedback is inevitable.
If you find bad reviews about your company, keep the following practices in mind.
Maintain a Professional Tone
Knowing how to respond to negative Glassdoor employee reviews means answering in the right tone. Your response needs to convey respect – that you honor the reviewer’s sentiment. Responding to negative reviews in any other way, let alone anger, can lead to irreversible damage to your reputation. So if you come across unfavorable feedback against your company, take a step back, fight knee-jerk impulses and think about how best to approach the situation. Stepping away allows you to figure out how to respond to a negative review in a way that leads to a fruitful, constructive conversation.
Your review response strategy then requires that you maintain a professional tone as you address the concerns raised in the feedback. Acknowledge the issues and explain your intentions to solve the problem to improve employee experience.
Respond Quickly
Responding to negative reviews as soon as possible is the best thing you can do to take charge of the conversations surrounding your company. Failing to respond means missing the opportunity to neutralize a negative review. Delays in review response can also make you come across as insensitive or indifferent to your employees’ woes.
On the flipside, you are already improving how potential job applicants perceive you by simply engaging with feedback. According to a survey by Glassdoor, 80 percent of job seekers state that their perception of a company improves after seeing the employer responding to negative reviews.
Investigate and Take Action
When you get employee feedback, find out if there is truth behind the issues raised. If so, take the necessary steps to correct lapses or any shortcomings. Finally, treat negative reviews as a way to improve your company’s internal policies and processes and create a better work environment for all your employees.
How To Prevent Negative Employee Reviews
In addition to addressing damaging posts, companies need to be proactive in preventing them from occurring in the first place. Here are some practices to follow:
Review Monitoring
Monitoring your profile on company review sites is the best way to maintain a positive brand image. So have a dedicated team to take charge of your review monitoring and response processes. This time will most likely involve reputation management consultants.
Professionals offering reputation management services know the importance of online reviews in maintaining brand integrity. They have the latest reputation management tool to help you automate most of your review monitoring methodologies.
Utilize NPS Surveys
A net promoter score (NPS) is the measurement commonly used in customer experience programs. It was developed in 2003 by Bain and Company and is considered the gold standard customer experience metric.
You can use NPS surveys to estimate employee perception based on one simple question. For example, the most common employee satisfaction survey used is: “How likely is it that you would recommend [name of organization] as a place to work to a friend or colleague?”
Depending on their experience with your company, respondents can give a rating between 0 (not at all likely) and 10 (extremely likely) to your employee satisfaction survey.
The responses are divided into three categories to establish an NPS score.
- Promoters: Employees that responded with a score of 9 or 10 are often happy with their work experience.
- Passives: Employees that responded with a score of 7 or 8 are satisfied but not happy enough to become promoters.
- Detractors: Employees that responded with a score of 0 to 6 are unhappy workers who feel that there are areas in your company that require improvement.
To calculate the final NPS score for your employee satisfaction survey, subtract the percentage of Detractors from the Promoters. For example, if 70 percent of respondents are Promoters, 20 percent are Passives and 10 percent are Detractors, your NPS score is 70-10=60.
How To Improve NPS Scores
Your employee net promoter score (eNPS) is a way to examine feelings about the workplace and how satisfied employees are with the organization. The following are some tips to improve your NPS scores:
- Ensure complete anonymity for respondents: Your NPS survey is a safe place for your employees to express their thoughts. Anonymity cultivates an environment where people are comfortable sharing feedback.
- Work with managers: Collaborate with your company leaders for continuous employee training and the cultivation of your professional values.
- Acknowledge employees: Our tip on how to improve NPS scores is simple: celebrate your employees and their wins.
Conducting surveys takes work – partnering with online reputation management companies is the fastest and most efficient way get employee feedback from any company review site. Reputation management consultants know how to improve NPS scores using the industry’s latest reputation management tool and the right human approach to appeasing disgruntled reviewers.
Conclusion
Employee satisfaction has become increasingly important as more employers realize the direct link between happy employees and the organization’s success. So rather than looking at employee reviews as a problem, consider them as free advice on how to improve employee experience.
Get employee feedback and turn their negative sentiments into positive experiences with Rize Reviews. Rize is one of the leading online reputation management companies that know the importance of online reviews in solidifying your credibility online. Contact us to learn more about our reputation management services.
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