In the not so distant past, especially among members of the Greatest Generation (those born between 1901 and 1924), the Silent Generation (born 1925 to 1942), and early Baby Boomers (born 1943 to 1963), an employee might hold one job, maybe two, over an entire career. Many contemporary career experts refer to this as the “40–40–40 plan;” a person would work forty hours per week for the same company for forty years. Th en, gold watch firmly clutched, the employee would retire with a pension that paid roughly 40 percent of what he or she made when working.
Back then, employees who worked for more than two companies their entire adult lives might be considered job hoppers. Even worse, they might be labeled malcontents even unemployable.
Many referred to the mentality behind this long term employment as “loyalty” a trait in high demand by employers and recruiters, then and now. And, from the employees’ perspective, it’s a trait expected from employers. In many organizations, no matter their other faults, loyalty was a mutually advantageous “benefit” and was mutually expected. The pension system developed during the Industrial Age was based on this simple truism: Do a good job, for an extended period of time, and we’ll take care of you for a lifetime.
Looking back, however, the perception of loyalty was a positive spin on issues far darker: fear, repression, and employers who consistently motivated their workers with inspirational gems such as:
You have no say. No opinion. No voice.
Then along came social media the virtual watercooler where employees’ voices aren’t just heard; not unlike the consumer’s voice, they’re amplified. In extreme
cases the shouts may go viral, causing extensive (if short term) damage to the employer’s reputation and the need for immediate damage control.
In one famous instance that occurred during the Christmas retail season of 2012, megaretailer Target was forced into a defensive stance in a nationwide public relations debacle known as Black Friday Creep started by part- time employee Casey St. Clair.
St. Clair’s intention was to spend a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with her boyfriend, friends, and family. Instead, she was told her work schedule now included a shift on “Black Thursday” she would have to work both Thanksgiving Day and night.
Some 375,000 signatures later, both St. Clair and Target found themselves mentioned on every national news show imaginable. After her campaign went viral, including hundreds of thousands of tweets and Facebook posts, dozens of similar petitions were filed on Change.org and other such sites, imploring Sears, Walmart, Kohl’s, and many others to reverse this Black Friday Creep trend and stay closed for the national holiday. Boycotts were threatened. Retailers almost universally beloved for their price slashing during the holiday season were assigned a public persona similar to that of Ebenezer Scrooge.
Of course, in our new social world, we’re often measured by how we respond to social chaos.
Th is one sentence specifically, that one word, corporate left the door open for local stores to mandate that employees work on the Thanksgiving holiday, which only made the situation much worse for Target. Th is cemented the company’s “Bah! Humbug!” reputation that season, when it was reinforced by none other than Casey St. Clair:
Social chaos. All because of one respectful, yet vocal, part time employee paid no more than minimum wage and her use of social and digital media. In the long run, no one is sure whether or how this chaos affected Target’s, or any other retailer’s, sales that holiday season. Yes, the story was picked up by every major news outlet. Yes, St. Clair’s actions led to Thanksgiving protests at many major outlets. Even some of Target’s major shareholders jumped into the fray.
Yet, fresh off a year impacted by a deep recession, no one really knew what to expect during the Christmas retail rush of 2012. Troughout the fall of that year, consumer confidence in the United States was at times crippled by worries about the fiscal cliff issue. And just as Christmas decorations had been perfectly placed in retail meccas in New York and surrounding areas, Superstorm Sandy hit, leaving tens of thousands homeless. Additionally, the tragedy of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting shook the nation’s psyche, pulling many away from any desire to celebrate the holidays in an exuberant fashion.
What we do know is that retail sales were far below expectations that year; according to many estimates, collective sales were the worst since the economic crisis began in 2008. However, we also know that Walmart, at the forefront of the Black Friday Creep movement, is believed to have been one of the retail winners of 2012. Many other stores although they didn’t do well in terms of same store sales year to year saw impressive gains in online sales as well.
We also know this: Neither the executive team at Target nor the management teams of other stores had planned to spend the happ happ happiest time of the year defending themselves from Change.org petitions, Scrooge references in the media, and protests that brought the Social Robin Hoods to their storefronts on Thanksgiving evening instead of having that extra piece of pumpkin pie.
Oops.
Run your company with bad karma; be prepared to reap what you sow.
Certainly, those companies survived; it takes a much larger army of socially armed elves to bring down the retail giants. And yet we have to wonder: How much did Casey St. Clair and the Christmas Outrage of 2012 affect future decisions made by these retailers? Are they more “accountable” now, compared to the old school days? Th at answer seems obvious.
Welcome to the Social Age, in which every decision even perceived as not in the best interests of employees is publicly scrutinized and where judge and jury come in the form of a Twitter handle.
While Change.org is a social cause site (and not necessarily dedicated to strengthening the voice of disgruntled employees), there are other sites that deliberately amplify workers’ opinions. Chief among them, Glassdoor.com a site that is home to reviews of nearly 250,000 companies.
Launched in 2008, Glassdoor quickly became not only a sounding board for employees to vent about their experience at their current or previous employer but also exactly what its founder, Rich Barton (of Expedia and Zillow fame), intended: a crowd sourced ratings bureau for employers. Want to know what it’s really like to work for Amazon, IBM, or Ford Motor Company? Today, Glassdoor is well known among job seekers (themselves connected consumers who, in today’s workforce, are looking for far more than just a paycheck) as a go- to resource for understanding the full culture of a company, including its core values and long term prospects. For many, surprises and the potential for disappointment are averted because this all happens before the job seeker accepts the invitation for a job interview.
This is a perfect model for the Social Age: a free resource that provides true value to a community of job seekers. On the surface, this is digital performance. At least, that’s the image Glassdoor wants to project.
More recently, however, Glassdoor has come under heavy criticism for filtering negative reviews that may impact the “scores” of their paying clients. The reviews on Yelp for Glassdoor are full of Glassdoor purists agonizing over the failure to support the popular “comments” feature on the site, as well as the rejection of reviews that might impact the standings of employers that pay Glassdoor a hefty annual fee to “monitor” their ratings.
According to detractors, many of the positive reviews left on the site are submitted by agencies (“shills,” as one commenter remarked) contracted by the employers to upgrade their image on Glassdoor. These filters, besides causing some to question Glassdoor’s credibility, can also create a false impression of the employers; in many cases, a job seeker simply must dig deeper than page one of the search results to see the big picture at a specific company.
Some social recruiters, however, disagree with speculation that the reviews are less than objective: Th e common belief seems to be that the reviews are all there; it is how they’re ranked that makes assessing objectivity more difficult. For some, the perception is that Glassdoor forces companies to become members or risk bad reviews surfacing more often: Otherwise, competitors can target an employer’s primary page on Glassdoor and buy ads that sway potential employees away. If a bad review says, “Poor training and support by management” a competitor can place an ad that says: “Training and support important to your career? Come over to ABC Company.”
Combine this with the consideration that many small businesses (that do not or cannot pay Glassdoor its fee) feel they are not allowed to effectively counter the musings of an angry ex- employee, and Glassdoor’s pay to play model doesn’t appear to serve the job seeker as well as intended, or expected. With all these hints that Glassdoor may not be the objective resource it once was or that it claims to be can job seekers trust it as a neutral “review site”?
Perhaps not. But with a salary calculator and a powerhouse blog meant to help job seekers greatly improve their chances of fi nding work, the site is listed on many “Top Resources for Job Seekers” lists, including an annual list three years running titled “Top 100 Twitter Accounts Job Seekers Must Follow”.
More important and we can’t stress this enough any particular website or platform (Glassdoor, Indeed.com’s review feature, or other review sites that will undoubtedly pop up in the coming years) is secondary to what the platform stands for: public accountability.
In Glassdoor’s case, no matter what happens to that website in the long run, the genie is out of the bottle: Employers are being rated by their employees very publicly; other employees as well as candidates have a resource for what is perceived by many as objective, real- time information.
Meanwhile, corporate PR and recruiting departments have lost the ability to control the story. Th ey can’t hide behind press releases and carefully crafted employer branding. If the company is good, employees will say so. If not, they’ll say that, too. In fact, a 2012 survey by Millennial- focused InternBridge found that 94percent of young careerists will talk about their employers on social media. Our own more recent experience shows us that time and again, peers of any age are only too happy to provide their version of the truth, including in social forums.
Of course, once an employer hits a certain high- level status say, that of megacorporations like United Airlines or Starbucks ex- employees seem to find myriad ways to vocalize their displeasure. Th ey don’t need Glassdoor at all. Untied.com and ihateStarbucks.com are examples of sites where the bitter and angry seem to have a never- ending supply of complaints and criticisms. Of course, the companies being attacked counter that these one- dimensional sites are less than objective exactly the same complaint continually lobbed at Glassdoor.
What do vigilante employee sites and amplifiers like Glassdoor really mean to employers?
For one, an entire industry has popped up that businesses must now consider in terms of their hiring strategy, budget, and personnel. Not only can ignoring these review sites cost them a good candidate once due diligence is performed (and after finding a hyper- negative review), but inaction can significantly hurt an employer’s brand.
Perhaps the aspect of this discussion most critical to an employer’s brand, however, is that no matter how “early” it is in the life cycle of employer review sites, who do you think a job seeker is more likely to believe? Yelp- like peers (100 percent objective or not) who take the time to write reviews for the company they work for now or worked for recently? Or a copywriter in your PR department tasked with making the company look good to potential employees? Again, the final score might be obvious: Social Age 1, Corporations 0.
Back then, employees who worked for more than two companies their entire adult lives might be considered job hoppers. Even worse, they might be labeled malcontents even unemployable.
Many referred to the mentality behind this long term employment as “loyalty” a trait in high demand by employers and recruiters, then and now. And, from the employees’ perspective, it’s a trait expected from employers. In many organizations, no matter their other faults, loyalty was a mutually advantageous “benefit” and was mutually expected. The pension system developed during the Industrial Age was based on this simple truism: Do a good job, for an extended period of time, and we’ll take care of you for a lifetime.
Looking back, however, the perception of loyalty was a positive spin on issues far darker: fear, repression, and employers who consistently motivated their workers with inspirational gems such as:
- “You’re just lucky to have a job!”
- “Do you know how many people would kill to have this job? There are a million others who could replace you right now.”
- “Is this really a good time to make waves? Just get the job done and go home.”
- “You ought to pick your battles. Don’t you want your pension?”
You have no say. No opinion. No voice.
Then along came social media the virtual watercooler where employees’ voices aren’t just heard; not unlike the consumer’s voice, they’re amplified. In extreme
cases the shouts may go viral, causing extensive (if short term) damage to the employer’s reputation and the need for immediate damage control.
In one famous instance that occurred during the Christmas retail season of 2012, megaretailer Target was forced into a defensive stance in a nationwide public relations debacle known as Black Friday Creep started by part- time employee Casey St. Clair.
St. Clair’s intention was to spend a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with her boyfriend, friends, and family. Instead, she was told her work schedule now included a shift on “Black Thursday” she would have to work both Thanksgiving Day and night.
Some 375,000 signatures later, both St. Clair and Target found themselves mentioned on every national news show imaginable. After her campaign went viral, including hundreds of thousands of tweets and Facebook posts, dozens of similar petitions were filed on Change.org and other such sites, imploring Sears, Walmart, Kohl’s, and many others to reverse this Black Friday Creep trend and stay closed for the national holiday. Boycotts were threatened. Retailers almost universally beloved for their price slashing during the holiday season were assigned a public persona similar to that of Ebenezer Scrooge.
Of course, in our new social world, we’re often measured by how we respond to social chaos.
Th is one sentence specifically, that one word, corporate left the door open for local stores to mandate that employees work on the Thanksgiving holiday, which only made the situation much worse for Target. Th is cemented the company’s “Bah! Humbug!” reputation that season, when it was reinforced by none other than Casey St. Clair:
Social chaos. All because of one respectful, yet vocal, part time employee paid no more than minimum wage and her use of social and digital media. In the long run, no one is sure whether or how this chaos affected Target’s, or any other retailer’s, sales that holiday season. Yes, the story was picked up by every major news outlet. Yes, St. Clair’s actions led to Thanksgiving protests at many major outlets. Even some of Target’s major shareholders jumped into the fray.
Yet, fresh off a year impacted by a deep recession, no one really knew what to expect during the Christmas retail rush of 2012. Troughout the fall of that year, consumer confidence in the United States was at times crippled by worries about the fiscal cliff issue. And just as Christmas decorations had been perfectly placed in retail meccas in New York and surrounding areas, Superstorm Sandy hit, leaving tens of thousands homeless. Additionally, the tragedy of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting shook the nation’s psyche, pulling many away from any desire to celebrate the holidays in an exuberant fashion.
What we do know is that retail sales were far below expectations that year; according to many estimates, collective sales were the worst since the economic crisis began in 2008. However, we also know that Walmart, at the forefront of the Black Friday Creep movement, is believed to have been one of the retail winners of 2012. Many other stores although they didn’t do well in terms of same store sales year to year saw impressive gains in online sales as well.
We also know this: Neither the executive team at Target nor the management teams of other stores had planned to spend the happ happ happiest time of the year defending themselves from Change.org petitions, Scrooge references in the media, and protests that brought the Social Robin Hoods to their storefronts on Thanksgiving evening instead of having that extra piece of pumpkin pie.
Oops.
Run your company with bad karma; be prepared to reap what you sow.
Certainly, those companies survived; it takes a much larger army of socially armed elves to bring down the retail giants. And yet we have to wonder: How much did Casey St. Clair and the Christmas Outrage of 2012 affect future decisions made by these retailers? Are they more “accountable” now, compared to the old school days? Th at answer seems obvious.
Welcome to the Social Age, in which every decision even perceived as not in the best interests of employees is publicly scrutinized and where judge and jury come in the form of a Twitter handle.
THE DEDICATED AMPLIFIERS
“Shills.”While Change.org is a social cause site (and not necessarily dedicated to strengthening the voice of disgruntled employees), there are other sites that deliberately amplify workers’ opinions. Chief among them, Glassdoor.com a site that is home to reviews of nearly 250,000 companies.
Launched in 2008, Glassdoor quickly became not only a sounding board for employees to vent about their experience at their current or previous employer but also exactly what its founder, Rich Barton (of Expedia and Zillow fame), intended: a crowd sourced ratings bureau for employers. Want to know what it’s really like to work for Amazon, IBM, or Ford Motor Company? Today, Glassdoor is well known among job seekers (themselves connected consumers who, in today’s workforce, are looking for far more than just a paycheck) as a go- to resource for understanding the full culture of a company, including its core values and long term prospects. For many, surprises and the potential for disappointment are averted because this all happens before the job seeker accepts the invitation for a job interview.
This is a perfect model for the Social Age: a free resource that provides true value to a community of job seekers. On the surface, this is digital performance. At least, that’s the image Glassdoor wants to project.
More recently, however, Glassdoor has come under heavy criticism for filtering negative reviews that may impact the “scores” of their paying clients. The reviews on Yelp for Glassdoor are full of Glassdoor purists agonizing over the failure to support the popular “comments” feature on the site, as well as the rejection of reviews that might impact the standings of employers that pay Glassdoor a hefty annual fee to “monitor” their ratings.
According to detractors, many of the positive reviews left on the site are submitted by agencies (“shills,” as one commenter remarked) contracted by the employers to upgrade their image on Glassdoor. These filters, besides causing some to question Glassdoor’s credibility, can also create a false impression of the employers; in many cases, a job seeker simply must dig deeper than page one of the search results to see the big picture at a specific company.
Some social recruiters, however, disagree with speculation that the reviews are less than objective: Th e common belief seems to be that the reviews are all there; it is how they’re ranked that makes assessing objectivity more difficult. For some, the perception is that Glassdoor forces companies to become members or risk bad reviews surfacing more often: Otherwise, competitors can target an employer’s primary page on Glassdoor and buy ads that sway potential employees away. If a bad review says, “Poor training and support by management” a competitor can place an ad that says: “Training and support important to your career? Come over to ABC Company.”
Combine this with the consideration that many small businesses (that do not or cannot pay Glassdoor its fee) feel they are not allowed to effectively counter the musings of an angry ex- employee, and Glassdoor’s pay to play model doesn’t appear to serve the job seeker as well as intended, or expected. With all these hints that Glassdoor may not be the objective resource it once was or that it claims to be can job seekers trust it as a neutral “review site”?
Perhaps not. But with a salary calculator and a powerhouse blog meant to help job seekers greatly improve their chances of fi nding work, the site is listed on many “Top Resources for Job Seekers” lists, including an annual list three years running titled “Top 100 Twitter Accounts Job Seekers Must Follow”.
More important and we can’t stress this enough any particular website or platform (Glassdoor, Indeed.com’s review feature, or other review sites that will undoubtedly pop up in the coming years) is secondary to what the platform stands for: public accountability.
In Glassdoor’s case, no matter what happens to that website in the long run, the genie is out of the bottle: Employers are being rated by their employees very publicly; other employees as well as candidates have a resource for what is perceived by many as objective, real- time information.
Meanwhile, corporate PR and recruiting departments have lost the ability to control the story. Th ey can’t hide behind press releases and carefully crafted employer branding. If the company is good, employees will say so. If not, they’ll say that, too. In fact, a 2012 survey by Millennial- focused InternBridge found that 94percent of young careerists will talk about their employers on social media. Our own more recent experience shows us that time and again, peers of any age are only too happy to provide their version of the truth, including in social forums.
Of course, once an employer hits a certain high- level status say, that of megacorporations like United Airlines or Starbucks ex- employees seem to find myriad ways to vocalize their displeasure. Th ey don’t need Glassdoor at all. Untied.com and ihateStarbucks.com are examples of sites where the bitter and angry seem to have a never- ending supply of complaints and criticisms. Of course, the companies being attacked counter that these one- dimensional sites are less than objective exactly the same complaint continually lobbed at Glassdoor.
What do vigilante employee sites and amplifiers like Glassdoor really mean to employers?
For one, an entire industry has popped up that businesses must now consider in terms of their hiring strategy, budget, and personnel. Not only can ignoring these review sites cost them a good candidate once due diligence is performed (and after finding a hyper- negative review), but inaction can significantly hurt an employer’s brand.
Perhaps the aspect of this discussion most critical to an employer’s brand, however, is that no matter how “early” it is in the life cycle of employer review sites, who do you think a job seeker is more likely to believe? Yelp- like peers (100 percent objective or not) who take the time to write reviews for the company they work for now or worked for recently? Or a copywriter in your PR department tasked with making the company look good to potential employees? Again, the final score might be obvious: Social Age 1, Corporations 0.
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