How can a company recover after a Glassdoor debacle?





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This is concerning one of my previous employers. Recently some junior dev left
a bad review, people found out, and this triggered a wave of disgruntled posts detailing their ill experiences. These are centered mostly around the use of old technologies, the inability of management to keep pace with newer tech, and the disappointment of new hires at having to write legacy code right out of the door. Many of them are emotional and some come off a bit bratty, but it's encouraged others to do the same.



People from business units (i.e., not devs) heard about it and some have also chipped in, their input being mostly positive or neutral.



This is not happening to me, but for the purpose of this question, I don't think it matters. Assuming I were the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?



This is obviously hurting the business as savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining (not that they were flocking before, but let's put that aside) and potential clients may get second thoughts before signing a contract with a business in such internal turmoil.



So far the following things have been tried:




  • Leave a comment under each review calling it fake. Yeah, that didn't go well. These were thankfully removed after a level-headed reviewer called out the CEO for doing it.

  • Write to Glassdoor asking them to remove "fake" reviews. The CEO seems convinced they were all written by the same person. I don't know what Glassdoor's response was, but no reviews have been removed yet.

  • Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead. This produced a few positives, but nowhere near enough to turn the tide.

  • Ignore it.










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  • 2




    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Jane S
    12 hours ago






  • 1




    "savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining" => that is the purpose of non-fake, subjective reviews. Would you eat at a restaurant that advertises fresh food after several people reported they use only frozen ingredients?
    – usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ
    4 hours ago








  • 7




    "Help, my chef keeps cooking bad food and people are leaving 2 stars!" That's the point of reviews.
    – insidesin
    2 hours ago






  • 2




    Fully aware what the point of reviews are, question is, how do we keep the restaurant open. Please focus on the question.
    – rath
    1 hour ago






  • 2




    Hire a good chef. The company needs to change, not Glassdoor.
    – Matt Beldon
    57 mins ago

















up vote
94
down vote

favorite
7












This is concerning one of my previous employers. Recently some junior dev left
a bad review, people found out, and this triggered a wave of disgruntled posts detailing their ill experiences. These are centered mostly around the use of old technologies, the inability of management to keep pace with newer tech, and the disappointment of new hires at having to write legacy code right out of the door. Many of them are emotional and some come off a bit bratty, but it's encouraged others to do the same.



People from business units (i.e., not devs) heard about it and some have also chipped in, their input being mostly positive or neutral.



This is not happening to me, but for the purpose of this question, I don't think it matters. Assuming I were the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?



This is obviously hurting the business as savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining (not that they were flocking before, but let's put that aside) and potential clients may get second thoughts before signing a contract with a business in such internal turmoil.



So far the following things have been tried:




  • Leave a comment under each review calling it fake. Yeah, that didn't go well. These were thankfully removed after a level-headed reviewer called out the CEO for doing it.

  • Write to Glassdoor asking them to remove "fake" reviews. The CEO seems convinced they were all written by the same person. I don't know what Glassdoor's response was, but no reviews have been removed yet.

  • Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead. This produced a few positives, but nowhere near enough to turn the tide.

  • Ignore it.










share|improve this question




















  • 2




    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Jane S
    12 hours ago






  • 1




    "savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining" => that is the purpose of non-fake, subjective reviews. Would you eat at a restaurant that advertises fresh food after several people reported they use only frozen ingredients?
    – usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ
    4 hours ago








  • 7




    "Help, my chef keeps cooking bad food and people are leaving 2 stars!" That's the point of reviews.
    – insidesin
    2 hours ago






  • 2




    Fully aware what the point of reviews are, question is, how do we keep the restaurant open. Please focus on the question.
    – rath
    1 hour ago






  • 2




    Hire a good chef. The company needs to change, not Glassdoor.
    – Matt Beldon
    57 mins ago













up vote
94
down vote

favorite
7









up vote
94
down vote

favorite
7






7





This is concerning one of my previous employers. Recently some junior dev left
a bad review, people found out, and this triggered a wave of disgruntled posts detailing their ill experiences. These are centered mostly around the use of old technologies, the inability of management to keep pace with newer tech, and the disappointment of new hires at having to write legacy code right out of the door. Many of them are emotional and some come off a bit bratty, but it's encouraged others to do the same.



People from business units (i.e., not devs) heard about it and some have also chipped in, their input being mostly positive or neutral.



This is not happening to me, but for the purpose of this question, I don't think it matters. Assuming I were the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?



This is obviously hurting the business as savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining (not that they were flocking before, but let's put that aside) and potential clients may get second thoughts before signing a contract with a business in such internal turmoil.



So far the following things have been tried:




  • Leave a comment under each review calling it fake. Yeah, that didn't go well. These were thankfully removed after a level-headed reviewer called out the CEO for doing it.

  • Write to Glassdoor asking them to remove "fake" reviews. The CEO seems convinced they were all written by the same person. I don't know what Glassdoor's response was, but no reviews have been removed yet.

  • Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead. This produced a few positives, but nowhere near enough to turn the tide.

  • Ignore it.










share|improve this question















This is concerning one of my previous employers. Recently some junior dev left
a bad review, people found out, and this triggered a wave of disgruntled posts detailing their ill experiences. These are centered mostly around the use of old technologies, the inability of management to keep pace with newer tech, and the disappointment of new hires at having to write legacy code right out of the door. Many of them are emotional and some come off a bit bratty, but it's encouraged others to do the same.



People from business units (i.e., not devs) heard about it and some have also chipped in, their input being mostly positive or neutral.



This is not happening to me, but for the purpose of this question, I don't think it matters. Assuming I were the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?



This is obviously hurting the business as savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining (not that they were flocking before, but let's put that aside) and potential clients may get second thoughts before signing a contract with a business in such internal turmoil.



So far the following things have been tried:




  • Leave a comment under each review calling it fake. Yeah, that didn't go well. These were thankfully removed after a level-headed reviewer called out the CEO for doing it.

  • Write to Glassdoor asking them to remove "fake" reviews. The CEO seems convinced they were all written by the same person. I don't know what Glassdoor's response was, but no reviews have been removed yet.

  • Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead. This produced a few positives, but nowhere near enough to turn the tide.

  • Ignore it.







united-kingdom feedback online-presence glassdoor damage-control






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edited 18 hours ago









donjuedo

39839




39839










asked 23 hours ago









rath

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  • 2




    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Jane S
    12 hours ago






  • 1




    "savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining" => that is the purpose of non-fake, subjective reviews. Would you eat at a restaurant that advertises fresh food after several people reported they use only frozen ingredients?
    – usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ
    4 hours ago








  • 7




    "Help, my chef keeps cooking bad food and people are leaving 2 stars!" That's the point of reviews.
    – insidesin
    2 hours ago






  • 2




    Fully aware what the point of reviews are, question is, how do we keep the restaurant open. Please focus on the question.
    – rath
    1 hour ago






  • 2




    Hire a good chef. The company needs to change, not Glassdoor.
    – Matt Beldon
    57 mins ago














  • 2




    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Jane S
    12 hours ago






  • 1




    "savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining" => that is the purpose of non-fake, subjective reviews. Would you eat at a restaurant that advertises fresh food after several people reported they use only frozen ingredients?
    – usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ
    4 hours ago








  • 7




    "Help, my chef keeps cooking bad food and people are leaving 2 stars!" That's the point of reviews.
    – insidesin
    2 hours ago






  • 2




    Fully aware what the point of reviews are, question is, how do we keep the restaurant open. Please focus on the question.
    – rath
    1 hour ago






  • 2




    Hire a good chef. The company needs to change, not Glassdoor.
    – Matt Beldon
    57 mins ago








2




2




Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– Jane S
12 hours ago




Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– Jane S
12 hours ago




1




1




"savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining" => that is the purpose of non-fake, subjective reviews. Would you eat at a restaurant that advertises fresh food after several people reported they use only frozen ingredients?
– usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ
4 hours ago






"savvy applicants will be discouraged from joining" => that is the purpose of non-fake, subjective reviews. Would you eat at a restaurant that advertises fresh food after several people reported they use only frozen ingredients?
– usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ
4 hours ago






7




7




"Help, my chef keeps cooking bad food and people are leaving 2 stars!" That's the point of reviews.
– insidesin
2 hours ago




"Help, my chef keeps cooking bad food and people are leaving 2 stars!" That's the point of reviews.
– insidesin
2 hours ago




2




2




Fully aware what the point of reviews are, question is, how do we keep the restaurant open. Please focus on the question.
– rath
1 hour ago




Fully aware what the point of reviews are, question is, how do we keep the restaurant open. Please focus on the question.
– rath
1 hour ago




2




2




Hire a good chef. The company needs to change, not Glassdoor.
– Matt Beldon
57 mins ago




Hire a good chef. The company needs to change, not Glassdoor.
– Matt Beldon
57 mins ago










10 Answers
10






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For the purposes of this, I'm going to assume that at least the bare facts of the reviews are accurate (i.e., that the company uses older technologies and sometimes requires legacy code from new hires). That being the case, I'd actually lean towards "Ignore it", perhaps even with a mixture of "Embrace it".



The whole point of Glassdoor reviews is so you can assess whether a company provides a working environment that you'll be happy in - and while I personally don't agree with the whole bratty trend of developers whinging because they think they should be entitled to be working on the newest shiny toys (regardless of trivial things like whether it suits the business needs of the company), at the end of the day if someone does have that mindset then ultimately they aren't going to be happy working at that company so you don't want to hire them anyway.



If the company is upfront about what technologies etc. the position will entail, then you are going to stand a much better chance of hiring people who are a better fit for that environment, rather than people coming in with a misconception and ending up disgruntled.






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  • 46




    You're pretty obviously not a developer. I've worked in places with shiny new PCs and I've worked in places with stuff that was obsolete five years before. Given how expensive developers are and how comparatively cheap PCs are, it's a complete waste for a company to give developers old and slow machines to work on. Whether a company respects its developers' work enough to give them quality tools to work on is a fundamental consideration when deciding where to work. But sure, developers who don't respect themselves might be happy in a place that gives them bad tools.
    – Kyralessa
    21 hours ago






  • 152




    @Kyralessa I am a developer actually.. and have been so professionally for the past 15+ years. FWIW I completely agree with you regarding PCs and other tools - when I talked about "toys" I was referring to things like frameworks, languages etc. Not PC's - BTDT with being given a shed of a dev machine and I couldn't agree with you more about it being sheer insanity. Can see how that might not have been 100% clear though.
    – motosubatsu
    21 hours ago








  • 26




    Ah, then in that case we can reconcile, as I agree with you. While it's nice to have the opportunity to learn a new framework by doing the company's latest project in it, a lot of companies aren't interested in that, for good reason.
    – Kyralessa
    20 hours ago






  • 24




    @KonradRudolph The difference is that computers are cheap to replace, (compared to a developer's salary) but rewriting your codebase to use a new framework, or even worse, a new language, can be hellishly expensive. Sometimes a rewrite might be needed, but there's a big difference.
    – Patrick M
    14 hours ago






  • 7




    @MatijaNalis: It may improve code performance (though I doubt it), but it certainly won't improve code quality, because the more time-consuming you make it for devs to test their code, the less they'll do so. More broadly . . . if you get better results from making your employees less productive, then clearly you have a much bigger problem.
    – ruakh
    9 hours ago


















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You're looking at this "problem" the wrong way. The way your question reads is "People are leaving negative reviews, therefore people shouldn't be leaving negative reviews, how do we stop people from leaving negative reviews, or have the negative reviews removed to keep our reputation?". That's the mindset that makes you deserving of those negative reviews; to put it another way, if that's how you react to negative reviews, then you deserve as many negative reviews as you get, and there is no hope for you. Remember, Glassdoor doesn't take action from companies based on the companies' wishes; they don't delete reviews just for being negative just because the company asked them to, that's in their policy.



Your mindset should be: "People are leaving negative reviews. Why are they being negative, and what can we take away from this to make people more positive?" Here's the thing: If you have 20 negative reviews that were written last month, you have a problem. If you have 20 negative reviews from 5 years ago and then another 100 positive reviews from last month, the problem goes away. So what you should do for now is ignore the negative reviews (or respond to them in a positive, professional manner, respecting the point of view of the reviewer; coming off as petulant children, which is what sounds like is happening currently, will only serve to make the problem worse). Then you take the constructive parts of the negative reviews (such as they are) and use them to implement changes. Some examples:



1) Tech stack is too old. This is bad not only for your employees but also for your business as a whole. Perhaps today you are using technologies like C++, JQuery, and HTML4 for your tech stack, and that's fine, because these technologies are old but people still know them. But soon they won't be, and you'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer. And then you're SOL because you have legacy code that nobody can maintain. This is a warning sign for you: You should update your tech stack to something that people are learning now, and this is something you should be doing without someone giving you a 1/5 on Glassdoor before you figure it out.



2) Management incompetence is a sign of a company which is ready to fail. If the company is big enough, management doesn't need to know the details of the tech stack. But it sounds like your company isn't at that scale yet, so management needs to be aware of what is going on. It sounds like management has their heads in the clouds. This is just irresponsible, because it means if something goes wrong they not only don't know how to fix it, but they don't even know how to go about finding out how to fix it. This can lead to misallocated resources (e.g. a frontend developer assigned to fix a database-level task) and schedule churn.



Here's the bottom line: People leaving Glassdoor reviews is NEVER a bad thing. If you think it is a bad thing, that's because you have a problem which you know is a problem and you acknowledge as a problem but you refuse to fix it because of your pride. Get off your high horse, fix your business, make some money, and stop grandstanding.






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  • 19




    "You'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer" -- I find that extremely difficult to believe. For one thing, I'm still in college, and I know how to dereference a pointer. For another, literally every single person in my major is required to learn how. For yet another, it's an essential part of my school's CS degree. For yet another, I already knew how before I got into college, so it's not like it's some fancy college-educated thing. (I agree with the rest of the review, but that one statement was just egregious)
    – Nic Hartley
    17 hours ago








  • 11




    There are also plenty of places where a tech stack that's had more than a year to prove itself is a pretty good thing. For example, if you're dealing with important data, like finances. Let's not forget that security is pretty important, and in a language like Java or JavaScript there's very little you can do to ensure that, say, memory gets wiped when you expect it to, without explicitly writing a little bit of code at the end of the function, like we're back in C-land. Writing code in lower-level languages isn't a bad sign by itself unless you're a bad developer.
    – Nic Hartley
    17 hours ago








  • 3




    Obvious exaggeration is obviously exaggerated.
    – Ertai87
    16 hours ago






  • 2




    @NicHartley You might know how to dereference a pointer, but there are many others who do not. I have heard quite a few software engineers with computer science degrees on the job saying "I did not know what a pointer was until I was put on this project and had to figure it out fast. They never taught us what a pointer was in college." Like you, I knew what a pointer was before college since I learned C++ from books while I was a teen, but apparently lots of people don't know even after graduation.
    – Aaron
    9 hours ago






  • 3




    @Aaron I and everyone graduating from my college with a CS-related degree do. I'd be utterly floored if my college was the only one still teaching how to use pointers, too; we're pretty average. You'll notice that my claim wasn't "everyone can do this", but "many people can do this". It's really, really not hard to find a dev who can dereference a pointer.
    – Nic Hartley
    8 hours ago


















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Leave a comment under each review calling it fake.




What would "fake" mean in this case?



Did the person claiming the reviews were fake think the info in the reviews was false (i.e. the company doesn't use old-fashioned systems) or did they think the reviews were all written by one person?



If the reviews aren't facts-based, this can be pointed to. For example, it can be pointed out by the company's HR that they are actually using state-of-the-art technologies.



But lying can normally lead to a PR disaster.




Write to Glassdoor asking them to
remove "fake" reviews.




If they were all produced by one person, it should be possible to prove that easily, so yes, it's a solution. But hopefully, glassdoor doesn't delete legitimate reviews.




Ask employees, directly or indirectly,
to write some good reviews instead.




I use glassdoor and similar sites a lot and it's normally very clear which reviews were written by the HR.



Not to mention that when I was asked to produce similar reviews, this did impact on my opinion about my current employer. It's hard to respect a company that wants you to produce fake reviews.




Ignore it.




Well, it's better to ignore it than to write a silly answer, that's for sure.





The best response from the PR point of view would be, however, one not listed by you. The best response is to react constructively. This means the management should analyze the points from the reviews and take a fair stance on them. For example, if many people write the company is using old technologies, it would be good to scrutinize whether that's really the case or not.



If that's true, the company should own to it, but stress for example, that the technologies are still used by plenty of important companies, so by learning them new employees get valuable skills and that candidates learn about the technologies used from job ads and later during the interview processes - that nobody is misled.



This assertion makes sense only if really nobody is misled of course.



And if the company is really bad - if it misleads candidates promising them modern technologies, development and then gives them jobs using technologies from the 80s?



Well, then it's good it gets criticized online. The relation between employers and candidates is a dramatically unequal one. So it's good that some candidates will learn the truth from such reviews.






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  • 1




    Not really the 80's, more like 00's, add some bad practices to the mix, add in hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything, and it's not a pleasant experience overall. So even if you're ok with older technologies, quality control has been nonexistent for years. It's not a fun codebase to work with.
    – rath
    23 hours ago








  • 10




    @rath "hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything" I find that to be one of the biggest issues there are when the quality control is lacking (or simply absent). You find code that should be changed but know that changing it would mean off-hours work and getting blame afterwards if anything built on it elsewhere stops working, so you're forced to write wrappers that make the problem even worse for the next addition. Technical debt can kill projects.
    – LordHieros
    22 hours ago










  • @LordHieros Exactly the case and a big reason why I left
    – rath
    21 hours ago






  • 2




    Interesting side-note: While you can counter-argue to objective claims, you can also just try to point at the glassdoor policy and maybe get their moderators on your side. They explicitly discourage factual statements in favour of clearly opinion-based statements, quote: 'We strongly suggest you not make provable statements of fact in your Glassdoor reviews. We encourage you instead to offer your "opinions" about your workplace.' help.glassdoor.com/article/… Feel free to incorporate that into your answer if you want.
    – Darkwing
    21 hours ago


















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Adding a response to complaints is the correct answer - but calling them each "fake" is the wrong answer.



When people leave a review on the company, and the feedback is negative, responding by calling it 'fake' does not leave the correct impression - it leads people to believe that your company sweeps problems under the rug and doesn't really care about negative feedback at all. While it might be frustrating to your CEO, if a problem is preported it should be addressed - and in a mature and level-headed manner.



The correct way to respond to these reviews is to address the issue - to leave a comment detailing how the company works to assist people with the problems these programmers have - perhaps even to explain that yes, your company is in the business of maintaining legacy programs, because you are a long-standing company with a lot of legacy users who need that support, and that you offer plenty of training for these long-standing programs and for new recruits.



I don't know the full details of your company - but the bottom line of this is that the best way to deflect complaints like this is to tackle them head-on, and show that you are above these whiners - not to completely ignore them, but to overwhelm them with concern for their reported company issues.



Note - ideally, you would also actually be implementing these improvements, but in lieu of that, you can at least acknowledge these problems and explain steps that you plan to take to correct them.






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    up vote
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    There really is only two things that the management can do about this. One is long-term, and the other is short-term.



    In the short-term...



    Instead of inserting comments which call negative reviews "fake", someone who represents the company can address the individual case in a kind and humane way while also indicating the steps the company is taking to avoid this kind of problem in the future. This is the best way to handle hot-headed negative reviews, in some cases it can even be interpreted as a positive by readers.



    In the long term...



    Learn from the criticism they've received, and implement changes.






    share|improve this answer




























      up vote
      4
      down vote













      I have seen this happening, and the net result was lowering the level of candidates for non-managerial jobs. Your CEO has work to do if he wants to rescue the company's reputation in the talent pool.
      In terms of practical actions, the CEO needs to address this internally, prioritising complaints and reviewing the most urgent ones internally. Certainly, he doesn't want to brainstorm about those reviews with the whole organisation.






      share|improve this answer




























        up vote
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        Make it a positive experience. Leave a note on Glassdoor that says "Yes, your company's infrastructure is based on VB6 and SQL Server 7 and that it works nicely and meets your needs, and that you're happy with it, not planning on replacing it, and are looking for employees that are also happy with it." Also note that this wasn't a surprise and that the employee was told what the work was before accepting employment.



        The world is full of people who would be thrilled to work with whatever technology you have.



        The biggest thing you need to do is make sure you set their expectations from the start. You'll probably need to hire experienced, older devs and skip recent grads.




        Glassdoor debacle?




        It's only a debacle if you perceive it as such.






        share|improve this answer










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        Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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          up vote
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          The only two correct responses are actually fixing the issues and making a large pr move promising to fix the issues that shows what you're doing for your devs and how it's making their life easier.



          The latter is very similar to a popular strategy used by youtubers when they get caught in unsavory light. The thing this response affords a company to do is pretend to fix the problem and convince their audience that it's been fixed without actually fixing anything. Youtube itself also employs this strategy.



          You don't have to fix anything, if you've made it look like you've fixed everything.



          If you don't want to just lie until people agree with you, then you could try being more transparent about what the job actually is, or you can stop making the decision to work for your company massively career limiting by refusing to use modern frameworks that would give your devs relevant experience to put on their resume when applying to better places. You could also try offsetting the garbage work conditions with perks like more time off, more time off, or modern work practices like working from home, unlimited PTO, or unlimited sick days.



          Those are really the only good responses. The rest are just going to see the company go really negative as far as hiring PR is concerned.






          share|improve this answer





















          • Perks definitely count. But did you really mean unlimited PTO? That’s impossible.
            – LN6595
            13 hours ago










          • @LN6595 I've seen it on a few job listings. Usually it has to be within reason and it seems to be working out for these companies. I assume you'd still get fired if you took a ton of time off for no reason. Tbh I'm not sure how it works, but I have seen it offered.
            – Steve
            13 hours ago


















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          Well, one possibility could be to use the critics and try to solve some issues, e.g. by using more modern practices and spend more time in refactoring your legacy code problem. When things change and become more positive for each of the employees, then they may change the review.






          share|improve this answer




























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            Assuming I was the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?




            As long as your company has money to pay salary, you'd always have a team of coding monkeys at your service. There's nothing you or the company should do, clients don't read Glassdoors. Bad candidates? Raise salary or/and employee benefits.




            Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead.




            This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor, reviewed by management.






            share|improve this answer



















            • 22




              If I was required as part of my job to write a positive work review at my company on any platform, you can bet I'd be writing at least 3 bad ones when I got home that day.
              – Sam
              21 hours ago








            • 20




              "This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor." Sounds like, what's the word, extortion? Blackmail?
              – jo1storm
              21 hours ago






            • 7




              @bharal Unless the employees are allowed to clearly label their reviews as "company's social engagement efforts", it's pretty much blackmail.
              – Dmitry Grigoryev
              21 hours ago








            • 4




              The suggestion of having employees submit positive reviews on glassdoor as "part of the job" reads like an attempt at parody. You can't possibly be serious.
              – teego1967
              20 hours ago






            • 9




              @teego1967 My previous company did actually request employees to submit positive Glassdoor reviews, to counter the many negative (and completely justified) reviews from leavers. I'm not aware of anyone apart from board members who actually did submit a positive review. All it did was prompt the rest of us to check Glassdoor and say "yup, that's about right".
              – Graham
              20 hours ago











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            10 Answers
            10






            active

            oldest

            votes








            10 Answers
            10






            active

            oldest

            votes









            active

            oldest

            votes






            active

            oldest

            votes








            up vote
            130
            down vote













            For the purposes of this, I'm going to assume that at least the bare facts of the reviews are accurate (i.e., that the company uses older technologies and sometimes requires legacy code from new hires). That being the case, I'd actually lean towards "Ignore it", perhaps even with a mixture of "Embrace it".



            The whole point of Glassdoor reviews is so you can assess whether a company provides a working environment that you'll be happy in - and while I personally don't agree with the whole bratty trend of developers whinging because they think they should be entitled to be working on the newest shiny toys (regardless of trivial things like whether it suits the business needs of the company), at the end of the day if someone does have that mindset then ultimately they aren't going to be happy working at that company so you don't want to hire them anyway.



            If the company is upfront about what technologies etc. the position will entail, then you are going to stand a much better chance of hiring people who are a better fit for that environment, rather than people coming in with a misconception and ending up disgruntled.






            share|improve this answer



















            • 46




              You're pretty obviously not a developer. I've worked in places with shiny new PCs and I've worked in places with stuff that was obsolete five years before. Given how expensive developers are and how comparatively cheap PCs are, it's a complete waste for a company to give developers old and slow machines to work on. Whether a company respects its developers' work enough to give them quality tools to work on is a fundamental consideration when deciding where to work. But sure, developers who don't respect themselves might be happy in a place that gives them bad tools.
              – Kyralessa
              21 hours ago






            • 152




              @Kyralessa I am a developer actually.. and have been so professionally for the past 15+ years. FWIW I completely agree with you regarding PCs and other tools - when I talked about "toys" I was referring to things like frameworks, languages etc. Not PC's - BTDT with being given a shed of a dev machine and I couldn't agree with you more about it being sheer insanity. Can see how that might not have been 100% clear though.
              – motosubatsu
              21 hours ago








            • 26




              Ah, then in that case we can reconcile, as I agree with you. While it's nice to have the opportunity to learn a new framework by doing the company's latest project in it, a lot of companies aren't interested in that, for good reason.
              – Kyralessa
              20 hours ago






            • 24




              @KonradRudolph The difference is that computers are cheap to replace, (compared to a developer's salary) but rewriting your codebase to use a new framework, or even worse, a new language, can be hellishly expensive. Sometimes a rewrite might be needed, but there's a big difference.
              – Patrick M
              14 hours ago






            • 7




              @MatijaNalis: It may improve code performance (though I doubt it), but it certainly won't improve code quality, because the more time-consuming you make it for devs to test their code, the less they'll do so. More broadly . . . if you get better results from making your employees less productive, then clearly you have a much bigger problem.
              – ruakh
              9 hours ago















            up vote
            130
            down vote













            For the purposes of this, I'm going to assume that at least the bare facts of the reviews are accurate (i.e., that the company uses older technologies and sometimes requires legacy code from new hires). That being the case, I'd actually lean towards "Ignore it", perhaps even with a mixture of "Embrace it".



            The whole point of Glassdoor reviews is so you can assess whether a company provides a working environment that you'll be happy in - and while I personally don't agree with the whole bratty trend of developers whinging because they think they should be entitled to be working on the newest shiny toys (regardless of trivial things like whether it suits the business needs of the company), at the end of the day if someone does have that mindset then ultimately they aren't going to be happy working at that company so you don't want to hire them anyway.



            If the company is upfront about what technologies etc. the position will entail, then you are going to stand a much better chance of hiring people who are a better fit for that environment, rather than people coming in with a misconception and ending up disgruntled.






            share|improve this answer



















            • 46




              You're pretty obviously not a developer. I've worked in places with shiny new PCs and I've worked in places with stuff that was obsolete five years before. Given how expensive developers are and how comparatively cheap PCs are, it's a complete waste for a company to give developers old and slow machines to work on. Whether a company respects its developers' work enough to give them quality tools to work on is a fundamental consideration when deciding where to work. But sure, developers who don't respect themselves might be happy in a place that gives them bad tools.
              – Kyralessa
              21 hours ago






            • 152




              @Kyralessa I am a developer actually.. and have been so professionally for the past 15+ years. FWIW I completely agree with you regarding PCs and other tools - when I talked about "toys" I was referring to things like frameworks, languages etc. Not PC's - BTDT with being given a shed of a dev machine and I couldn't agree with you more about it being sheer insanity. Can see how that might not have been 100% clear though.
              – motosubatsu
              21 hours ago








            • 26




              Ah, then in that case we can reconcile, as I agree with you. While it's nice to have the opportunity to learn a new framework by doing the company's latest project in it, a lot of companies aren't interested in that, for good reason.
              – Kyralessa
              20 hours ago






            • 24




              @KonradRudolph The difference is that computers are cheap to replace, (compared to a developer's salary) but rewriting your codebase to use a new framework, or even worse, a new language, can be hellishly expensive. Sometimes a rewrite might be needed, but there's a big difference.
              – Patrick M
              14 hours ago






            • 7




              @MatijaNalis: It may improve code performance (though I doubt it), but it certainly won't improve code quality, because the more time-consuming you make it for devs to test their code, the less they'll do so. More broadly . . . if you get better results from making your employees less productive, then clearly you have a much bigger problem.
              – ruakh
              9 hours ago













            up vote
            130
            down vote










            up vote
            130
            down vote









            For the purposes of this, I'm going to assume that at least the bare facts of the reviews are accurate (i.e., that the company uses older technologies and sometimes requires legacy code from new hires). That being the case, I'd actually lean towards "Ignore it", perhaps even with a mixture of "Embrace it".



            The whole point of Glassdoor reviews is so you can assess whether a company provides a working environment that you'll be happy in - and while I personally don't agree with the whole bratty trend of developers whinging because they think they should be entitled to be working on the newest shiny toys (regardless of trivial things like whether it suits the business needs of the company), at the end of the day if someone does have that mindset then ultimately they aren't going to be happy working at that company so you don't want to hire them anyway.



            If the company is upfront about what technologies etc. the position will entail, then you are going to stand a much better chance of hiring people who are a better fit for that environment, rather than people coming in with a misconception and ending up disgruntled.






            share|improve this answer














            For the purposes of this, I'm going to assume that at least the bare facts of the reviews are accurate (i.e., that the company uses older technologies and sometimes requires legacy code from new hires). That being the case, I'd actually lean towards "Ignore it", perhaps even with a mixture of "Embrace it".



            The whole point of Glassdoor reviews is so you can assess whether a company provides a working environment that you'll be happy in - and while I personally don't agree with the whole bratty trend of developers whinging because they think they should be entitled to be working on the newest shiny toys (regardless of trivial things like whether it suits the business needs of the company), at the end of the day if someone does have that mindset then ultimately they aren't going to be happy working at that company so you don't want to hire them anyway.



            If the company is upfront about what technologies etc. the position will entail, then you are going to stand a much better chance of hiring people who are a better fit for that environment, rather than people coming in with a misconception and ending up disgruntled.







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited 15 hours ago









            donjuedo

            39839




            39839










            answered 23 hours ago









            motosubatsu

            38.3k17100160




            38.3k17100160








            • 46




              You're pretty obviously not a developer. I've worked in places with shiny new PCs and I've worked in places with stuff that was obsolete five years before. Given how expensive developers are and how comparatively cheap PCs are, it's a complete waste for a company to give developers old and slow machines to work on. Whether a company respects its developers' work enough to give them quality tools to work on is a fundamental consideration when deciding where to work. But sure, developers who don't respect themselves might be happy in a place that gives them bad tools.
              – Kyralessa
              21 hours ago






            • 152




              @Kyralessa I am a developer actually.. and have been so professionally for the past 15+ years. FWIW I completely agree with you regarding PCs and other tools - when I talked about "toys" I was referring to things like frameworks, languages etc. Not PC's - BTDT with being given a shed of a dev machine and I couldn't agree with you more about it being sheer insanity. Can see how that might not have been 100% clear though.
              – motosubatsu
              21 hours ago








            • 26




              Ah, then in that case we can reconcile, as I agree with you. While it's nice to have the opportunity to learn a new framework by doing the company's latest project in it, a lot of companies aren't interested in that, for good reason.
              – Kyralessa
              20 hours ago






            • 24




              @KonradRudolph The difference is that computers are cheap to replace, (compared to a developer's salary) but rewriting your codebase to use a new framework, or even worse, a new language, can be hellishly expensive. Sometimes a rewrite might be needed, but there's a big difference.
              – Patrick M
              14 hours ago






            • 7




              @MatijaNalis: It may improve code performance (though I doubt it), but it certainly won't improve code quality, because the more time-consuming you make it for devs to test their code, the less they'll do so. More broadly . . . if you get better results from making your employees less productive, then clearly you have a much bigger problem.
              – ruakh
              9 hours ago














            • 46




              You're pretty obviously not a developer. I've worked in places with shiny new PCs and I've worked in places with stuff that was obsolete five years before. Given how expensive developers are and how comparatively cheap PCs are, it's a complete waste for a company to give developers old and slow machines to work on. Whether a company respects its developers' work enough to give them quality tools to work on is a fundamental consideration when deciding where to work. But sure, developers who don't respect themselves might be happy in a place that gives them bad tools.
              – Kyralessa
              21 hours ago






            • 152




              @Kyralessa I am a developer actually.. and have been so professionally for the past 15+ years. FWIW I completely agree with you regarding PCs and other tools - when I talked about "toys" I was referring to things like frameworks, languages etc. Not PC's - BTDT with being given a shed of a dev machine and I couldn't agree with you more about it being sheer insanity. Can see how that might not have been 100% clear though.
              – motosubatsu
              21 hours ago








            • 26




              Ah, then in that case we can reconcile, as I agree with you. While it's nice to have the opportunity to learn a new framework by doing the company's latest project in it, a lot of companies aren't interested in that, for good reason.
              – Kyralessa
              20 hours ago






            • 24




              @KonradRudolph The difference is that computers are cheap to replace, (compared to a developer's salary) but rewriting your codebase to use a new framework, or even worse, a new language, can be hellishly expensive. Sometimes a rewrite might be needed, but there's a big difference.
              – Patrick M
              14 hours ago






            • 7




              @MatijaNalis: It may improve code performance (though I doubt it), but it certainly won't improve code quality, because the more time-consuming you make it for devs to test their code, the less they'll do so. More broadly . . . if you get better results from making your employees less productive, then clearly you have a much bigger problem.
              – ruakh
              9 hours ago








            46




            46




            You're pretty obviously not a developer. I've worked in places with shiny new PCs and I've worked in places with stuff that was obsolete five years before. Given how expensive developers are and how comparatively cheap PCs are, it's a complete waste for a company to give developers old and slow machines to work on. Whether a company respects its developers' work enough to give them quality tools to work on is a fundamental consideration when deciding where to work. But sure, developers who don't respect themselves might be happy in a place that gives them bad tools.
            – Kyralessa
            21 hours ago




            You're pretty obviously not a developer. I've worked in places with shiny new PCs and I've worked in places with stuff that was obsolete five years before. Given how expensive developers are and how comparatively cheap PCs are, it's a complete waste for a company to give developers old and slow machines to work on. Whether a company respects its developers' work enough to give them quality tools to work on is a fundamental consideration when deciding where to work. But sure, developers who don't respect themselves might be happy in a place that gives them bad tools.
            – Kyralessa
            21 hours ago




            152




            152




            @Kyralessa I am a developer actually.. and have been so professionally for the past 15+ years. FWIW I completely agree with you regarding PCs and other tools - when I talked about "toys" I was referring to things like frameworks, languages etc. Not PC's - BTDT with being given a shed of a dev machine and I couldn't agree with you more about it being sheer insanity. Can see how that might not have been 100% clear though.
            – motosubatsu
            21 hours ago






            @Kyralessa I am a developer actually.. and have been so professionally for the past 15+ years. FWIW I completely agree with you regarding PCs and other tools - when I talked about "toys" I was referring to things like frameworks, languages etc. Not PC's - BTDT with being given a shed of a dev machine and I couldn't agree with you more about it being sheer insanity. Can see how that might not have been 100% clear though.
            – motosubatsu
            21 hours ago






            26




            26




            Ah, then in that case we can reconcile, as I agree with you. While it's nice to have the opportunity to learn a new framework by doing the company's latest project in it, a lot of companies aren't interested in that, for good reason.
            – Kyralessa
            20 hours ago




            Ah, then in that case we can reconcile, as I agree with you. While it's nice to have the opportunity to learn a new framework by doing the company's latest project in it, a lot of companies aren't interested in that, for good reason.
            – Kyralessa
            20 hours ago




            24




            24




            @KonradRudolph The difference is that computers are cheap to replace, (compared to a developer's salary) but rewriting your codebase to use a new framework, or even worse, a new language, can be hellishly expensive. Sometimes a rewrite might be needed, but there's a big difference.
            – Patrick M
            14 hours ago




            @KonradRudolph The difference is that computers are cheap to replace, (compared to a developer's salary) but rewriting your codebase to use a new framework, or even worse, a new language, can be hellishly expensive. Sometimes a rewrite might be needed, but there's a big difference.
            – Patrick M
            14 hours ago




            7




            7




            @MatijaNalis: It may improve code performance (though I doubt it), but it certainly won't improve code quality, because the more time-consuming you make it for devs to test their code, the less they'll do so. More broadly . . . if you get better results from making your employees less productive, then clearly you have a much bigger problem.
            – ruakh
            9 hours ago




            @MatijaNalis: It may improve code performance (though I doubt it), but it certainly won't improve code quality, because the more time-consuming you make it for devs to test their code, the less they'll do so. More broadly . . . if you get better results from making your employees less productive, then clearly you have a much bigger problem.
            – ruakh
            9 hours ago












            up vote
            33
            down vote













            You're looking at this "problem" the wrong way. The way your question reads is "People are leaving negative reviews, therefore people shouldn't be leaving negative reviews, how do we stop people from leaving negative reviews, or have the negative reviews removed to keep our reputation?". That's the mindset that makes you deserving of those negative reviews; to put it another way, if that's how you react to negative reviews, then you deserve as many negative reviews as you get, and there is no hope for you. Remember, Glassdoor doesn't take action from companies based on the companies' wishes; they don't delete reviews just for being negative just because the company asked them to, that's in their policy.



            Your mindset should be: "People are leaving negative reviews. Why are they being negative, and what can we take away from this to make people more positive?" Here's the thing: If you have 20 negative reviews that were written last month, you have a problem. If you have 20 negative reviews from 5 years ago and then another 100 positive reviews from last month, the problem goes away. So what you should do for now is ignore the negative reviews (or respond to them in a positive, professional manner, respecting the point of view of the reviewer; coming off as petulant children, which is what sounds like is happening currently, will only serve to make the problem worse). Then you take the constructive parts of the negative reviews (such as they are) and use them to implement changes. Some examples:



            1) Tech stack is too old. This is bad not only for your employees but also for your business as a whole. Perhaps today you are using technologies like C++, JQuery, and HTML4 for your tech stack, and that's fine, because these technologies are old but people still know them. But soon they won't be, and you'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer. And then you're SOL because you have legacy code that nobody can maintain. This is a warning sign for you: You should update your tech stack to something that people are learning now, and this is something you should be doing without someone giving you a 1/5 on Glassdoor before you figure it out.



            2) Management incompetence is a sign of a company which is ready to fail. If the company is big enough, management doesn't need to know the details of the tech stack. But it sounds like your company isn't at that scale yet, so management needs to be aware of what is going on. It sounds like management has their heads in the clouds. This is just irresponsible, because it means if something goes wrong they not only don't know how to fix it, but they don't even know how to go about finding out how to fix it. This can lead to misallocated resources (e.g. a frontend developer assigned to fix a database-level task) and schedule churn.



            Here's the bottom line: People leaving Glassdoor reviews is NEVER a bad thing. If you think it is a bad thing, that's because you have a problem which you know is a problem and you acknowledge as a problem but you refuse to fix it because of your pride. Get off your high horse, fix your business, make some money, and stop grandstanding.






            share|improve this answer

















            • 19




              "You'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer" -- I find that extremely difficult to believe. For one thing, I'm still in college, and I know how to dereference a pointer. For another, literally every single person in my major is required to learn how. For yet another, it's an essential part of my school's CS degree. For yet another, I already knew how before I got into college, so it's not like it's some fancy college-educated thing. (I agree with the rest of the review, but that one statement was just egregious)
              – Nic Hartley
              17 hours ago








            • 11




              There are also plenty of places where a tech stack that's had more than a year to prove itself is a pretty good thing. For example, if you're dealing with important data, like finances. Let's not forget that security is pretty important, and in a language like Java or JavaScript there's very little you can do to ensure that, say, memory gets wiped when you expect it to, without explicitly writing a little bit of code at the end of the function, like we're back in C-land. Writing code in lower-level languages isn't a bad sign by itself unless you're a bad developer.
              – Nic Hartley
              17 hours ago








            • 3




              Obvious exaggeration is obviously exaggerated.
              – Ertai87
              16 hours ago






            • 2




              @NicHartley You might know how to dereference a pointer, but there are many others who do not. I have heard quite a few software engineers with computer science degrees on the job saying "I did not know what a pointer was until I was put on this project and had to figure it out fast. They never taught us what a pointer was in college." Like you, I knew what a pointer was before college since I learned C++ from books while I was a teen, but apparently lots of people don't know even after graduation.
              – Aaron
              9 hours ago






            • 3




              @Aaron I and everyone graduating from my college with a CS-related degree do. I'd be utterly floored if my college was the only one still teaching how to use pointers, too; we're pretty average. You'll notice that my claim wasn't "everyone can do this", but "many people can do this". It's really, really not hard to find a dev who can dereference a pointer.
              – Nic Hartley
              8 hours ago















            up vote
            33
            down vote













            You're looking at this "problem" the wrong way. The way your question reads is "People are leaving negative reviews, therefore people shouldn't be leaving negative reviews, how do we stop people from leaving negative reviews, or have the negative reviews removed to keep our reputation?". That's the mindset that makes you deserving of those negative reviews; to put it another way, if that's how you react to negative reviews, then you deserve as many negative reviews as you get, and there is no hope for you. Remember, Glassdoor doesn't take action from companies based on the companies' wishes; they don't delete reviews just for being negative just because the company asked them to, that's in their policy.



            Your mindset should be: "People are leaving negative reviews. Why are they being negative, and what can we take away from this to make people more positive?" Here's the thing: If you have 20 negative reviews that were written last month, you have a problem. If you have 20 negative reviews from 5 years ago and then another 100 positive reviews from last month, the problem goes away. So what you should do for now is ignore the negative reviews (or respond to them in a positive, professional manner, respecting the point of view of the reviewer; coming off as petulant children, which is what sounds like is happening currently, will only serve to make the problem worse). Then you take the constructive parts of the negative reviews (such as they are) and use them to implement changes. Some examples:



            1) Tech stack is too old. This is bad not only for your employees but also for your business as a whole. Perhaps today you are using technologies like C++, JQuery, and HTML4 for your tech stack, and that's fine, because these technologies are old but people still know them. But soon they won't be, and you'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer. And then you're SOL because you have legacy code that nobody can maintain. This is a warning sign for you: You should update your tech stack to something that people are learning now, and this is something you should be doing without someone giving you a 1/5 on Glassdoor before you figure it out.



            2) Management incompetence is a sign of a company which is ready to fail. If the company is big enough, management doesn't need to know the details of the tech stack. But it sounds like your company isn't at that scale yet, so management needs to be aware of what is going on. It sounds like management has their heads in the clouds. This is just irresponsible, because it means if something goes wrong they not only don't know how to fix it, but they don't even know how to go about finding out how to fix it. This can lead to misallocated resources (e.g. a frontend developer assigned to fix a database-level task) and schedule churn.



            Here's the bottom line: People leaving Glassdoor reviews is NEVER a bad thing. If you think it is a bad thing, that's because you have a problem which you know is a problem and you acknowledge as a problem but you refuse to fix it because of your pride. Get off your high horse, fix your business, make some money, and stop grandstanding.






            share|improve this answer

















            • 19




              "You'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer" -- I find that extremely difficult to believe. For one thing, I'm still in college, and I know how to dereference a pointer. For another, literally every single person in my major is required to learn how. For yet another, it's an essential part of my school's CS degree. For yet another, I already knew how before I got into college, so it's not like it's some fancy college-educated thing. (I agree with the rest of the review, but that one statement was just egregious)
              – Nic Hartley
              17 hours ago








            • 11




              There are also plenty of places where a tech stack that's had more than a year to prove itself is a pretty good thing. For example, if you're dealing with important data, like finances. Let's not forget that security is pretty important, and in a language like Java or JavaScript there's very little you can do to ensure that, say, memory gets wiped when you expect it to, without explicitly writing a little bit of code at the end of the function, like we're back in C-land. Writing code in lower-level languages isn't a bad sign by itself unless you're a bad developer.
              – Nic Hartley
              17 hours ago








            • 3




              Obvious exaggeration is obviously exaggerated.
              – Ertai87
              16 hours ago






            • 2




              @NicHartley You might know how to dereference a pointer, but there are many others who do not. I have heard quite a few software engineers with computer science degrees on the job saying "I did not know what a pointer was until I was put on this project and had to figure it out fast. They never taught us what a pointer was in college." Like you, I knew what a pointer was before college since I learned C++ from books while I was a teen, but apparently lots of people don't know even after graduation.
              – Aaron
              9 hours ago






            • 3




              @Aaron I and everyone graduating from my college with a CS-related degree do. I'd be utterly floored if my college was the only one still teaching how to use pointers, too; we're pretty average. You'll notice that my claim wasn't "everyone can do this", but "many people can do this". It's really, really not hard to find a dev who can dereference a pointer.
              – Nic Hartley
              8 hours ago













            up vote
            33
            down vote










            up vote
            33
            down vote









            You're looking at this "problem" the wrong way. The way your question reads is "People are leaving negative reviews, therefore people shouldn't be leaving negative reviews, how do we stop people from leaving negative reviews, or have the negative reviews removed to keep our reputation?". That's the mindset that makes you deserving of those negative reviews; to put it another way, if that's how you react to negative reviews, then you deserve as many negative reviews as you get, and there is no hope for you. Remember, Glassdoor doesn't take action from companies based on the companies' wishes; they don't delete reviews just for being negative just because the company asked them to, that's in their policy.



            Your mindset should be: "People are leaving negative reviews. Why are they being negative, and what can we take away from this to make people more positive?" Here's the thing: If you have 20 negative reviews that were written last month, you have a problem. If you have 20 negative reviews from 5 years ago and then another 100 positive reviews from last month, the problem goes away. So what you should do for now is ignore the negative reviews (or respond to them in a positive, professional manner, respecting the point of view of the reviewer; coming off as petulant children, which is what sounds like is happening currently, will only serve to make the problem worse). Then you take the constructive parts of the negative reviews (such as they are) and use them to implement changes. Some examples:



            1) Tech stack is too old. This is bad not only for your employees but also for your business as a whole. Perhaps today you are using technologies like C++, JQuery, and HTML4 for your tech stack, and that's fine, because these technologies are old but people still know them. But soon they won't be, and you'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer. And then you're SOL because you have legacy code that nobody can maintain. This is a warning sign for you: You should update your tech stack to something that people are learning now, and this is something you should be doing without someone giving you a 1/5 on Glassdoor before you figure it out.



            2) Management incompetence is a sign of a company which is ready to fail. If the company is big enough, management doesn't need to know the details of the tech stack. But it sounds like your company isn't at that scale yet, so management needs to be aware of what is going on. It sounds like management has their heads in the clouds. This is just irresponsible, because it means if something goes wrong they not only don't know how to fix it, but they don't even know how to go about finding out how to fix it. This can lead to misallocated resources (e.g. a frontend developer assigned to fix a database-level task) and schedule churn.



            Here's the bottom line: People leaving Glassdoor reviews is NEVER a bad thing. If you think it is a bad thing, that's because you have a problem which you know is a problem and you acknowledge as a problem but you refuse to fix it because of your pride. Get off your high horse, fix your business, make some money, and stop grandstanding.






            share|improve this answer












            You're looking at this "problem" the wrong way. The way your question reads is "People are leaving negative reviews, therefore people shouldn't be leaving negative reviews, how do we stop people from leaving negative reviews, or have the negative reviews removed to keep our reputation?". That's the mindset that makes you deserving of those negative reviews; to put it another way, if that's how you react to negative reviews, then you deserve as many negative reviews as you get, and there is no hope for you. Remember, Glassdoor doesn't take action from companies based on the companies' wishes; they don't delete reviews just for being negative just because the company asked them to, that's in their policy.



            Your mindset should be: "People are leaving negative reviews. Why are they being negative, and what can we take away from this to make people more positive?" Here's the thing: If you have 20 negative reviews that were written last month, you have a problem. If you have 20 negative reviews from 5 years ago and then another 100 positive reviews from last month, the problem goes away. So what you should do for now is ignore the negative reviews (or respond to them in a positive, professional manner, respecting the point of view of the reviewer; coming off as petulant children, which is what sounds like is happening currently, will only serve to make the problem worse). Then you take the constructive parts of the negative reviews (such as they are) and use them to implement changes. Some examples:



            1) Tech stack is too old. This is bad not only for your employees but also for your business as a whole. Perhaps today you are using technologies like C++, JQuery, and HTML4 for your tech stack, and that's fine, because these technologies are old but people still know them. But soon they won't be, and you'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer. And then you're SOL because you have legacy code that nobody can maintain. This is a warning sign for you: You should update your tech stack to something that people are learning now, and this is something you should be doing without someone giving you a 1/5 on Glassdoor before you figure it out.



            2) Management incompetence is a sign of a company which is ready to fail. If the company is big enough, management doesn't need to know the details of the tech stack. But it sounds like your company isn't at that scale yet, so management needs to be aware of what is going on. It sounds like management has their heads in the clouds. This is just irresponsible, because it means if something goes wrong they not only don't know how to fix it, but they don't even know how to go about finding out how to fix it. This can lead to misallocated resources (e.g. a frontend developer assigned to fix a database-level task) and schedule churn.



            Here's the bottom line: People leaving Glassdoor reviews is NEVER a bad thing. If you think it is a bad thing, that's because you have a problem which you know is a problem and you acknowledge as a problem but you refuse to fix it because of your pride. Get off your high horse, fix your business, make some money, and stop grandstanding.







            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered 19 hours ago









            Ertai87

            4,951518




            4,951518








            • 19




              "You'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer" -- I find that extremely difficult to believe. For one thing, I'm still in college, and I know how to dereference a pointer. For another, literally every single person in my major is required to learn how. For yet another, it's an essential part of my school's CS degree. For yet another, I already knew how before I got into college, so it's not like it's some fancy college-educated thing. (I agree with the rest of the review, but that one statement was just egregious)
              – Nic Hartley
              17 hours ago








            • 11




              There are also plenty of places where a tech stack that's had more than a year to prove itself is a pretty good thing. For example, if you're dealing with important data, like finances. Let's not forget that security is pretty important, and in a language like Java or JavaScript there's very little you can do to ensure that, say, memory gets wiped when you expect it to, without explicitly writing a little bit of code at the end of the function, like we're back in C-land. Writing code in lower-level languages isn't a bad sign by itself unless you're a bad developer.
              – Nic Hartley
              17 hours ago








            • 3




              Obvious exaggeration is obviously exaggerated.
              – Ertai87
              16 hours ago






            • 2




              @NicHartley You might know how to dereference a pointer, but there are many others who do not. I have heard quite a few software engineers with computer science degrees on the job saying "I did not know what a pointer was until I was put on this project and had to figure it out fast. They never taught us what a pointer was in college." Like you, I knew what a pointer was before college since I learned C++ from books while I was a teen, but apparently lots of people don't know even after graduation.
              – Aaron
              9 hours ago






            • 3




              @Aaron I and everyone graduating from my college with a CS-related degree do. I'd be utterly floored if my college was the only one still teaching how to use pointers, too; we're pretty average. You'll notice that my claim wasn't "everyone can do this", but "many people can do this". It's really, really not hard to find a dev who can dereference a pointer.
              – Nic Hartley
              8 hours ago














            • 19




              "You'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer" -- I find that extremely difficult to believe. For one thing, I'm still in college, and I know how to dereference a pointer. For another, literally every single person in my major is required to learn how. For yet another, it's an essential part of my school's CS degree. For yet another, I already knew how before I got into college, so it's not like it's some fancy college-educated thing. (I agree with the rest of the review, but that one statement was just egregious)
              – Nic Hartley
              17 hours ago








            • 11




              There are also plenty of places where a tech stack that's had more than a year to prove itself is a pretty good thing. For example, if you're dealing with important data, like finances. Let's not forget that security is pretty important, and in a language like Java or JavaScript there's very little you can do to ensure that, say, memory gets wiped when you expect it to, without explicitly writing a little bit of code at the end of the function, like we're back in C-land. Writing code in lower-level languages isn't a bad sign by itself unless you're a bad developer.
              – Nic Hartley
              17 hours ago








            • 3




              Obvious exaggeration is obviously exaggerated.
              – Ertai87
              16 hours ago






            • 2




              @NicHartley You might know how to dereference a pointer, but there are many others who do not. I have heard quite a few software engineers with computer science degrees on the job saying "I did not know what a pointer was until I was put on this project and had to figure it out fast. They never taught us what a pointer was in college." Like you, I knew what a pointer was before college since I learned C++ from books while I was a teen, but apparently lots of people don't know even after graduation.
              – Aaron
              9 hours ago






            • 3




              @Aaron I and everyone graduating from my college with a CS-related degree do. I'd be utterly floored if my college was the only one still teaching how to use pointers, too; we're pretty average. You'll notice that my claim wasn't "everyone can do this", but "many people can do this". It's really, really not hard to find a dev who can dereference a pointer.
              – Nic Hartley
              8 hours ago








            19




            19




            "You'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer" -- I find that extremely difficult to believe. For one thing, I'm still in college, and I know how to dereference a pointer. For another, literally every single person in my major is required to learn how. For yet another, it's an essential part of my school's CS degree. For yet another, I already knew how before I got into college, so it's not like it's some fancy college-educated thing. (I agree with the rest of the review, but that one statement was just egregious)
            – Nic Hartley
            17 hours ago






            "You'll be hard pressed to find a developer below retirement age who knows how to dereference a pointer" -- I find that extremely difficult to believe. For one thing, I'm still in college, and I know how to dereference a pointer. For another, literally every single person in my major is required to learn how. For yet another, it's an essential part of my school's CS degree. For yet another, I already knew how before I got into college, so it's not like it's some fancy college-educated thing. (I agree with the rest of the review, but that one statement was just egregious)
            – Nic Hartley
            17 hours ago






            11




            11




            There are also plenty of places where a tech stack that's had more than a year to prove itself is a pretty good thing. For example, if you're dealing with important data, like finances. Let's not forget that security is pretty important, and in a language like Java or JavaScript there's very little you can do to ensure that, say, memory gets wiped when you expect it to, without explicitly writing a little bit of code at the end of the function, like we're back in C-land. Writing code in lower-level languages isn't a bad sign by itself unless you're a bad developer.
            – Nic Hartley
            17 hours ago






            There are also plenty of places where a tech stack that's had more than a year to prove itself is a pretty good thing. For example, if you're dealing with important data, like finances. Let's not forget that security is pretty important, and in a language like Java or JavaScript there's very little you can do to ensure that, say, memory gets wiped when you expect it to, without explicitly writing a little bit of code at the end of the function, like we're back in C-land. Writing code in lower-level languages isn't a bad sign by itself unless you're a bad developer.
            – Nic Hartley
            17 hours ago






            3




            3




            Obvious exaggeration is obviously exaggerated.
            – Ertai87
            16 hours ago




            Obvious exaggeration is obviously exaggerated.
            – Ertai87
            16 hours ago




            2




            2




            @NicHartley You might know how to dereference a pointer, but there are many others who do not. I have heard quite a few software engineers with computer science degrees on the job saying "I did not know what a pointer was until I was put on this project and had to figure it out fast. They never taught us what a pointer was in college." Like you, I knew what a pointer was before college since I learned C++ from books while I was a teen, but apparently lots of people don't know even after graduation.
            – Aaron
            9 hours ago




            @NicHartley You might know how to dereference a pointer, but there are many others who do not. I have heard quite a few software engineers with computer science degrees on the job saying "I did not know what a pointer was until I was put on this project and had to figure it out fast. They never taught us what a pointer was in college." Like you, I knew what a pointer was before college since I learned C++ from books while I was a teen, but apparently lots of people don't know even after graduation.
            – Aaron
            9 hours ago




            3




            3




            @Aaron I and everyone graduating from my college with a CS-related degree do. I'd be utterly floored if my college was the only one still teaching how to use pointers, too; we're pretty average. You'll notice that my claim wasn't "everyone can do this", but "many people can do this". It's really, really not hard to find a dev who can dereference a pointer.
            – Nic Hartley
            8 hours ago




            @Aaron I and everyone graduating from my college with a CS-related degree do. I'd be utterly floored if my college was the only one still teaching how to use pointers, too; we're pretty average. You'll notice that my claim wasn't "everyone can do this", but "many people can do this". It's really, really not hard to find a dev who can dereference a pointer.
            – Nic Hartley
            8 hours ago










            up vote
            28
            down vote














            Leave a comment under each review calling it fake.




            What would "fake" mean in this case?



            Did the person claiming the reviews were fake think the info in the reviews was false (i.e. the company doesn't use old-fashioned systems) or did they think the reviews were all written by one person?



            If the reviews aren't facts-based, this can be pointed to. For example, it can be pointed out by the company's HR that they are actually using state-of-the-art technologies.



            But lying can normally lead to a PR disaster.




            Write to Glassdoor asking them to
            remove "fake" reviews.




            If they were all produced by one person, it should be possible to prove that easily, so yes, it's a solution. But hopefully, glassdoor doesn't delete legitimate reviews.




            Ask employees, directly or indirectly,
            to write some good reviews instead.




            I use glassdoor and similar sites a lot and it's normally very clear which reviews were written by the HR.



            Not to mention that when I was asked to produce similar reviews, this did impact on my opinion about my current employer. It's hard to respect a company that wants you to produce fake reviews.




            Ignore it.




            Well, it's better to ignore it than to write a silly answer, that's for sure.





            The best response from the PR point of view would be, however, one not listed by you. The best response is to react constructively. This means the management should analyze the points from the reviews and take a fair stance on them. For example, if many people write the company is using old technologies, it would be good to scrutinize whether that's really the case or not.



            If that's true, the company should own to it, but stress for example, that the technologies are still used by plenty of important companies, so by learning them new employees get valuable skills and that candidates learn about the technologies used from job ads and later during the interview processes - that nobody is misled.



            This assertion makes sense only if really nobody is misled of course.



            And if the company is really bad - if it misleads candidates promising them modern technologies, development and then gives them jobs using technologies from the 80s?



            Well, then it's good it gets criticized online. The relation between employers and candidates is a dramatically unequal one. So it's good that some candidates will learn the truth from such reviews.






            share|improve this answer



















            • 1




              Not really the 80's, more like 00's, add some bad practices to the mix, add in hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything, and it's not a pleasant experience overall. So even if you're ok with older technologies, quality control has been nonexistent for years. It's not a fun codebase to work with.
              – rath
              23 hours ago








            • 10




              @rath "hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything" I find that to be one of the biggest issues there are when the quality control is lacking (or simply absent). You find code that should be changed but know that changing it would mean off-hours work and getting blame afterwards if anything built on it elsewhere stops working, so you're forced to write wrappers that make the problem even worse for the next addition. Technical debt can kill projects.
              – LordHieros
              22 hours ago










            • @LordHieros Exactly the case and a big reason why I left
              – rath
              21 hours ago






            • 2




              Interesting side-note: While you can counter-argue to objective claims, you can also just try to point at the glassdoor policy and maybe get their moderators on your side. They explicitly discourage factual statements in favour of clearly opinion-based statements, quote: 'We strongly suggest you not make provable statements of fact in your Glassdoor reviews. We encourage you instead to offer your "opinions" about your workplace.' help.glassdoor.com/article/… Feel free to incorporate that into your answer if you want.
              – Darkwing
              21 hours ago















            up vote
            28
            down vote














            Leave a comment under each review calling it fake.




            What would "fake" mean in this case?



            Did the person claiming the reviews were fake think the info in the reviews was false (i.e. the company doesn't use old-fashioned systems) or did they think the reviews were all written by one person?



            If the reviews aren't facts-based, this can be pointed to. For example, it can be pointed out by the company's HR that they are actually using state-of-the-art technologies.



            But lying can normally lead to a PR disaster.




            Write to Glassdoor asking them to
            remove "fake" reviews.




            If they were all produced by one person, it should be possible to prove that easily, so yes, it's a solution. But hopefully, glassdoor doesn't delete legitimate reviews.




            Ask employees, directly or indirectly,
            to write some good reviews instead.




            I use glassdoor and similar sites a lot and it's normally very clear which reviews were written by the HR.



            Not to mention that when I was asked to produce similar reviews, this did impact on my opinion about my current employer. It's hard to respect a company that wants you to produce fake reviews.




            Ignore it.




            Well, it's better to ignore it than to write a silly answer, that's for sure.





            The best response from the PR point of view would be, however, one not listed by you. The best response is to react constructively. This means the management should analyze the points from the reviews and take a fair stance on them. For example, if many people write the company is using old technologies, it would be good to scrutinize whether that's really the case or not.



            If that's true, the company should own to it, but stress for example, that the technologies are still used by plenty of important companies, so by learning them new employees get valuable skills and that candidates learn about the technologies used from job ads and later during the interview processes - that nobody is misled.



            This assertion makes sense only if really nobody is misled of course.



            And if the company is really bad - if it misleads candidates promising them modern technologies, development and then gives them jobs using technologies from the 80s?



            Well, then it's good it gets criticized online. The relation between employers and candidates is a dramatically unequal one. So it's good that some candidates will learn the truth from such reviews.






            share|improve this answer



















            • 1




              Not really the 80's, more like 00's, add some bad practices to the mix, add in hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything, and it's not a pleasant experience overall. So even if you're ok with older technologies, quality control has been nonexistent for years. It's not a fun codebase to work with.
              – rath
              23 hours ago








            • 10




              @rath "hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything" I find that to be one of the biggest issues there are when the quality control is lacking (or simply absent). You find code that should be changed but know that changing it would mean off-hours work and getting blame afterwards if anything built on it elsewhere stops working, so you're forced to write wrappers that make the problem even worse for the next addition. Technical debt can kill projects.
              – LordHieros
              22 hours ago










            • @LordHieros Exactly the case and a big reason why I left
              – rath
              21 hours ago






            • 2




              Interesting side-note: While you can counter-argue to objective claims, you can also just try to point at the glassdoor policy and maybe get their moderators on your side. They explicitly discourage factual statements in favour of clearly opinion-based statements, quote: 'We strongly suggest you not make provable statements of fact in your Glassdoor reviews. We encourage you instead to offer your "opinions" about your workplace.' help.glassdoor.com/article/… Feel free to incorporate that into your answer if you want.
              – Darkwing
              21 hours ago













            up vote
            28
            down vote










            up vote
            28
            down vote










            Leave a comment under each review calling it fake.




            What would "fake" mean in this case?



            Did the person claiming the reviews were fake think the info in the reviews was false (i.e. the company doesn't use old-fashioned systems) or did they think the reviews were all written by one person?



            If the reviews aren't facts-based, this can be pointed to. For example, it can be pointed out by the company's HR that they are actually using state-of-the-art technologies.



            But lying can normally lead to a PR disaster.




            Write to Glassdoor asking them to
            remove "fake" reviews.




            If they were all produced by one person, it should be possible to prove that easily, so yes, it's a solution. But hopefully, glassdoor doesn't delete legitimate reviews.




            Ask employees, directly or indirectly,
            to write some good reviews instead.




            I use glassdoor and similar sites a lot and it's normally very clear which reviews were written by the HR.



            Not to mention that when I was asked to produce similar reviews, this did impact on my opinion about my current employer. It's hard to respect a company that wants you to produce fake reviews.




            Ignore it.




            Well, it's better to ignore it than to write a silly answer, that's for sure.





            The best response from the PR point of view would be, however, one not listed by you. The best response is to react constructively. This means the management should analyze the points from the reviews and take a fair stance on them. For example, if many people write the company is using old technologies, it would be good to scrutinize whether that's really the case or not.



            If that's true, the company should own to it, but stress for example, that the technologies are still used by plenty of important companies, so by learning them new employees get valuable skills and that candidates learn about the technologies used from job ads and later during the interview processes - that nobody is misled.



            This assertion makes sense only if really nobody is misled of course.



            And if the company is really bad - if it misleads candidates promising them modern technologies, development and then gives them jobs using technologies from the 80s?



            Well, then it's good it gets criticized online. The relation between employers and candidates is a dramatically unequal one. So it's good that some candidates will learn the truth from such reviews.






            share|improve this answer















            Leave a comment under each review calling it fake.




            What would "fake" mean in this case?



            Did the person claiming the reviews were fake think the info in the reviews was false (i.e. the company doesn't use old-fashioned systems) or did they think the reviews were all written by one person?



            If the reviews aren't facts-based, this can be pointed to. For example, it can be pointed out by the company's HR that they are actually using state-of-the-art technologies.



            But lying can normally lead to a PR disaster.




            Write to Glassdoor asking them to
            remove "fake" reviews.




            If they were all produced by one person, it should be possible to prove that easily, so yes, it's a solution. But hopefully, glassdoor doesn't delete legitimate reviews.




            Ask employees, directly or indirectly,
            to write some good reviews instead.




            I use glassdoor and similar sites a lot and it's normally very clear which reviews were written by the HR.



            Not to mention that when I was asked to produce similar reviews, this did impact on my opinion about my current employer. It's hard to respect a company that wants you to produce fake reviews.




            Ignore it.




            Well, it's better to ignore it than to write a silly answer, that's for sure.





            The best response from the PR point of view would be, however, one not listed by you. The best response is to react constructively. This means the management should analyze the points from the reviews and take a fair stance on them. For example, if many people write the company is using old technologies, it would be good to scrutinize whether that's really the case or not.



            If that's true, the company should own to it, but stress for example, that the technologies are still used by plenty of important companies, so by learning them new employees get valuable skills and that candidates learn about the technologies used from job ads and later during the interview processes - that nobody is misled.



            This assertion makes sense only if really nobody is misled of course.



            And if the company is really bad - if it misleads candidates promising them modern technologies, development and then gives them jobs using technologies from the 80s?



            Well, then it's good it gets criticized online. The relation between employers and candidates is a dramatically unequal one. So it's good that some candidates will learn the truth from such reviews.







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited 23 hours ago

























            answered 23 hours ago









            385703

            7,14651441




            7,14651441








            • 1




              Not really the 80's, more like 00's, add some bad practices to the mix, add in hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything, and it's not a pleasant experience overall. So even if you're ok with older technologies, quality control has been nonexistent for years. It's not a fun codebase to work with.
              – rath
              23 hours ago








            • 10




              @rath "hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything" I find that to be one of the biggest issues there are when the quality control is lacking (or simply absent). You find code that should be changed but know that changing it would mean off-hours work and getting blame afterwards if anything built on it elsewhere stops working, so you're forced to write wrappers that make the problem even worse for the next addition. Technical debt can kill projects.
              – LordHieros
              22 hours ago










            • @LordHieros Exactly the case and a big reason why I left
              – rath
              21 hours ago






            • 2




              Interesting side-note: While you can counter-argue to objective claims, you can also just try to point at the glassdoor policy and maybe get their moderators on your side. They explicitly discourage factual statements in favour of clearly opinion-based statements, quote: 'We strongly suggest you not make provable statements of fact in your Glassdoor reviews. We encourage you instead to offer your "opinions" about your workplace.' help.glassdoor.com/article/… Feel free to incorporate that into your answer if you want.
              – Darkwing
              21 hours ago














            • 1




              Not really the 80's, more like 00's, add some bad practices to the mix, add in hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything, and it's not a pleasant experience overall. So even if you're ok with older technologies, quality control has been nonexistent for years. It's not a fun codebase to work with.
              – rath
              23 hours ago








            • 10




              @rath "hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything" I find that to be one of the biggest issues there are when the quality control is lacking (or simply absent). You find code that should be changed but know that changing it would mean off-hours work and getting blame afterwards if anything built on it elsewhere stops working, so you're forced to write wrappers that make the problem even worse for the next addition. Technical debt can kill projects.
              – LordHieros
              22 hours ago










            • @LordHieros Exactly the case and a big reason why I left
              – rath
              21 hours ago






            • 2




              Interesting side-note: While you can counter-argue to objective claims, you can also just try to point at the glassdoor policy and maybe get their moderators on your side. They explicitly discourage factual statements in favour of clearly opinion-based statements, quote: 'We strongly suggest you not make provable statements of fact in your Glassdoor reviews. We encourage you instead to offer your "opinions" about your workplace.' help.glassdoor.com/article/… Feel free to incorporate that into your answer if you want.
              – Darkwing
              21 hours ago








            1




            1




            Not really the 80's, more like 00's, add some bad practices to the mix, add in hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything, and it's not a pleasant experience overall. So even if you're ok with older technologies, quality control has been nonexistent for years. It's not a fun codebase to work with.
            – rath
            23 hours ago






            Not really the 80's, more like 00's, add some bad practices to the mix, add in hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything, and it's not a pleasant experience overall. So even if you're ok with older technologies, quality control has been nonexistent for years. It's not a fun codebase to work with.
            – rath
            23 hours ago






            10




            10




            @rath "hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything" I find that to be one of the biggest issues there are when the quality control is lacking (or simply absent). You find code that should be changed but know that changing it would mean off-hours work and getting blame afterwards if anything built on it elsewhere stops working, so you're forced to write wrappers that make the problem even worse for the next addition. Technical debt can kill projects.
            – LordHieros
            22 hours ago




            @rath "hasty / brittle code that no one wants to touch lest they break absolutely everything" I find that to be one of the biggest issues there are when the quality control is lacking (or simply absent). You find code that should be changed but know that changing it would mean off-hours work and getting blame afterwards if anything built on it elsewhere stops working, so you're forced to write wrappers that make the problem even worse for the next addition. Technical debt can kill projects.
            – LordHieros
            22 hours ago












            @LordHieros Exactly the case and a big reason why I left
            – rath
            21 hours ago




            @LordHieros Exactly the case and a big reason why I left
            – rath
            21 hours ago




            2




            2




            Interesting side-note: While you can counter-argue to objective claims, you can also just try to point at the glassdoor policy and maybe get their moderators on your side. They explicitly discourage factual statements in favour of clearly opinion-based statements, quote: 'We strongly suggest you not make provable statements of fact in your Glassdoor reviews. We encourage you instead to offer your "opinions" about your workplace.' help.glassdoor.com/article/… Feel free to incorporate that into your answer if you want.
            – Darkwing
            21 hours ago




            Interesting side-note: While you can counter-argue to objective claims, you can also just try to point at the glassdoor policy and maybe get their moderators on your side. They explicitly discourage factual statements in favour of clearly opinion-based statements, quote: 'We strongly suggest you not make provable statements of fact in your Glassdoor reviews. We encourage you instead to offer your "opinions" about your workplace.' help.glassdoor.com/article/… Feel free to incorporate that into your answer if you want.
            – Darkwing
            21 hours ago










            up vote
            10
            down vote













            Adding a response to complaints is the correct answer - but calling them each "fake" is the wrong answer.



            When people leave a review on the company, and the feedback is negative, responding by calling it 'fake' does not leave the correct impression - it leads people to believe that your company sweeps problems under the rug and doesn't really care about negative feedback at all. While it might be frustrating to your CEO, if a problem is preported it should be addressed - and in a mature and level-headed manner.



            The correct way to respond to these reviews is to address the issue - to leave a comment detailing how the company works to assist people with the problems these programmers have - perhaps even to explain that yes, your company is in the business of maintaining legacy programs, because you are a long-standing company with a lot of legacy users who need that support, and that you offer plenty of training for these long-standing programs and for new recruits.



            I don't know the full details of your company - but the bottom line of this is that the best way to deflect complaints like this is to tackle them head-on, and show that you are above these whiners - not to completely ignore them, but to overwhelm them with concern for their reported company issues.



            Note - ideally, you would also actually be implementing these improvements, but in lieu of that, you can at least acknowledge these problems and explain steps that you plan to take to correct them.






            share|improve this answer

























              up vote
              10
              down vote













              Adding a response to complaints is the correct answer - but calling them each "fake" is the wrong answer.



              When people leave a review on the company, and the feedback is negative, responding by calling it 'fake' does not leave the correct impression - it leads people to believe that your company sweeps problems under the rug and doesn't really care about negative feedback at all. While it might be frustrating to your CEO, if a problem is preported it should be addressed - and in a mature and level-headed manner.



              The correct way to respond to these reviews is to address the issue - to leave a comment detailing how the company works to assist people with the problems these programmers have - perhaps even to explain that yes, your company is in the business of maintaining legacy programs, because you are a long-standing company with a lot of legacy users who need that support, and that you offer plenty of training for these long-standing programs and for new recruits.



              I don't know the full details of your company - but the bottom line of this is that the best way to deflect complaints like this is to tackle them head-on, and show that you are above these whiners - not to completely ignore them, but to overwhelm them with concern for their reported company issues.



              Note - ideally, you would also actually be implementing these improvements, but in lieu of that, you can at least acknowledge these problems and explain steps that you plan to take to correct them.






              share|improve this answer























                up vote
                10
                down vote










                up vote
                10
                down vote









                Adding a response to complaints is the correct answer - but calling them each "fake" is the wrong answer.



                When people leave a review on the company, and the feedback is negative, responding by calling it 'fake' does not leave the correct impression - it leads people to believe that your company sweeps problems under the rug and doesn't really care about negative feedback at all. While it might be frustrating to your CEO, if a problem is preported it should be addressed - and in a mature and level-headed manner.



                The correct way to respond to these reviews is to address the issue - to leave a comment detailing how the company works to assist people with the problems these programmers have - perhaps even to explain that yes, your company is in the business of maintaining legacy programs, because you are a long-standing company with a lot of legacy users who need that support, and that you offer plenty of training for these long-standing programs and for new recruits.



                I don't know the full details of your company - but the bottom line of this is that the best way to deflect complaints like this is to tackle them head-on, and show that you are above these whiners - not to completely ignore them, but to overwhelm them with concern for their reported company issues.



                Note - ideally, you would also actually be implementing these improvements, but in lieu of that, you can at least acknowledge these problems and explain steps that you plan to take to correct them.






                share|improve this answer












                Adding a response to complaints is the correct answer - but calling them each "fake" is the wrong answer.



                When people leave a review on the company, and the feedback is negative, responding by calling it 'fake' does not leave the correct impression - it leads people to believe that your company sweeps problems under the rug and doesn't really care about negative feedback at all. While it might be frustrating to your CEO, if a problem is preported it should be addressed - and in a mature and level-headed manner.



                The correct way to respond to these reviews is to address the issue - to leave a comment detailing how the company works to assist people with the problems these programmers have - perhaps even to explain that yes, your company is in the business of maintaining legacy programs, because you are a long-standing company with a lot of legacy users who need that support, and that you offer plenty of training for these long-standing programs and for new recruits.



                I don't know the full details of your company - but the bottom line of this is that the best way to deflect complaints like this is to tackle them head-on, and show that you are above these whiners - not to completely ignore them, but to overwhelm them with concern for their reported company issues.



                Note - ideally, you would also actually be implementing these improvements, but in lieu of that, you can at least acknowledge these problems and explain steps that you plan to take to correct them.







                share|improve this answer












                share|improve this answer



                share|improve this answer










                answered 19 hours ago









                Zibbobz

                6,81552455




                6,81552455






















                    up vote
                    7
                    down vote













                    There really is only two things that the management can do about this. One is long-term, and the other is short-term.



                    In the short-term...



                    Instead of inserting comments which call negative reviews "fake", someone who represents the company can address the individual case in a kind and humane way while also indicating the steps the company is taking to avoid this kind of problem in the future. This is the best way to handle hot-headed negative reviews, in some cases it can even be interpreted as a positive by readers.



                    In the long term...



                    Learn from the criticism they've received, and implement changes.






                    share|improve this answer

























                      up vote
                      7
                      down vote













                      There really is only two things that the management can do about this. One is long-term, and the other is short-term.



                      In the short-term...



                      Instead of inserting comments which call negative reviews "fake", someone who represents the company can address the individual case in a kind and humane way while also indicating the steps the company is taking to avoid this kind of problem in the future. This is the best way to handle hot-headed negative reviews, in some cases it can even be interpreted as a positive by readers.



                      In the long term...



                      Learn from the criticism they've received, and implement changes.






                      share|improve this answer























                        up vote
                        7
                        down vote










                        up vote
                        7
                        down vote









                        There really is only two things that the management can do about this. One is long-term, and the other is short-term.



                        In the short-term...



                        Instead of inserting comments which call negative reviews "fake", someone who represents the company can address the individual case in a kind and humane way while also indicating the steps the company is taking to avoid this kind of problem in the future. This is the best way to handle hot-headed negative reviews, in some cases it can even be interpreted as a positive by readers.



                        In the long term...



                        Learn from the criticism they've received, and implement changes.






                        share|improve this answer












                        There really is only two things that the management can do about this. One is long-term, and the other is short-term.



                        In the short-term...



                        Instead of inserting comments which call negative reviews "fake", someone who represents the company can address the individual case in a kind and humane way while also indicating the steps the company is taking to avoid this kind of problem in the future. This is the best way to handle hot-headed negative reviews, in some cases it can even be interpreted as a positive by readers.



                        In the long term...



                        Learn from the criticism they've received, and implement changes.







                        share|improve this answer












                        share|improve this answer



                        share|improve this answer










                        answered 20 hours ago









                        teego1967

                        10.9k42946




                        10.9k42946






















                            up vote
                            4
                            down vote













                            I have seen this happening, and the net result was lowering the level of candidates for non-managerial jobs. Your CEO has work to do if he wants to rescue the company's reputation in the talent pool.
                            In terms of practical actions, the CEO needs to address this internally, prioritising complaints and reviewing the most urgent ones internally. Certainly, he doesn't want to brainstorm about those reviews with the whole organisation.






                            share|improve this answer

























                              up vote
                              4
                              down vote













                              I have seen this happening, and the net result was lowering the level of candidates for non-managerial jobs. Your CEO has work to do if he wants to rescue the company's reputation in the talent pool.
                              In terms of practical actions, the CEO needs to address this internally, prioritising complaints and reviewing the most urgent ones internally. Certainly, he doesn't want to brainstorm about those reviews with the whole organisation.






                              share|improve this answer























                                up vote
                                4
                                down vote










                                up vote
                                4
                                down vote









                                I have seen this happening, and the net result was lowering the level of candidates for non-managerial jobs. Your CEO has work to do if he wants to rescue the company's reputation in the talent pool.
                                In terms of practical actions, the CEO needs to address this internally, prioritising complaints and reviewing the most urgent ones internally. Certainly, he doesn't want to brainstorm about those reviews with the whole organisation.






                                share|improve this answer












                                I have seen this happening, and the net result was lowering the level of candidates for non-managerial jobs. Your CEO has work to do if he wants to rescue the company's reputation in the talent pool.
                                In terms of practical actions, the CEO needs to address this internally, prioritising complaints and reviewing the most urgent ones internally. Certainly, he doesn't want to brainstorm about those reviews with the whole organisation.







                                share|improve this answer












                                share|improve this answer



                                share|improve this answer










                                answered 23 hours ago









                                Monoandale

                                2,80041849




                                2,80041849






















                                    up vote
                                    3
                                    down vote













                                    Make it a positive experience. Leave a note on Glassdoor that says "Yes, your company's infrastructure is based on VB6 and SQL Server 7 and that it works nicely and meets your needs, and that you're happy with it, not planning on replacing it, and are looking for employees that are also happy with it." Also note that this wasn't a surprise and that the employee was told what the work was before accepting employment.



                                    The world is full of people who would be thrilled to work with whatever technology you have.



                                    The biggest thing you need to do is make sure you set their expectations from the start. You'll probably need to hire experienced, older devs and skip recent grads.




                                    Glassdoor debacle?




                                    It's only a debacle if you perceive it as such.






                                    share|improve this answer










                                    New contributor




                                    Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                    Check out our Code of Conduct.






















                                      up vote
                                      3
                                      down vote













                                      Make it a positive experience. Leave a note on Glassdoor that says "Yes, your company's infrastructure is based on VB6 and SQL Server 7 and that it works nicely and meets your needs, and that you're happy with it, not planning on replacing it, and are looking for employees that are also happy with it." Also note that this wasn't a surprise and that the employee was told what the work was before accepting employment.



                                      The world is full of people who would be thrilled to work with whatever technology you have.



                                      The biggest thing you need to do is make sure you set their expectations from the start. You'll probably need to hire experienced, older devs and skip recent grads.




                                      Glassdoor debacle?




                                      It's only a debacle if you perceive it as such.






                                      share|improve this answer










                                      New contributor




                                      Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                      Check out our Code of Conduct.




















                                        up vote
                                        3
                                        down vote










                                        up vote
                                        3
                                        down vote









                                        Make it a positive experience. Leave a note on Glassdoor that says "Yes, your company's infrastructure is based on VB6 and SQL Server 7 and that it works nicely and meets your needs, and that you're happy with it, not planning on replacing it, and are looking for employees that are also happy with it." Also note that this wasn't a surprise and that the employee was told what the work was before accepting employment.



                                        The world is full of people who would be thrilled to work with whatever technology you have.



                                        The biggest thing you need to do is make sure you set their expectations from the start. You'll probably need to hire experienced, older devs and skip recent grads.




                                        Glassdoor debacle?




                                        It's only a debacle if you perceive it as such.






                                        share|improve this answer










                                        New contributor




                                        Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                        Check out our Code of Conduct.









                                        Make it a positive experience. Leave a note on Glassdoor that says "Yes, your company's infrastructure is based on VB6 and SQL Server 7 and that it works nicely and meets your needs, and that you're happy with it, not planning on replacing it, and are looking for employees that are also happy with it." Also note that this wasn't a surprise and that the employee was told what the work was before accepting employment.



                                        The world is full of people who would be thrilled to work with whatever technology you have.



                                        The biggest thing you need to do is make sure you set their expectations from the start. You'll probably need to hire experienced, older devs and skip recent grads.




                                        Glassdoor debacle?




                                        It's only a debacle if you perceive it as such.







                                        share|improve this answer










                                        New contributor




                                        Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                        Check out our Code of Conduct.









                                        share|improve this answer



                                        share|improve this answer








                                        edited 7 hours ago





















                                        New contributor




                                        Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                        Check out our Code of Conduct.









                                        answered 15 hours ago









                                        Terry Carmen

                                        3475




                                        3475




                                        New contributor




                                        Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                        Check out our Code of Conduct.





                                        New contributor





                                        Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                        Check out our Code of Conduct.






                                        Terry Carmen is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
                                        Check out our Code of Conduct.






















                                            up vote
                                            1
                                            down vote













                                            The only two correct responses are actually fixing the issues and making a large pr move promising to fix the issues that shows what you're doing for your devs and how it's making their life easier.



                                            The latter is very similar to a popular strategy used by youtubers when they get caught in unsavory light. The thing this response affords a company to do is pretend to fix the problem and convince their audience that it's been fixed without actually fixing anything. Youtube itself also employs this strategy.



                                            You don't have to fix anything, if you've made it look like you've fixed everything.



                                            If you don't want to just lie until people agree with you, then you could try being more transparent about what the job actually is, or you can stop making the decision to work for your company massively career limiting by refusing to use modern frameworks that would give your devs relevant experience to put on their resume when applying to better places. You could also try offsetting the garbage work conditions with perks like more time off, more time off, or modern work practices like working from home, unlimited PTO, or unlimited sick days.



                                            Those are really the only good responses. The rest are just going to see the company go really negative as far as hiring PR is concerned.






                                            share|improve this answer





















                                            • Perks definitely count. But did you really mean unlimited PTO? That’s impossible.
                                              – LN6595
                                              13 hours ago










                                            • @LN6595 I've seen it on a few job listings. Usually it has to be within reason and it seems to be working out for these companies. I assume you'd still get fired if you took a ton of time off for no reason. Tbh I'm not sure how it works, but I have seen it offered.
                                              – Steve
                                              13 hours ago















                                            up vote
                                            1
                                            down vote













                                            The only two correct responses are actually fixing the issues and making a large pr move promising to fix the issues that shows what you're doing for your devs and how it's making their life easier.



                                            The latter is very similar to a popular strategy used by youtubers when they get caught in unsavory light. The thing this response affords a company to do is pretend to fix the problem and convince their audience that it's been fixed without actually fixing anything. Youtube itself also employs this strategy.



                                            You don't have to fix anything, if you've made it look like you've fixed everything.



                                            If you don't want to just lie until people agree with you, then you could try being more transparent about what the job actually is, or you can stop making the decision to work for your company massively career limiting by refusing to use modern frameworks that would give your devs relevant experience to put on their resume when applying to better places. You could also try offsetting the garbage work conditions with perks like more time off, more time off, or modern work practices like working from home, unlimited PTO, or unlimited sick days.



                                            Those are really the only good responses. The rest are just going to see the company go really negative as far as hiring PR is concerned.






                                            share|improve this answer





















                                            • Perks definitely count. But did you really mean unlimited PTO? That’s impossible.
                                              – LN6595
                                              13 hours ago










                                            • @LN6595 I've seen it on a few job listings. Usually it has to be within reason and it seems to be working out for these companies. I assume you'd still get fired if you took a ton of time off for no reason. Tbh I'm not sure how it works, but I have seen it offered.
                                              – Steve
                                              13 hours ago













                                            up vote
                                            1
                                            down vote










                                            up vote
                                            1
                                            down vote









                                            The only two correct responses are actually fixing the issues and making a large pr move promising to fix the issues that shows what you're doing for your devs and how it's making their life easier.



                                            The latter is very similar to a popular strategy used by youtubers when they get caught in unsavory light. The thing this response affords a company to do is pretend to fix the problem and convince their audience that it's been fixed without actually fixing anything. Youtube itself also employs this strategy.



                                            You don't have to fix anything, if you've made it look like you've fixed everything.



                                            If you don't want to just lie until people agree with you, then you could try being more transparent about what the job actually is, or you can stop making the decision to work for your company massively career limiting by refusing to use modern frameworks that would give your devs relevant experience to put on their resume when applying to better places. You could also try offsetting the garbage work conditions with perks like more time off, more time off, or modern work practices like working from home, unlimited PTO, or unlimited sick days.



                                            Those are really the only good responses. The rest are just going to see the company go really negative as far as hiring PR is concerned.






                                            share|improve this answer












                                            The only two correct responses are actually fixing the issues and making a large pr move promising to fix the issues that shows what you're doing for your devs and how it's making their life easier.



                                            The latter is very similar to a popular strategy used by youtubers when they get caught in unsavory light. The thing this response affords a company to do is pretend to fix the problem and convince their audience that it's been fixed without actually fixing anything. Youtube itself also employs this strategy.



                                            You don't have to fix anything, if you've made it look like you've fixed everything.



                                            If you don't want to just lie until people agree with you, then you could try being more transparent about what the job actually is, or you can stop making the decision to work for your company massively career limiting by refusing to use modern frameworks that would give your devs relevant experience to put on their resume when applying to better places. You could also try offsetting the garbage work conditions with perks like more time off, more time off, or modern work practices like working from home, unlimited PTO, or unlimited sick days.



                                            Those are really the only good responses. The rest are just going to see the company go really negative as far as hiring PR is concerned.







                                            share|improve this answer












                                            share|improve this answer



                                            share|improve this answer










                                            answered 15 hours ago









                                            Steve

                                            1,135314




                                            1,135314












                                            • Perks definitely count. But did you really mean unlimited PTO? That’s impossible.
                                              – LN6595
                                              13 hours ago










                                            • @LN6595 I've seen it on a few job listings. Usually it has to be within reason and it seems to be working out for these companies. I assume you'd still get fired if you took a ton of time off for no reason. Tbh I'm not sure how it works, but I have seen it offered.
                                              – Steve
                                              13 hours ago


















                                            • Perks definitely count. But did you really mean unlimited PTO? That’s impossible.
                                              – LN6595
                                              13 hours ago










                                            • @LN6595 I've seen it on a few job listings. Usually it has to be within reason and it seems to be working out for these companies. I assume you'd still get fired if you took a ton of time off for no reason. Tbh I'm not sure how it works, but I have seen it offered.
                                              – Steve
                                              13 hours ago
















                                            Perks definitely count. But did you really mean unlimited PTO? That’s impossible.
                                            – LN6595
                                            13 hours ago




                                            Perks definitely count. But did you really mean unlimited PTO? That’s impossible.
                                            – LN6595
                                            13 hours ago












                                            @LN6595 I've seen it on a few job listings. Usually it has to be within reason and it seems to be working out for these companies. I assume you'd still get fired if you took a ton of time off for no reason. Tbh I'm not sure how it works, but I have seen it offered.
                                            – Steve
                                            13 hours ago




                                            @LN6595 I've seen it on a few job listings. Usually it has to be within reason and it seems to be working out for these companies. I assume you'd still get fired if you took a ton of time off for no reason. Tbh I'm not sure how it works, but I have seen it offered.
                                            – Steve
                                            13 hours ago










                                            up vote
                                            0
                                            down vote













                                            Well, one possibility could be to use the critics and try to solve some issues, e.g. by using more modern practices and spend more time in refactoring your legacy code problem. When things change and become more positive for each of the employees, then they may change the review.






                                            share|improve this answer

























                                              up vote
                                              0
                                              down vote













                                              Well, one possibility could be to use the critics and try to solve some issues, e.g. by using more modern practices and spend more time in refactoring your legacy code problem. When things change and become more positive for each of the employees, then they may change the review.






                                              share|improve this answer























                                                up vote
                                                0
                                                down vote










                                                up vote
                                                0
                                                down vote









                                                Well, one possibility could be to use the critics and try to solve some issues, e.g. by using more modern practices and spend more time in refactoring your legacy code problem. When things change and become more positive for each of the employees, then they may change the review.






                                                share|improve this answer












                                                Well, one possibility could be to use the critics and try to solve some issues, e.g. by using more modern practices and spend more time in refactoring your legacy code problem. When things change and become more positive for each of the employees, then they may change the review.







                                                share|improve this answer












                                                share|improve this answer



                                                share|improve this answer










                                                answered 2 hours ago









                                                dgrat

                                                6116




                                                6116






















                                                    up vote
                                                    -3
                                                    down vote














                                                    Assuming I was the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?




                                                    As long as your company has money to pay salary, you'd always have a team of coding monkeys at your service. There's nothing you or the company should do, clients don't read Glassdoors. Bad candidates? Raise salary or/and employee benefits.




                                                    Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead.




                                                    This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor, reviewed by management.






                                                    share|improve this answer



















                                                    • 22




                                                      If I was required as part of my job to write a positive work review at my company on any platform, you can bet I'd be writing at least 3 bad ones when I got home that day.
                                                      – Sam
                                                      21 hours ago








                                                    • 20




                                                      "This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor." Sounds like, what's the word, extortion? Blackmail?
                                                      – jo1storm
                                                      21 hours ago






                                                    • 7




                                                      @bharal Unless the employees are allowed to clearly label their reviews as "company's social engagement efforts", it's pretty much blackmail.
                                                      – Dmitry Grigoryev
                                                      21 hours ago








                                                    • 4




                                                      The suggestion of having employees submit positive reviews on glassdoor as "part of the job" reads like an attempt at parody. You can't possibly be serious.
                                                      – teego1967
                                                      20 hours ago






                                                    • 9




                                                      @teego1967 My previous company did actually request employees to submit positive Glassdoor reviews, to counter the many negative (and completely justified) reviews from leavers. I'm not aware of anyone apart from board members who actually did submit a positive review. All it did was prompt the rest of us to check Glassdoor and say "yup, that's about right".
                                                      – Graham
                                                      20 hours ago















                                                    up vote
                                                    -3
                                                    down vote














                                                    Assuming I was the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?




                                                    As long as your company has money to pay salary, you'd always have a team of coding monkeys at your service. There's nothing you or the company should do, clients don't read Glassdoors. Bad candidates? Raise salary or/and employee benefits.




                                                    Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead.




                                                    This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor, reviewed by management.






                                                    share|improve this answer



















                                                    • 22




                                                      If I was required as part of my job to write a positive work review at my company on any platform, you can bet I'd be writing at least 3 bad ones when I got home that day.
                                                      – Sam
                                                      21 hours ago








                                                    • 20




                                                      "This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor." Sounds like, what's the word, extortion? Blackmail?
                                                      – jo1storm
                                                      21 hours ago






                                                    • 7




                                                      @bharal Unless the employees are allowed to clearly label their reviews as "company's social engagement efforts", it's pretty much blackmail.
                                                      – Dmitry Grigoryev
                                                      21 hours ago








                                                    • 4




                                                      The suggestion of having employees submit positive reviews on glassdoor as "part of the job" reads like an attempt at parody. You can't possibly be serious.
                                                      – teego1967
                                                      20 hours ago






                                                    • 9




                                                      @teego1967 My previous company did actually request employees to submit positive Glassdoor reviews, to counter the many negative (and completely justified) reviews from leavers. I'm not aware of anyone apart from board members who actually did submit a positive review. All it did was prompt the rest of us to check Glassdoor and say "yup, that's about right".
                                                      – Graham
                                                      20 hours ago













                                                    up vote
                                                    -3
                                                    down vote










                                                    up vote
                                                    -3
                                                    down vote










                                                    Assuming I was the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?




                                                    As long as your company has money to pay salary, you'd always have a team of coding monkeys at your service. There's nothing you or the company should do, clients don't read Glassdoors. Bad candidates? Raise salary or/and employee benefits.




                                                    Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead.




                                                    This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor, reviewed by management.






                                                    share|improve this answer















                                                    Assuming I was the CEO or had a place in management, what could I do regarding damage control?




                                                    As long as your company has money to pay salary, you'd always have a team of coding monkeys at your service. There's nothing you or the company should do, clients don't read Glassdoors. Bad candidates? Raise salary or/and employee benefits.




                                                    Ask employees, directly or indirectly, to write some good reviews instead.




                                                    This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor, reviewed by management.







                                                    share|improve this answer














                                                    share|improve this answer



                                                    share|improve this answer








                                                    edited 1 hour ago









                                                    Mawg

                                                    3,58811032




                                                    3,58811032










                                                    answered 22 hours ago









                                                    SmallChess

                                                    1,1523621




                                                    1,1523621








                                                    • 22




                                                      If I was required as part of my job to write a positive work review at my company on any platform, you can bet I'd be writing at least 3 bad ones when I got home that day.
                                                      – Sam
                                                      21 hours ago








                                                    • 20




                                                      "This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor." Sounds like, what's the word, extortion? Blackmail?
                                                      – jo1storm
                                                      21 hours ago






                                                    • 7




                                                      @bharal Unless the employees are allowed to clearly label their reviews as "company's social engagement efforts", it's pretty much blackmail.
                                                      – Dmitry Grigoryev
                                                      21 hours ago








                                                    • 4




                                                      The suggestion of having employees submit positive reviews on glassdoor as "part of the job" reads like an attempt at parody. You can't possibly be serious.
                                                      – teego1967
                                                      20 hours ago






                                                    • 9




                                                      @teego1967 My previous company did actually request employees to submit positive Glassdoor reviews, to counter the many negative (and completely justified) reviews from leavers. I'm not aware of anyone apart from board members who actually did submit a positive review. All it did was prompt the rest of us to check Glassdoor and say "yup, that's about right".
                                                      – Graham
                                                      20 hours ago














                                                    • 22




                                                      If I was required as part of my job to write a positive work review at my company on any platform, you can bet I'd be writing at least 3 bad ones when I got home that day.
                                                      – Sam
                                                      21 hours ago








                                                    • 20




                                                      "This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor." Sounds like, what's the word, extortion? Blackmail?
                                                      – jo1storm
                                                      21 hours ago






                                                    • 7




                                                      @bharal Unless the employees are allowed to clearly label their reviews as "company's social engagement efforts", it's pretty much blackmail.
                                                      – Dmitry Grigoryev
                                                      21 hours ago








                                                    • 4




                                                      The suggestion of having employees submit positive reviews on glassdoor as "part of the job" reads like an attempt at parody. You can't possibly be serious.
                                                      – teego1967
                                                      20 hours ago






                                                    • 9




                                                      @teego1967 My previous company did actually request employees to submit positive Glassdoor reviews, to counter the many negative (and completely justified) reviews from leavers. I'm not aware of anyone apart from board members who actually did submit a positive review. All it did was prompt the rest of us to check Glassdoor and say "yup, that's about right".
                                                      – Graham
                                                      20 hours ago








                                                    22




                                                    22




                                                    If I was required as part of my job to write a positive work review at my company on any platform, you can bet I'd be writing at least 3 bad ones when I got home that day.
                                                    – Sam
                                                    21 hours ago






                                                    If I was required as part of my job to write a positive work review at my company on any platform, you can bet I'd be writing at least 3 bad ones when I got home that day.
                                                    – Sam
                                                    21 hours ago






                                                    20




                                                    20




                                                    "This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor." Sounds like, what's the word, extortion? Blackmail?
                                                    – jo1storm
                                                    21 hours ago




                                                    "This is also a possibility. It can also be part of the job; everybody will need to submit a positive review to Glassdoor." Sounds like, what's the word, extortion? Blackmail?
                                                    – jo1storm
                                                    21 hours ago




                                                    7




                                                    7




                                                    @bharal Unless the employees are allowed to clearly label their reviews as "company's social engagement efforts", it's pretty much blackmail.
                                                    – Dmitry Grigoryev
                                                    21 hours ago






                                                    @bharal Unless the employees are allowed to clearly label their reviews as "company's social engagement efforts", it's pretty much blackmail.
                                                    – Dmitry Grigoryev
                                                    21 hours ago






                                                    4




                                                    4




                                                    The suggestion of having employees submit positive reviews on glassdoor as "part of the job" reads like an attempt at parody. You can't possibly be serious.
                                                    – teego1967
                                                    20 hours ago




                                                    The suggestion of having employees submit positive reviews on glassdoor as "part of the job" reads like an attempt at parody. You can't possibly be serious.
                                                    – teego1967
                                                    20 hours ago




                                                    9




                                                    9




                                                    @teego1967 My previous company did actually request employees to submit positive Glassdoor reviews, to counter the many negative (and completely justified) reviews from leavers. I'm not aware of anyone apart from board members who actually did submit a positive review. All it did was prompt the rest of us to check Glassdoor and say "yup, that's about right".
                                                    – Graham
                                                    20 hours ago




                                                    @teego1967 My previous company did actually request employees to submit positive Glassdoor reviews, to counter the many negative (and completely justified) reviews from leavers. I'm not aware of anyone apart from board members who actually did submit a positive review. All it did was prompt the rest of us to check Glassdoor and say "yup, that's about right".
                                                    – Graham
                                                    20 hours ago


















                                                     

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