Pros
I'll start by saying - I have worked at other companies in the past and partnered with clients in various industries where I was able to experience their workplaces. I'll be the first to say - Glassdoor is far and above superior to all of them in terms of courtesy and professionalism of employees, work-life balance and employee benefits. When I first started, I could physically feel the shift in the workplace unlike I had before!
A few pros I want to highlight:
+ Visibility. I feel completely taken care of and seen as a worker. I have never felt like "just a number" or "another face in the crowd". I also feel as if my voice matters, and if I want something acted upon or noticed, it will be! Meetings with our managers are always productive and they make an effort to ask if there are any questions we need answered or changes we would recommend.
+ Change happens! Again, never worked for a company that is so outright eager to gain employee feedback. They proactively ask for it on a regular basis. They encourage us to share the good, the bad and the ugly to be as truthful and raw as we can. If my previous employers asked for feedback, no changes were ever made and you never heard about it again. At Glassdoor, not only does our CEO and PeopleTeam read the reviews, read the survey feedback and openly ask for more, but they take this information and make ACTUAL CHANGE! They even asked us to write reviews about how we were feeling right now, knowing there may be quite a bit of animosity at the moment. Crazy, right? They recognize the power that their employees have and care enough to shift things to favor their people. It still blows my mind that one review has the power to change the forward motion of a company, but it's so true!
+ Employees. I can confidently say I am among some of the best and brightest individuals in the industry. My colleagues are kind, funny, intelligent, professional and always willing to help each other out. I feel proud to work alongside them every day!
+ Work-life balance. Managers encourage us to take time off, take a personal day or go on vacation. The unlimited PTO and fantastic benefits package is top-notch!
+ Work from home. I'll preface this with I enjoy working from home. I miss my people, but I don't mind not having to commute, sleeping a little longer, etc.. When our WFH order happened, we were told to let our IT team know if we needed anything - extra monitors, keyboards, desk chairs, desks, you name it. We were even given an option to buy work from home essentials we may need and expense it. This has helped make the WFH experience so much better. Again, I feel very supported and taken care of!
Cons
You can't have a lot of good without some bad, right?
A few cons I want to highlight:
- Layoffs. By now it's a broken record that people have written about the harsh handling of the layoffs in May. While it's difficult to tell 300 people they are being let go, I do believe a more conceited effort to give folks a "heads up" would have been extremely appreciated by both the folks who left and the ones who remained. While the severance packages were generous, the situation could have been handled much better and more direct from the first sign of trouble in paradise.
- Culture. While the people are all top-notch in the industry, some of the "Glassdoor Lifers" don't understand how things could be outside of working at Glassdoor. There are quite a few employees who have grown with the company for their whole careers and don't know what it's like working anywhere else. Because of this, they constantly compare the current Glassdoor to how it used to be without realizing that things could be much worse, as they are at most other companies.
- Concise forward planning. Lately, all the change feels very unstable and wishy-washy. It feels as if our service motion or future partnerships are changing every day. We hear information one day, and it's different the next. It would have been better if management would have taken a week or two in order to plan. Sit down, and really work things out before having us do what feels like this whole 'trial and error' thing to work out the kinks. The back and forth is starting to take a toll on internal teams and client relationships instead of having one solid plan that either succeeds or fails.
