Rate My Employer
December 12th, 2007 by Andy Didyk
Okay, so this is an interesting idea, and the new frontier for social media/social rating networks: employers. RateMyEmployer.ca is a new, Canada-based web site that allows registered and non-registered users alike to rate their employers on a variety of scales, including pay, work/home balance, stress, and others. Boasting a tagline of “Who said background checks and Pre-Employment Screenings should be reserved to employers only?”, this site stands in a great position to further empower the average employee.
I recently attended the 2007 Forrester Research Consumer Forum, and social media, along with rating systems, was at the forefront of everyone’s minds. It’s the future of online marketing, because it works: 67% of purchases made online cite a direct referral from someone who had experience with the product or service as the main reason they felt comfortable with the purchase (source: WOM report, 2006).
Huge companies like Dell are paying a lot of attention to the way that customers have rated their products, and Dell’s head-on approach to meeting the challenges that were revealed has resulted in a true success story for both the consumer and the company. But I’d bet my lunch that employers, particularly large employers, are not nearly as comfortable with having their performance reviewed in a public setting as employers.
To some degree, the risks are the same to the employer as a product review: some people will post negative reviews, plain and simple. However, with good, retainable talent already at a premium, and the astronomical costs of fixing a dysfunctional work environment, this move could really have employers on the fence. No one likes to have their dirty laundry aired, especially big companies. I would suspect that a movement towards increased transparency and true reviews of a work place should ultimately result in a better work environment for employees and more honest companies, who will be motivated to fix glaring issues pro-actively before their reputation is slandered.
Of course, it could also result in a lot of libel lawsuits as well. Only time will tell. Until then, I say keep the ratings coming, and for your own protection, your username very, very private.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 10:53 am and is filed under communication, consumer products, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 16th, 2007 at 9:47 am
I think it’s a great idea. Having lived through a previous dysfunctional work experience, the opportunity for my predecessors to rate my employer would have saved me the same fate that befell them, namely wasting their time till they could find a better position elsewhere, because I would have had a heads up warning me to proceed with caution.