Glassdoor.com Blog

Over the past week we’ve seen incredible interest from users outside of the United States, with more than 40% of this week’s site traffic coming from our international users.  This response and all the feedback we have received from across the world has been overwhelmingly positive, so we wanted to say thanks – merci – danke – and much more to everyone for helping us make Glassdoor more relevant to all users, regardless of where you work.

It has become clear to us that workers everywhere are curious about what it’s really like on the inside and what it means to be fairly paid. And although discussion of salaries in many countries is considered a taboo subject, it seems like Glassdoor’s anonymous set-up might be just the thing to open up the exchange of information about jobs and the workplace.

As of today the top 10 countries represented in the Glassdoor community are:

1. United States
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. India
5. Australia
6. France
7. Germany
8. Ireland
9. China
10. Japan

From that list it sure looks like Glassdoor’s concept is universal and that this “give-to-get” model is not limited to just one culture and one country.  So now that we’ve stepped up the site’s capabilities to meet the needs of our international user base, we’re looking forward to watching how this list will change over time.  Stay tuned.

… and we’re doing it with a few other salary improvements that members have been asking for since our launch in June. Now on Glassdoor you can see salary and total pay for any job at a company on one page, and more importantly you can filter by experience and location (with salaries shown in local currency for that location – see below).

This wasn’t as easy as you might think. People get paid in more ways than you can imagine and it gets even more complicated when you throw in local currencies and workplace conventions for more than 100 countries. Thankfully we were able to find a simple solution that addressed a few issues, and in doing so we have set the course for much broader international support.

There’s a lot more work to do and we’re still a ways from offering versions in local languages, but with this move we’ve made a commitment to deliver on the universal appeal of workplace transparency. Thanks to all the non-US community members for their patience, feedback and support as we work through some of our growing pains.

Trust us, we get that work matters no matter where you live – and we want Glassdoor to be there to help.

Apparently the energy and utilities sector is the place to be, based on the top 10 list on Glassdoor.com. According to 53,000+ reviews we have gathered in just two months since we launched, more 700 employees in this sector at companies like GE Energy in Atlanta, Georgia and Consumers Energy in Jackson, Michigan are proud to say they like their jobs. On average, employees rate this job sector a 3.5 on a scale of 5 possible points, and CEOs have an average approval rating of 62.1%.

Top ten happiest job sectors:

1. Energy & Utilities
2. Environmental Services & Equipment
3. Insurance
4. Aerospace & Defense
5. Agriculture
6. Banking
7. Cultural Institutions
8. Education
9. Food
10. Health Care

It’s no wonder when one employee at Valero Energy in San Antonio, Texas writes “Company works with you. You pretty much have a set schedule, but have the availability for appointments. If any questions you can call your boss. If you need an emergency day off, you can call your boss or another manager to fill in. If you are having problems with a task, or a question, you can always call another manager to help you, and you can call your boss.”

On the flip side, the least happiest employees have shown to be in the Transportation Services sector. Anyone who has flown recently isn’t surprised by that – I know I’ve gotten my share of surly I’ve-had-my-4^th-pay-cut-in-2-years-what-do-you-want-from-me attitude from gate agents and flight attendants. Maybe it will get better given the upcoming lull in Labor Day travel.

United Airlines seems to be among the worst - their employees give the company a 1.7 overall company rating and CEO Glenn F. Tilton has an approval rating of just 6% (ouch!).  Glassdoor reveals just why in reviews that state “UA is not a place that provides an incredible amount of job security” and “UAL: clinging to life in a desperate industry.”

In a recent article for The Career Journal in the Wall Street Journal, Sarah Needleman writes about planned compensation increases for 2009 based on the research of many employment consulting firms like Mercer consulting and Watson Wyatt Wordwide.

Overall, the average raise for 2009 is expected to be 3.7% — just slightly below 2008, which was an average 3.8% increase. With the tightening of budgets, how you rate on performance will be more important than ever as “middle of the pack” and “low performers” will likely see less dough. Employers said they plan to give their highest-rated workers — an estimated 14% of their work forces — an average merit increase of 5.6% in 2009. The lowest performers, who represent 7% of workers, are likely to receive just a 0.6% salary upgrade. For someone making $105,000, how you rate at annual review time could be the difference of more than $5000 per year.

So how can you get ahead?

• Check in with your boss. If you haven’t had an official mid-year review, make an appointment to see how you’re performance is stacking up to his/her expectations and your peers. Ask if there are things you can do to improve or if there are any assignments that you can take on to expand your experience
• Gut check yourself.Use Glassdoor.com to see what the average salary and bonus are for your position in your company and industry (check competitors) so you can use in your conversations. (Stay tuned: Glassdoor will soon let you look at salary information by years of experience and location so you can more easily know where you fall).
• Stay engaged. A review or check in isn’t just a one-hour meeting. It’s what you do day in and day out of each work week in the year that matters. Make sure you have set goals you review with your boss at the beginning of the year and check in periodically to see how you’re performing

If you are an employer let us know any other suggestions you have that can help employees get an edge come review time.

I don’t think anyone likes to move.  Packing, unpacking, getting everything set-up just right – it takes forever, and it can be back-breaking work.  But when an office upstairs opened up, I didn’t take much to sell us that it was going to be worth the move.  We were in a relatively small, dark office space with no kitchen (that’s right – we had a bucket instead) – and this new space not only has a kitchen, it is a wide open space with a wall of windows, views of Mt. Tamalpais, and most importantly a deck (with two sliding “glassdoors”).  So as much as I hate moving, I was ready!

What I should say is that I was ready to be in a new office – I’m not sure I was ready for the moving part.  I think Yahoo! might have spoiled me a bit – when I worked there an office move meant throwing your stuff into a few boxes, labeling some equipment, and getting out of the way.  But when you’re at a scrappy start-up you don’t have Office Movers on speed dial.  So we did it ourselves, as a team – and even though it was hard work, it was still easier than any of us expected.  We started with the equipment on Friday night, then continued Saturday for the better part of 8 hours moving furniture, running cables, and putting together a few more desks for our newest team members (note - when I joined it was considered a “right of passage” to put your desk together yourself – but we were feeling generous).



I’m sure it’s going to take awhile before we get completely settled, but this office is already a BIG step up.  We’re now all in one room which will make it much easier to share ideas and have an open discussion, and with all this new space it will be no problem to welcome our newest team members (we’re adding 3 more this month). So if you’re in the neighborhood, come check out our new digs – we’re upstairs in Suite 211.

I’ve seen a lot of interest from students who want to check out our reviews and salaries – and why wouldn’t you?!   If you’re a student, our “employee generated content” offers you an inside look at some of the largest, most reputable companies in the world – and we’ll cover just about every company you could ever imagine coming to campus.  And most importantly, all this information is available on a student budget (in other words, it’s all free!).

We always knew that Glassdoor would be an invaluable resource for students, so when I read this blog post about college grads settling into their first job – it really hit home just how useful we could be.  The post encourages all you recent college grads to take cues from your co-workers and ask questions of your managers – all great advice.  But wouldn’t it be better to take some of these cues and get some of those questions answered before you’ve even started?  Which is exactly why we’re here.  Think of it – your potential co-workers and managers are already talking on Glassdoor, and they’re giving you more than enough information not just to fit in once you get there, but to figure out if you should even go there in the first place.

So for those of you preparing for interviews (and hopefully evaluating offers!), we wanted to make sure you have access to everything Glassdoor has to offer.  Typically we require our members to post a review or salary of their own before getting full access, but for all you students – simply email students@glassdoor.com from your .edu address and we will set you up with a free student account.  Like I said, we’re here to help!

Could Glassdoor’s CEO approval ratings be an indicator of CEO job security? Magic eight ball says: Signs point to yes - but only time will truly tell. No matter what analogy you use, Glassdoor shows promise as an indicator for CEO longevity based on employee approval ratings.

Case in point: AMD and Alcatel Lucent. The recently ousted CEOs of these companies had a significantly low approval rating. Pat Russo, former Alcatel Lucent CEO held an approval rating of just 5% and Hector Ruiz, former AMD CEO held an approval rating of 8%.

Alcatel Lucent employees stated:

• “A once-great company surrounded by the smell of death”
• “The future will be ripe with opportunity, all that’s missing is leadership.”
• “Poor management makes this a place to avoid.”

And AMD employees under Ruiz commented:

• “Fire Hector or at least make him take a salary cut.”
• “Hire new senior management.”
• “Stop committing company suicide”

So who’s next? Perhaps the top 10 CEOs with lowest approval ratings (based on 50 reviews or more) could be the next on the chopping block.

CEOs with lowest approval ratings:

We can’t say it would be surprising to see these individuals leave the companies listed above when the advice from employees to management ranges from “You can only sell your soul and protect your ass for so long” to “Become true leaders and know what you are about, rather than just wear the mantle of a tyrant.”

Watch and find out…

Work matters – from our compensation that controls our personal finances to our job satisfaction that can ultimately affect our mental and physical health or even non-work relationships. We’ve always known that our work was an important part of our lives (that’s why we launched Glassdoor.com), but a recent article in the Indianapolis Star got us thinking about how to become more aware of the options we have when things at work don’t always seem to work out.

Using research recently conducted by Harris Interactive, we pulled a few insights into common workplace “spillover effects” and how we hope to help you avoid them.

1. Salary Sharing Phobia
In some parts of the world, “how much do you make?” is as common as “where do you live?” or “what do you do?” In the U.S., however, salary phobia is so common in company cultures that it makes it difficult (if not impossible) to find out whether you’re being fairly compensated. From our research, about one in ten (11%) employed adults say they are not comfortable discussing their compensation with anyone and fewer than one in four are comfortable talking about compensation with co-workers. It seems we are clearly more comfortable discussing salary with those outside of work, including spouses/significant others (64%) or best friends (32%).

With Glassdoor, we’ve provided an anonymous community to share information about compensation among peers, thus we’ve appealed to the more than half (52%) of employed adults that say they’d be willing to share more details about their compensation if they could do so anonymously.

2. Interview Schizophrenia
Have you ever taken a job and found it was different than what you expected coming out of the interview process? You’re not alone. Nearly two out of three workers (64%) say they’ve found the reality of a new job different than what they expected from the hiring process. Of those who found a gap in job reality, the top 5 areas different than their expectations were:

• Job responsibilities (43%)
• Hours expected to work (42%)
• Treatment of employees - fairness and respect (42%)
• Employee morale (41%)
• Boss’s personality (40%)

There should be no need for this guesswork when it comes to one of the most important aspects of our lives. Which is why we encourage every job seeker to give us a try – whether its to identify the questions you need answered during an interview or it’s to get comfortable with that offer you’re about to accept – why wouldn’t you take a look inside to see what their employees are saying before you make any decisions?

3. Poor Career Health Manifests in Mind and Body
We’ve all heard the phrase “mental health day” and many of us have even taken a few, but the fact is ─ a job can truly affect our mental and physical being. About nine in ten (87%) workers say they’ve been dissatisfied with a job and, of those, three out of four (76%) report the dissatisfaction affected other areas of their life. The areas most affected include:

• Physical and/or emotional symptoms (e.g. anxiety, insomnia, depression, high blood pressure, ulcer) (49%)
• Less time to enjoy things important to me outside of work (49%)
• Less excitement about things I typically enjoy (31%)
• Relationship with spouse or significant other (29%)
• Relationships with friends/family (27%)

Our advice is take the time to make sure a job is the right fit — personally and professionally. Some tips to accomplish this:

• Ask direct and tough questions like “what do you think are the most unfavorable parts of working here? What would you change if you could?” to try and uncover information about the company and its culture from the people who already work there.
• Talk to friends and acquaintances who’ve been there. If you know people inside, pick their brains about anything and everything that matters to you.
• Trust your gut. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Try to get behind the feelings and understand what isn’t clicking.
• Spend time poking around Glassdoor.com. Even if you know people who work there, chances are you still may not have the whole picture, so check out Glassdoor.com and find out what employees in other roles may be saying, especially since their identities are anonymous.

So whether you are unsure about how you stack up among your peers, feel your work conditions are not what they should be, or are simply finding it hard to have a good work/life balance, we’re here to help keep your work life (and your life outside work) healthy. Your work matters, and it’s way to risky to keep guessing when there are employees on the inside that are telling you what to expect.

Whenever I mention to people that I work at Glassdoor, there are a few questions that always come up:

• How do you know these people actually work at the company?
• Do people really care enough to write about their work?

Well… I think in its own way our “Review of the Month” answers both these questions. This month’s $500 prize goes to a software engineer from Accenture who has provided one of the most detailed reviews I have seen to date. As the headline for the winning review states – “You have to be in it to understand it” – who else but an employee would have this level of insight into the good and bad of a workplace? And more importantly, is there any doubt that this employee cares about work? After all, work is one of the most important parts of our lives and those that recognize its importance want to make sure everyone has the information they need to make the right decision .

If you take the time to read through this review you’ll see this member cares not only about their work, but about helping others make the right choices. So we thank this months’ winner for taking the time to offer our community this detailed, balanced, and organized look into Accenture - you have to love consultants!

And I might add now that you have the ability to flag a review as helpful, we’re going to be looking to you, our community, to help us find our winning reviews. The reviews with the most ‘helpful’ votes will be the ones with the best chance for this monthly accolade. So get to work - tell us what reviews help you!