Earlier today Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong shared with employees his vision for Glassdoor. A vision that pushes Glassdoor to deepen its footing as the leader in workplace transparency. Below is a copy of Christian’s email to employees as to where we are heading.
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Hi everyone,
Thank you for joining me at today’s company All Hands. I want to take a moment to reiterate my perspective on where we are headed as a company. Since Glassdoor was founded 12 years ago, we have been focussed on driving transparency in the workplace and job market. Over this time, we have had a profound impact on the millions of people across the world who have used our site to find a job and company they love. And driving transparency continues to be the biggest opportunity for Glassdoor to effect positive change.
We believe transparency is one of the most powerful forces for good in the world. At its core, transparency empowers people with the right information to make the right decisions. Whether that be a job seeker making the decision on where to work, or an employee making decisions as part of their day-to-day job. Greater transparency leads to better decisions.
But there’s another powerful product of transparency. Transparency drives accountability. People tend to do bad things in dark corners, not in broad daylight. And with this accountability, transparency drives people and companies to lift their game.
For a job seeker, transparency protects you from companies low balling offers that could lead to pay inequity. With full salary transparency, a company would be forced to give you their best offer upfront, effectively removing the need to negotiate.
And for an employee, transparency drives accountability from your leaders and the broader company. It ensures you are paid fairly and your performance is evaluated fairly. It ensures employers don’t discriminate and instead actively support a diverse and inclusive workforce. It ensures that topics important to you are heard, and not swept under the rug. It drives companies to lift their game to be better employers.
Our vision is a world where transparency enables everyone to make the right decision to find a job and company they love.
Our vision is for a world where transparency ensures everyone is treated and paid fairly irrespective of their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or any other factor.
Our vision is for a world where transparency holds companies accountable and motivates them to become better employers.
Our vision is that transparency changes the world so that everyone loves their job.
And the first step we will take to achieve this vision is for us to adopt a more radical approach to transparency in how we operate here at Glassdoor. How? Below are just a few examples of the types of information we share with people interviewing and working at Glassdoor – this is just the beginning.
- Pay Transparency. We know that pay transparency is critical for employees and candidates to understand everyone is paid fairly. Today we are publicly releasing our compensation philosophy to help candidates understand how they will be paid if they work at Glassdoor. This Fall, we will publicly share our pay bands for roles across Glassdoor. Our long-term vision is full salary transparency at Glassdoor and these are important steps towards this vision.
- Diversity Data Transparency. We are not perfect, but we are committed to change. Starting this July, Glassdoor will publish externally information about its employee population by race, gender, leadership, and tech and non-tech roles on an annual basis. We have provided this data internally in years past, however, to drive the change we are stepping up the pressure to be held accountable and will also publish this data externally. And we will provide programs and resources to employees to foster a sense of belonging for Glassdoor employees. Read more in our blog about our commitments to diversity.
- Employee Feedback Transparency. Today the reviews on our Glassdoor company page provide a great overview of what it is like to work at Glassdoor. That said, the number of reviews we have represents a small subset of our employee base and it is hard for a candidate to drill down to a specific team and job function. To improve transparency in this regard, we are going to do a couple of things. First, we want to be using our product more. So throughout the year, you’ll see that we will ask you to contribute an anonymous, genuine review (the good, the bad and everything in between) on our Glassdoor page. We encourage you to write a review and participate in our vision of delivering greater transparency to candidates. Second, we are also going to make the insights from our internal employee survey available to our candidates so they can get a more complete picture of what it’s like to work at Glassdoor.
- Company Performance Transparency. For employees of Glassdoor, information about company performance provides vital context for decisions that each of us makes to do our jobs well. That’s why we share performance updates in our monthly all hands and full financials every quarter. For candidates considering a job at Glassdoor, visibility into these metrics would help inform their decision on whether or not they want to join us. While we have certain restrictions on what we can publicly share as a subsidiary of Recruit Holdings, a publicly-traded company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, we can make certain information more accessible. Starting this month, we will provide Glassdoor candidates easy access to the financial performance of the HR Tech strategic business unit of Recruit, of which Glassdoor is a part. We will also provide easy access to the size and value of Glassdoor at the time of acquisition (Summer 2018), which will help job seekers get a feel for our relative position within the HR Tech division.
Operating transparently at Glassdoor is fundamental to us walking the talk as we advocate for transparency everywhere. The ultimate goal is not just to change how we operate at Glassdoor, but for every employer to follow our lead. And the only way we can do this is with our product. The platform we’ve built to date has been successful in creating workplace transparency; and we will need to innovate and evolve for us to take workplace transparency to the next level.
Radical transparency is going to make us feel uncomfortable at times – we’re not going to have all the answers at first. That’s ok. But I ask each one of you to embrace the discomfort. It’s through these experiences that we will learn what works and what doesn’t as we seek to drive radical transparency around the world.
Christian