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5 Ways Employee Reviews Can Help Attract Women to Your Workplace

5 Ways Employee Reviews Can Help Attract Women to Your Workplace

5 Ways to Use Fairygodboss Reviews to Attract Women to Your Workplace
Micole Garatti
According to the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer , “a person like yourself” is one of the most credible sources of information. That’s why word of mouth, influencer marketing, and online reviews have increased in popularity - and in influence - in recent years. With that rise, organizations are leveraging both customer and employee reviews to influence buying and employment decisions. On employee stories and reviews, a recent study by CareerArc found that employee stories and review are the #1 and #2 most trusted sources of information for candidates and employee review sites are the 2nd most utilized source of information during a job search - behind a company’s career site.
Here at Fairygodboss, we’ve always understood the importance of the voice of the employee. And so do FGB users. Over the last 6 years, women have left over 250,000 reviews detailing their employment experiences and company benefits in ways that help other women make the best career moves for them.
If you’re wondering how to use your Fairygodboss reviews to take control of your employer brand and reputation, highlight your employer brand , and attract and hire more women at work, here’s what you need to know. 
What to Know About Employee Reviews
How to know if your company has strong review scores?
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually need perfect scores to impress job seekers and have a strong brand reputation. In fact, the organizations who have seen the highest number of job applies on FGB actually have 4 out of 5 stars. This is because job seekers understand that no company is perfect, so perfect scores are more likely to seem fake than strong but balanced 4-star reviews. So, if your organization doesn’t have perfect reviews on FGB, that’s okay! And, if you have a few bad reviews in the mix, that’s also fine. 
How to respond to reviews?
There are many reasons why employees leave reviews. Some want to share feedback because they are asked, some want to help others learn about the company, some may even want to complain. On FGB, most of our reviews are left by women who said they wanted to help other women. That’s what’s so great about our community. As a matter of fact, 82% said of users surveyed shared that the main reason for leaving a review was altruistic and only about 15% of reviews left on Fairygodboss are explicitly negative -- meaning rated a 1 or 2 on employee satisfaction. 
Whether good or bad, HBR reported that 89% of consumers read business’ responses to online reviews. With that in mind, replying to reviews is an important way to take control of your brand reputation. For good reviews, businesses can simply thank employees for feedback. For negative reviews, responding with care and concern can turn an unhappy employee into a happy, engaged one as well as show job seekers you care. To do that, thank employees for their feedback, apologize (yes, it’s okay to apologize), ask for more information about specific incidents mentioned, and share information about next steps or potential remedies. Another option is to offer a way to connect with the employee offline to discuss remedies by offering an email to contact if they choose. 
How to get more employee reviews? 
Although any amount of reviews is better than none, the saying “the more the merrier” really does apply to reviews. Based on our data, we’ve found that 30 reviews provides a great sample to understand how female employees are feeling, what benefits can better support them, and what changes would be helpful to create a more inclusive culture. The more reviews an organization has is also a great way to gather feedback you can use to promote your employer brand. 
To get more reviews, sometimes all you have to do is ask. Talent acquisition or even company leadership sending emails asking employees to share anonymous and honest feedback via a short, third-party survey is a great way to collect new reviews. Additionally, working with womens ERGs or employee communities to share information about why this feedback is important and what’s involved in leaving a review can help. 
How Sharing Reviews Can Help You Hire More Women 
Showcase reviews on careers sites, job listings, and social channels
Once you have reviews from women, sharing them is key. Our latest research How 2020 Changed the Job Search Landscape found clear differences in the way women and men search for jobs. Women evaluate a potential role and even what they care about in a company differently - and the research shows that women want to understand what it’s like to work at a company. That’s where reviews can come in. 
At Galvanize 2020 , Qualtrics’ Global Talent Brand Manager, Shaunda Zilich , mentioned that sharing employee stories helped them increase applications from women and underrepresented candidates from 34% to 50%. Reviews are a great way to find and share employee stories and feedback from women on your talent acquisition channels including career sites, job board profiles, job descriptions, and even social channels. 
Showcase your best companies for women award on your website 
When an organization has more than 30 strong reviews, they are eligible for our Best Companies for Women award. This award is given based solely on employee feedback to FGB anonymous surveys, and the more reviews, the better. When an organization does win the Best Companies award, this signals to women job seekers that women feel comfortable working at the organization, that they are treated equally to their male counterparts, and that they would recommend other women work at the company, as well. Thus, showcasing this award across channels including your career’s site is a great way to increase interest from women of your employment opportunities.
Employee reviews aren’t something that employers can control. Thus, the lack of control can cause employers to hesitate. However, with a majority of job seekers reading reviews anyway, getting in front of this channel is an important part of your employer brand. Understanding that most people leave reviews on FGB to help others, that reviews don’t have to be perfect, and that employers can take control of reviews by replying and making organizational changes can really make a big difference. 
If you have any questions about how reviews can help you attract and hire more women, set up time with our experts today.  
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