Keeping an Open (but skeptical) Mind...

A Seattle-area executive recruiter friend of mine brought to my attention that there are opposing views of the new employment and pay "intelligence" website, Glassdoor.com.

So, in the spirit of keeping and open mind, as well as welcoming alternative points of view, I am providing a link to an article/posting from the employee perspective (well, at least of one's particular perspective). You can visit this link at www.stalkingvenus.com.

Interestingly, even the opposing viewpoint addresses some of this writer's concerns:

• Potential confidentiality issues
• Potential (or purposeful) inaccuracies, or outright falsely provided information
• Cheer-leading or "slashing" company reviews for those with an agenda, or a score to settle
• The lack of data validation and data "vetting"

Actually, after reading the article on StalkingVenus and re-reviewing glassdoor.com myself again, I must say, the site does offer some interesting and cool approaches to reporting employer "intelligence" such as pay data, employee viewpoints about their employer, and company leadership. Kudos for creativity and a truly fresh approach. But this site is geared towards employees (or potential ones) seeking "data" and/or "ammunition" for their own self-serving purposes, not for empirical truth-seeking.

I must confess, I see the appeal of the concept and the website itself, but as a compensation consultant, my job is to provide clients and colleagues with valid and objective data, as well as dispassionate but incisive analysis, not the opinions of employees and data supplied by incumbents with no understanding (or care) about key compensation concepts. Concepts such as proper job matching (for true "apples-to-apples" pay benchmarking), a consideration of factors that impact pay, such as geography, industry, company size, etc.; the impact that a company's compensation philosophy has on the choices it makes with regard to pay and other elements of total rewards (base pay, benefits, short and long-term incentives, work-life issues, etc.). These are critical considerations in assessing a company's pay program, and this aspect is seriously lacking, at least as far as I can tell so far.

I could go on and on, but if you are an HR, recruiting or compensation professional, or company executive, and really want to know what's going on in the "real world,: review glassdoor.com and similar sites for anecdotal employee relations, attraction/retention data points, but rely on much more rigorous data sources and HR/compensation professionals that understand them for "real" compensation data and analysis.

I'm getting off that soapbox again...