With CEOs of huge corporations like Amazon and Goldman Sachs mandating a full return to workplace, plainly many firm leaders are totally accomplished with the work-from-home experiment. However that’s not the case for Glassdoor, a platform that enables staff to anonymously assessment their present or former employers.
In February this 12 months, the corporate introduced that it was doubling down on distant work, closing its final remaining places of work in Chicago and San Francisco, and putting a giant guess on its distributed workforce. Months later, CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong says it’s not going again.
“I think the biggest benefit we’ve seen, being a fully remote workplace, is being able to tap into talent all around the U.S. and all around the globe that we didn’t have access to when we were an office-based company,” Sutherland-Wong, tells Fortune. “And that’s been a powerful change to the talent we’ve been able to bring on.”
Fortune sat down with Sutherland-Wong to debate the state of distant work, utilizing AI bots for recruiting, and the present state of the labor market.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
Many CEOs are mandating that staff come again to the workplace. In the meantime, Glassdoor is doubling down distant work efforts and shutting places of work. Why do you see distant work as the long run?
The present state of the office is way extra distributed than it was pre-2020. So we’re already ranging from a place to begin of being extra distributed than ever earlier than. I’d say the pendulum has been swinging again. I do count on there will probably be different employers who will mandate a return to workplace and a few employers preferring to have their staff in the identical bodily areas. However I believe you’re going to proceed to see numerous corporations who will embrace distant work and numerous corporations who embrace hybrid workplaces, the place you don’t should be within the workplace on a regular basis. We’ve all realized as employers that you would be able to be productive even once you’re not in the identical bodily location. So I count on that this pattern is right here to remain.
What’s the present state of the labor market?
Properly, it’s been an thrilling final 18 to 24 months. I’d say earlier than that, we’d seen numerous optimism within the labor market. There was numerous hiring occurring and numerous energy within the fingers of job seekers all through the Nice Resignation. Then we noticed an actual shift within the final 12 months and a half, the place hiring has slowed down, although the financial system seems to be comparatively sturdy and you’ve got low unemployment charges. With this era of excessive inflation, corporations are pulling again. Proper now, it actually appears like the ability shifted to the employers. Beforehand, job seekers had numerous selections and will simply transfer between corporations. However now they’re holding again, and other people keep of their corporations longer.
What are your ideas on utilizing chatbots throughout the hiring course of?
Once I speak to numerous executives about what the recruiting expertise is like for them once they make profession transitions, they speak about this white glove service of getting an incredible reference to the recruiter and having an individual who’s sort of actually on the market to take care of them throughout their profession transition. And you then speak to people who find themselves starting their profession, it’s a really completely different expertise, the place they speak in regards to the job seeker black gap, the place they apply to corporations and so they don’t know what’s occurring and so they don’t know why their functions aren’t getting by means of. And I see what AI can do is successfully take this sort of white-glove expertise and make it accessible for the lots. An agent could possibly be in your facet to take you thru your job-seeking journey and make it a a lot smoother expertise.
There have just lately been many complaints from job seekers about ghost listings. Why are they so obvious proper now?
On the subject of ghost listings, employers usually have so many functions coming in for roles that they’ve hassle filtering them. It’s all very exhausting to maintain on high of. Consequently, recruiters aren’t nice at returning to job seekers. And that leaves staff with a foul expertise. We’re at all times fascinated about how we might help bridge that hole to let folks know what’s occurring with their functions.
Glassdoor has come throughout some criticism relating to permitting folks to submit about jobs with out anonymity. Are you able to clarify the thought behind this choice?
Anonymity is the lifeblood of Glassdoor and is prime for having actual talks on the platform. It permits folks to really feel secure when speaking about their true experiences at their office. And none of that has modified. What we wish is the flexibility for folks to have conversations on our platform with folks throughout industries or with their very own staff or colleagues. And with that, we’ve given folks the chance to submit anonymously. But additionally, in the event that they select to, they will submit with their identification, and it’s actually as much as them how they need to submit as a result of there’s a complete new dynamic right here. There are some subjects that individuals really feel actually comfy posting their identification and different subjects the place they don’t. And simply to be clear, evaluations on our platform proceed to be solely nameless, and that’s not going away anytime quickly.
Many states and localities have carried out legal guidelines that pay transparency, which require them to incorporate salaries on job posts. What are your ideas on that?
I believe it’s fantastic. On the finish of the day, we in the end need pay fairness, gender pay fairness, and racial pay fairness. It begins with transparency, and I believe Glassdoor’s best present to the world is to push the agenda of pay transparency. Years in the past, when Glassdoor first began in 2007, there have been only a few transparency legal guidelines in impact, and we’ve actually modified the sport. Now, now we have a a lot increased stage of pay transparency throughout the board. And I believe it’s actually fantastic to see governments catching up and pushing paid transparency of their respective locations now.
That stated, whereas some corporations are coming to the desk and working within the spirit of what these pay transparency legal guidelines are all about, that’s the place I believe Glassdoor as a platform is so necessary. As a result of you may put in legal guidelines, however folks will try to work round them. However Glassdoor is a platform the place individuals are going to carry you accountable. In case you don’t inform folks what the pay is for this function, different staff of your organization are going to go on and submit their wage, after which that’s how one can truly get true pay transparency.
