Intuit's culture and employee satisfaction have put the company on the Best Places to Work list year after year. When they noticed a shift in their reviews and satisfaction scores on Glassdoor, they reacted immediately. As a result, today Intuit enjoys a 4.4-star rating (out of 5) and a 93% CEO approval.
Starr Pagharion, Marketing Manager for Employer Brand, shares what steps Intuit embraced to boost their employee engagement, and how they responded to COVID-19.
Why do employee reviews on Glassdoor matter to Intuit?
We consider Glassdoor one of the key listening tools that helps us better understand how our employees feel about working at Intuit. It allows us to monitor positive and negative trends and work with our People & Places team to identify areas of opportunity.
Moreover, Glassdoor is an important touchpoint for our candidates. An internal survey showed that 69% of our candidates checked our company profile on Glassdoor before accepting an offer. No other site came even close. Job seekers want to get an inside scoop on what it means to work for Intuit, and we have to be part of that conversation.
When you noticed a shift in employee reviews, how did you respond?
Around a year ago, my team conducted a data analysis that revealed a declining trend in the volume as well as the score of our reviews. It didn't come as too much of a surprise since Intuit was going through many changes in leadership and transitions in priorities. Change, including positive change, creates a lot of uncertainty among employees, which can affect reviews.
To address it, we took a strategic approach:
- Leveraged data and historical insights to identify opportunities and clearly define goals
- Developed an action plan comprised of key tactics and employee engagement activities that were aligned with Glassdoor best practices
- Assigned a dedicated team to execute the plan and secured executive sponsorship
One of the biggest factors contributing to the decline was a lower percentage in the volume of current employee reviews coming in. This was largely due to Glassdoor not being top of mind among current employees.
Historically, current employee ratings tended to average higher than those from former employees. We focused on communications across a variety of employee audiences, channels, and milestones to encourage employees to share their experience of working at Intuit. In asking for their feedback, we were very clear and careful to encourage voluntary and honest reviews to help prospective employees understand what it is like to work at Intuit. This ladders up to one of Intuit's core values: Integrity without Compromise. Our goal isn't to influence employee opinion, but rather encourage them to share it with us.
When did the curve start going upwards?
Once we gained momentum with our employee communications and activities, we saw an immediate impact in terms of an increase in the volume and average rating of reviews. However, it took a few more weeks of maintaining this positive trend before we were able to see an improvement in our overall company rating.
Six months into executing our plan, the number of monthly reviews increased by over six times, company page views went up by 81%, and reviews from current employees increased up to 89%. This all contributed to our overall company rating improving from 4.0 to 4.4 stars.
You mentioned that uncertainty affects employee satisfaction. In light of COVID-19, tell me what trends you see and how you adjust?
Intuit's mission to power prosperity around the world by solving challenging financial problems for consumers, small businesses, and the self-employed is more important than ever in light of the current crisis.
With the tax filing extension and COVID-19's impact on small businesses, it's certainly affected the way we look at hiring to support products such as TurboTax and QuickBooks. Our goal right now is to ensure that we have the capabilities to support our customers during this time of need, whether that's top talent or technology tools.
It's amazing to see the innovation that has come up in response to the current situation. For example, we launched Intuit Aid Assist, a free tool that helps U.S.-based businesses, the self-employed, contractors, freelancers and gig workers understand the different relief programs available to them during this crisis. Now more than ever, we see employees galvanizing around our mission because it's never been more important.
Because of the durable practices we've put together as a company and the core values we deeply adhere to, we've also managed to move with agility to ensure not only the health and safety of our employees but the well-being of our communities as well. Thanks to tools like Glassdoor, we're able to view in real-time how employees are responding to the recent shifts in how we work.
