ETHICAL DILEMMA Tell-All Websites

"Arrogant, condescending, mean-spirited, hateful and those traits describe the nicest people at Netflix,99 writes one anonymous employee. "Management is awful...good old boys club writes a Coca-Cola market development manager. And the reviews keep rolling in; Coca-Cola has 5,700 employee reviews, and some companies, like Google, have more than double that number on Glassdoor, one of the Internet sites that allows anyone to rate their employers. Websites like Glassdoor are thriving; employees increasingly join the forums and seem to relish the chance to speak freely. Glassdoor is useful for both employers and employees as they are empowered to express their opinions and any concerns while employers can utilize Glassdoor as a monitoring tool. Valuable ratings and feedback can be utilized to inform organizational decision-making, learning and development, and company culture.

Organizations are aware that people watch what they say when they can be identified, and many have used anonymous job attitude surveys for this reason. Still, evaluations from these surveys are often more glowing, and less detailed, than anonymous website feedback. Some organizations have therefore altered the frequency and scope of surveys to obtain more depth. Others have their intranet platforms to solicit concerns and complaints. Beyond the ethicality of posting reviews, online details that you might not share in person issues of organizational ethics come into play. While companies like Visa, Boeing, and Hewlett-Packard have tried to discourage employees from anonymously venting on websites and apps, such mandates may violate the employee's right to free speech. And how anonymous are anonymous posts? Posts on Glassdoor and other forums eliminate a person's name, but might supervisors be able to determine which subordinate posted the comments on occasion, and perhaps even retaliate?

Grant Gochnauer, the co-founder of a digital marketing agency in Chicago, has been successful in obtaining candid answers from his employees through polls taken several times each week. "It's sometimes a little bit scary, he said, asking himself, "Do I want to know the answer to this?"

Questions

3-10. Do you think employees have a right to say what they want about their organizations online as opposed to in private?

3-11. How would you react if you learned one of your employees posted unflattering comments about

you as a manager? Would your reaction be any different if the employee posted unflattering comments about you as a person?

3-12. Do you feel it is acceptable to post comments anonymously, or do you think people should include their names? Why or why not?