Abstract
This major research paper investigates the possibility of measuring employee engagement through online job-review sites such as Glassdoor.com (Glassdoor). Using prevalent themes from the Gallup Q12 (Q12) engagement survey as independent variables, 106 Glassdoor reviews were deductively analyzed. Literature surrounding employee engagement theory, critical managerialism and the affordances of online review-forums has been reviewed and used in conjunction with thematic content analyses to guide and answer the following research questions: 1) What are the prevalent themes addressed by the Gallup Q12? 2) Are employees addressing the themes prevalent in the Gallup Q12 in their Glassdoor reviews? 3) Are there prevalent themes addressed in Glassdoor reviews other than those addressed by the Gallup Q12? It was found that employee reviews left on Glassdoor do in fact address the themes in the Gallup Q12. However, each individual review only addressed a fraction of the 12 prevalent themes at a time. These findings suggest that while online review sites may not replace employee engagement surveys such as the Gallup Q12, they may provide useful insight into what factors should be addressed in employee engagement surveys.
Highlights
For three decades employee engagement has garnered the attention of business managers, leaders, owners and researchers alike
In order to address this area of research, three research questions (RQs) have been considered: 1) What are the prevalent themes addressed by the Gallup Q12? 2) Are employees addressing the themes prevalent in the Gallup Q12 in their Glassdoor reviews? 3) Are there prevalent themes addressed in Glassdoor reviews other than those addressed by the Gallup Q12?
RQ1 Using a manual inductive thematic content analysis, 12 prevalent themes were found within the Q12
Summary
For three decades employee engagement has garnered the attention of business managers, leaders, owners and researchers alike. Employee engagement has been researched in a number of diverse academic fields resulting in numerous, varying definitions This lack of definitive description of what employee engagement is in practice is both concerning and challenging for business managers, as measuring employee engagement has become a priority in many organizations. Business managers are primarily concerned with efficiency, and aim to establish order through the installation of norms, values and beliefs These beliefs and definitions often act as a template for communication within the organization, guiding both the content employees communicate and the way in which they do so. Management only asks the questions they define as important, eliminating the chance for employees to truly voice their opinions To overcome issues such as outdated information and to increase democracy, many researchers have suggested mining the opinions of online reviews instead of implementing surveys
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