Posting on a prominent job-review website, an employee of one of the world’s top engineering and construction- management firms lauded it as a “good company” with “great benefits.” Not so, fumed someone else, claiming to be a fellow employee. “You are a tool for [unnamed company]. They pay handsomely for that tool, but when they don’t need you anymore, they put you away.” The online world can be a particularly brutal one for employers in the construction industry. The explosion of social media, including online feedback to news stories, has opened up multiple venues for former and current embittered employees— as well as angry customers and subcontractors— to vent at the targeted company’s expense.
With mobile devices’ rapid ability to post comments on recruitment and news websites, the proliferation of social-media tools, and the sheer vastness and anonymity of the electronic universe, a new set of challenges has emerged. As with recommendations on hotel websites, a percentage of the comments posted are made anonymously by supporters or rivals of the businesses being reviewed. Media risk experts say the best way to contain any possible damage to a firm’s reputation is to stay abreast of what is posted and, in a constructive tone, promptly reply to the numerous comments that comprise the trend (see box). Once a sufficient number and intensity of negative comments are posted on a recruitment and job-hunting website such as GlassDoor or CareerBliss, the comments may be read by potential new employees and by current employees, wondering if it is time to seek work elsewhere.