What just happened? Glassdoor is an especially popular platform for discovering insights about potential employers from those who know them the best: anonymous current and former employees. Thanks to a new update, people can now, amongst other things, chat to coworkers and managers at their place of work with "varying levels of anonymity."
Glassdoor's update includes a refresh of its branding along with the communities feature, called bowls, which come from the company's acquisition of semi-anonymous social network Fishbowl in 2021.
Bowls allow users to chat with other people in certain fields such as finance or IT. There are also bowls for those who can identify with certain descriptions, such as Working Moms or Black in Tech.
But what will likely be of most interest to users are the private company bowls. From here, people can engage with co-workers and management. It's an especially helpful feature as many employees are afraid to ask tough questions of colleagues and bosses due to fear of reprisals. Glassdoor says you post using either your full name, as an unidentified worker, or just using a job title.
Company bowls mean users can ask personal questions and speak truth in a supportive space, said Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong. He added that employees can also engage in real talk with coworkers as well as people who can help their careers, and they get ahead together.
A Glassdoor survey conducted with The Harris Poll found that 68% of US employees want a secure way to anonymously question coworkers and bosses, while 63% want an online community dedicated to career advice on dealing with workplace-specific challenges.
Glassdoor's update puts it in closer competition with the long-running app Blind, an anonymous, workplace-focused social network that saw its popularity surge following the mass layoffs implemented by the tech industry in recent times. Blind has more than 8 million users, while Glassdoor boasts an active user base of 55 million. Don't be surprised if the latter steals some of the former's users following the introduction of the anonymous bowls.