Day 2 of Glassdoor Summit—Here’s What You Missed

Day 2 of the Glassdoor Summit did not disappoint. In fact, we upped the ante with some heavyweight keynote addresses. From Lisa Sugar, co-founder and President of PopSugar, to media maven Arianna Huffington, the ballroom of the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco was jam packed with nothing but standing room only.

Couldn’t join us live? We’ve got the ultimate recap. Here’s what you missed!

1. Share the Secrets

GD Summit Host and Co-Founder HR Open Source, Lars Schmidt, kicked off the Wednesday sessions with a powerful presentation on the power of sharing HR insights so that all talent acquisition professionals benefit. He’s doubling down on transparency in his role as an HR exec, and he wants you to do the same. HR Open Source is the result. Think about how awesome it would be to have a database of peer-reviewed resources, downloadable templates that you can quickly use in your org, and a way to inspire others? Dell, Oracle, Virgin Mobile and others are already onboard. It’s Transparency 2.0. Are you game? Get started at HROS.co/join

2. Work Hard. Play Nice. Win Big

PopSugar founder Lisa Sugar brought levity, humor and inspiration to the Glassdoor Summit in a major way. Packed full of HR professionals, Lisa captivated the audience immediately sharing the story of how she founded the #1 lifestyle brand for women. Her simple plan? “I wanted to create a culture and company we love.” And she’s done much more than that. With a global audience of over 100M+ users, PopSugar is one of the most successful sites on the web. Lisa immersed us in the PopSugar company culture through a series of hilarious memes, relatable insights and her favorite quotes from her “mentor” Beyonce  (“I have to be really passionate in order to do something. I’ve turned down many things that I just didn’t believe in.” -Beyonce; and “I’ma keep running, cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.” -Beyonce). Her personal mantra is “Work hard, play nice,” which is also the foundation upon which she built PopSugar. The biggest takeaways? (1) We all want to be Lisa when we grow up. (2) Don’t cut corners or cheat— it’s not worth it. (3) “Play fair; karma is a bitch.” (4) “If you love it, working hard is effortless and addictive.”  Order her book “Power Your Happy” due out Sept. 20th!

3. “Build An Irresistible Organization.” It’s Not Hard.

All iPhones were in a snapping frenzy when Josh Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloittetook the stage. No he’s not Brad Pitt, but he’s an A-lister when it comes to talent management. His insights as displayed through his presentation slides were uber popular on Twitter because everyone in the room wanted to understand what they could do if they didn’t like the reviews on Glassdoor. Bersin said, “we have to change the environment of work ourselves.”  According to his research, 92% of companies say they’re not organized for success and only 14% have an idea of what to change. “We have too many tools and productivity has not gone up.” The solution is an integrated approach combining meaningful work, supportive management, a fantastic environment, growth opportunities and a trust in leadership. “You don’t have to spend a hundred million dollars a year on trainin—just build a culture where employees can grow.” Cue mic drop.

4. “Don’t Boil The Ocean.”

Head of Recruiting for Salesforce, Ana Recio, offered an exclusive peek inside of the talent acquisition operation of one of America’s most well-known companies, Salesforce. And, boy, were minds blown. Why? Recio brought very revealing data. Salesforce hired 6,183 people last year. Just a fraction of the 43,850 people who interviewed at Salesforce last year. Also, just a fraction of the 542,000 people who applied for jobs. That’s a whole lot of people who interact with their recruiting process—the good and the bad. And, unfortunately, there was a lot of bad feedback on their Glassdoor profile which was visited by about 3 million people last year. So what’s it all mean? A candidate’s experience has a major impact on both brand and a company’s ability to hire. So how can company reimagine the experience? Diagnose the biggest issues, create an action plan against them and measure success. Sure, there are plenty of things to do, but don’t go big. Be strategic. Recio said, “Do not boil the ocean. The things you can do to improve the candidate experience are endless. But be smart. Hone in on the root of the problem to figure out what will really move the needle.” By doing things like courting the candidate and “being radically transparent,” Salesforce went from 57% positive reviews to 61% positive reviews on Glassdoor. Their goal? To get over 75% of reviews on Glassdoor to be positive.

5. Great Leadership Breeds More Great Leaders

Glassdoor’s Chief Economist Dr. Andrew Chamberlain shared his latest research on the impact of a CEO on company culture and what factors make for a great leader. Attendees were very impressed by the direct measure of CEO quality from the perspective of those who work most closely with them: company employees. The link between employee satisfaction and CEO approval was further highlighted when Dr. Chamberlain said, “A 1-star increase in overall employee satisfaction predicts a 36.9% improvement in CEO approval.” Every HR exec in the audience jotted down that stat as something to share with their executives. Why? This is the precise data point many in HR need to convince their CEOs that employer branding and company culture matters. The biggest takeaways: Great leadership breeds more great leaders; career opportunities and compensation are important; work-life balance matters, but having a higher purpose matters more; and any person, regardless of personal characteristics, can be a great CEO.

6. “We take better care of our smartphones than we do ourselves.”

The founder of Thrive Global, best-selling author and the woman behind the Huffington Post is also the queen of one-liners. In her speech and fireside chat with Glassdoor CEO Robert Hohman, Huffington shared amazing advice every minute, which made live Tweeting tricky but exciting. Speaking on the topic, “A Thriving Bottom Line Starts With Thriving Employees,” Huffington touched on everything fromHillary Clinton to the importance of a good night’s sleep. Instead of recapping her speech, we think it’s better to highlight her best one-liners for those of your who missed out. Oh, and you missed out on the signing of her new best-seller “The Sleep Revolution.” Sorry, not sorry. Join us at #GDSummit next year. Okay, here are Arianna Huffington’s most memorable words of wisdom:

• “We take better care of our smartphones than we do ourselves.”
• “The world we live in is designed by men, and it’s not working.”
• “We have to educate Millennials to stop destroying their lives in college.”
• “I collapsed from sleep exhaustion in 2007, when I awoke in a hospital I asked myself: Is this what success looks like?”
• “Our goal as women should not just be to break through glass ceilings or get to the top, but to change the world.”
• “When was the last time you had zero emails in your inbox? For me, it was two weeks on vacation. Try it.”
• “Creativity is the first thing that is sacrificed when we are running on empty.”
• “Life cannot be run like an algorithm.”
• “Mark my words, nap rooms are going to be as popular as conference rooms in the future.”
• “Don’t smash the screen, create boundaries around the screen because our very humanity is at risk.”
• “Watching tv before you go to sleep is not a good thing, you don’t know what you’re going to see. You may see Donald Trump and that’s not a good thing.”
• “I believe right now we are all experiencing a teachable moment in what happened with Hillary Clinton. If you think of it, it is absolute insanity to have a candidate with walking pneumonia do public events as she did last Friday in the interest of the campaign. We’ve all done similar things. We’ve pushed, we’ve powered through even though we’re exhausted, even though we had the equivalent of walking pneumonia. We need to go back and see what were the consequences, not just in terms of ur health but in terms of our performance. This is a fundamental culture shift that needs to happen.”
• “Failure is not the opposite of success, failure is a stepping stone towards success.”

  READ MORE: Day 1 of Glassdoor Summit— Here’s What You Missed