Unlocking the voice of employee perspectives: exploring the relevance of online platform reviews on organizational perceptions

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate employees’ perception of their organization and to examine the impact of such perception on overall employee satisfaction using qualitative and quantitative employee reviews in an online platform.Design/methodology/approachThe employee online reviews were classified into positive and negative sentiments using sentiment analysis. Further, multiple regression was employed to examine the impact of sentiments (positive and negative) and employee ratings on pre-defined job attributes in explaining overall employee satisfaction with the organization.FindingsThe findings of the sentiment analysis shows that employee online reviews exhibit more positive sentiments than negative sentiments. Positive sentiments show a significant positive effect, and negative sentiments show a significant inverse relationship with overall employee satisfaction. Further, pre-defined job attributes are differently related to overall employee satisfaction with the organization, skill development being the strongest predictor.Practical implicationsPractitioners may customize the organization's policies and practices based on the sentiments associated with employee reviews. Organizations emphasizing employee engagement and satisfaction are suggested to include skill development as their priority.Originality/valueMost existing work on overall employee satisfaction is primarily based on the survey questionnaire method; only recently, online employee reviews (OERs) are gaining attention. The current research uses employee online reviews to study overall employee satisfaction.