Scott Dobroski on building new transparency to empower queer employees

Scott Dobroski, Senior Director Corporate Communications at Glassdoor
| In conversation with Maggie Lee

Don't Give Up Your Gay Job is a shifting concept, defined by how people are “queering” jobs today and what that even means. So let’s start with that — what does queering a job mean to you?

I think first, it means simply being a queer person in a workplace. It doesn't necessarily mean being out, because some employees may not feel comfortable doing that at work. But what I can always advocate for is being authentic to whatever extent you feel safe doing so. Bringing forward your different experiences and points of view, showing up in your everyday work by thinking about the community when others might not be. An example of that would be, whether or not they’re directly working with LGBTQ+ patients, a doctor that thinks about the LGBTQ+ population and its needs. They can bring that into their hospital or practice, spread knowledge of the different needs, influence the scope for resources and hiring, and impact equity in healthcare. Queering health spaces impacts queer health. Same with any job, any industry.

Approaching our jobs in strategic, long term, and even philosophical ways can have major implications. Can you talk about how you’re approaching your work at Glassdoor?

We have a really noble mission that’s keeping me here. I get to help people everywhere find a job and company they love, and I talk to so many different groups throughout the year as part of the communications team. Because I'm also in marketing, I know that seasonality matters for reaching people. Yes, I want to talk to queer people year-round, but there's a special attention from the rest of the world that we can harness around Pride Month to make substantial impact. We have the world’s attention a little bit more during Black History Month in February to talk about the Black population’s needs, too, and so on for other underrepresented groups. And world events have such an impact on how people think and talk about jobs, companies and the world of workl. So we take a very purposeful seasonal approach to advocating for change from a communications standpoint at Glassdoor.

The launch of Glassdoor’s DE&I rating feature happening during the pandemic stands out to me. Marginalized communities are more vulnerable to workplace layoffs disguised as objective financial decisions right now. The transparency and honest conversation this new feature is forcing employers to have is powerful.

We've been talking about investing more toward impacting DE&I in the workplace for a few years, but very sadly, George Floyd's murder was a turning point. Actually, our data told us it was absolutely time and, we acknowledge, long overdue. We looked at what employees were talking about on Glassdoor, and we saw that in workplace reviews and experiences, employees were mentioning things like Black Lives Matter, racial justice, and equity topics at work 63% more than they were previously. So what this told us as a platform is that the more than 50 million job seekers on our site really wanted more information and deeper transparency into DEI topics at work.

So that's the impetus for us creating a tool for more insights into DE&I at companies. And I will commend our CEO. He advocated for the world and job seekers wanting this out urgently and asking if we could pull it off in three months or less. And the teams got together and we all said, yes. Within just a couple months, we were able to start showing ratings and employee sentiment specific to different underrepresented groups at companies. Before, you could only see ratings that were aggregated from all the employee reviewers of a company — now you can see that, or you can see what the rating is from just a segment of employees at that company. If the overall rating for a company is a 4.0, but it has a 3.5 from LGBTQ+ employees, that disparity is going to be a wake up call. It tells potential candidates who are queer that they may or may not want to apply there, and it tells the employers that there is concrete data that inequities may exist and there is room for improvement to make sure certain groups are supported better.

So if I go onto Glassdoor to give a review, I can now check off that I identify as LGBTQ+ and it will contribute to a separate, visible rating?

Yes, you got it. But it’s important to note that there are voluntary and optional elements to it that ensure you can contribute without disclosing anything beyond your comfort level. You can give a rating, indicating your race, gender identity, LGBTQ+ status and more, and leave a review, while still remaining anonymous. That’s the really important part here. We want employees to freely express their workplace opinions and experiences, while remaining anonymous.  For instance, we will not be showing a review that says Office Manager - Dallas, TX - LGBTQ+, since that could obviously narrow it right down to you. Instead, it’s an aggregate rating. Once a certain number of LGBTQ+ employees submit ratings, we’ll display the aggregate rating. Same with the whole range of DE&I segments we’ve added to the rating product. So you'll be able to see how white versus Black versus Latinx versus Asian versus LGBTQ+ versus working parents versus veterans all feel about a company.

The way that we measure things has long been, in many ways, deceiving. “Diversity” is something an employer can present however works best for them. Similar to when you analyze a media campaign, you pull that statistic that shows you had a billion impressions, but when you really look at it, 50% of those resulted in a negative response. Sentiment is an important factor for determining if the equity and inclusion parts of DE&I are there.

Absolutely. The “D” might be about the numbers, but the “E” and “I” are about respect, value and belonging. You could have the diversity numbers and report on it, but if there’s significant disparity between the way the groups you’re reporting on feel about working for you, what's the point? You may have increased hiring from certain groups and that's a great start and certainly matters, but if those groups don’t feel valued or like they belong, if they're not feeling the equity is really there, then they’re just going to be trying to leave for somewhere else. A key way we are hoping to make things better is through providing tools that bring deeper levels of transparency.

You also have to ensure you’re getting enough data for it to be representative, right? Does a big part of Glassdoor’s impact rely on making sure the world knows those tools are there?

I love being in this role at Glassdoor because our corporate communications team gets to be the eyes and ears of the company. We have a really good sense of what the world is doing, seeing, and saying as it relates to DE&I. We study it, observe it and determine where Glassdoor may fit into the conversation and where we should lead too. And, we're fortunate at Glassdoor to be welcomed to the table when it comes to product ideas and possibilities, so we're often giving feedback or doing our own added research to help the product team decide where they should invest and build. This seat at the table helps us make sure Glassdoor is creating tools that can truly bring more transparency and help people. Things that we know people will talk about and spread awareness of organically. So that we’re not having to try to spread word of something no one needs or wants to talk about. Not all corporate communications teams work like that, but to me, this is one great example of how I get to ‘queer my job.’ There is a slice in what we are doing here that is specifically for LGBTQ+ people, and that makes me very happy, as knowing how other LGBTQ+ people feel at a company would be tremendously useful to me and I hope others too, when trying to decide where to potentially work and still feel like you belong.

What were you doing before Glassdoor? What led you here?

I spent two years at a boutique PR and marketing agency in South Florida, and before that I was an on-air reporter and anchor for about nine years. The TV news industry really evolved in a way that wasn't quite for me long-term, though I still have a ton of respect for what many of my friends and former colleagues are doing. At 29, I considered all these different career routes for about a year, and found that PR and communications was a great fit for me. Turns out, it still is. 

In looking for a new start, how did you incorporate your identity? What are your thoughts on whether or not to bring up your LGBTQ+ identity within interviews?

When I was interviewing at Glassdoor, I made sure to mention my partner right from the get-go. So I didn’t necessarily have to declare that I’m gay, but it was known. It's not a one size fits all approach with bringing your identity to an interview or to work if you get hired — but if you want to be out from day one, then I recommend getting it across during an interview process. That's your opportunity to fact check and to see if the employer supports its queer employees. Ask if there is an LGBTQ+ employee resource group. Ask about the benefits offered. And then measure the response right then and there. If the interviewer knows all the answers and they’re good ones, that’s a good indicator of a workplace that’s at the very least making solid efforts. A straight, cis hiring manager may not have all the info, but if they say that's a good question, let me get an answer for you, give them a day or two to get back to you, and make sure they actually do. That’s not a bad sign. Now, if they say they’re not aware of anything, and they don’t offer to follow up, that could be a red flag that you may not want to work for that manager or at that company.

Overall, this falls under the bucket of our biggest tip for anyone job seeking today: research, research, research. Thanks to technology it’s too easy in this day and age to find out what you want to know about a company, a team or a potential manager too. Don't wait until the interview to think about what matters most to you when it comes to a workplace. Do research and jot down some questions where you’d like more insight. We hear anecdotes all the time of candidates showing up to interviews and saying, Hey, on Glassdoor, I saw this review, what do you think of that? And soon, thanks to our new DEI features and deeper transparency into how underrepresented groups feel at their company, there will be people saying things like, Hey, I see white employees are really satisfied working here, but your Latinx employees or LGBTQ+ employees aren’t quite as satisfied. What do you think of that? Why is that? Transparency empowers. Don't be afraid to use information and data to find out if a job and company is really the right fit for you.

That basically nails why I had to speak with you — you’re taking your power within a company and using it to influence a tool that empowers other underrepresented groups in their prospective companies. Queering your job to queer more jobs, essentially.

I often get asked how people can bring more visibility or awareness to queer things that are important to queer people where they work. And my answer is that we all have opportunities, and it's just about being really creative. Look at what you can do and make a little dent in your piece of the world. I'm in a position where I get to focus on speaking to certain groups at certain times of the year, and I get to advocate to my boss and team and say yes, we should do this, and of course, hopefully win them over with a business argument of how it is aligned to what we ultimately are trying to achieve. Remember, at a company, it’s still about business at the end of the day, so when determining how you can bring some pride to your job, look for areas where the business is making goals or wants to improve, whether it’s with growing products or wanting to grow company culture. No matter where you are, there can be room to educate others and ‘queer your job, even a little — you just have to look at where and how to do it at your company.