People panic as Glassdoor adds real names to site where workers complain about their companies

What do you do after leaving your job? Well, after a big party with your mates and getting a load of presents?

Maybe you just, you know, happily move on to somewhere else and continue to live your life in a new role. Or maybe you go and travel the world.

Or, perhaps - and you’re not alone - you go and leave a review about your old workplace. Sure, you might be praising your old boss and the nice office. But you might be putting in an anonymous complaint about how s**t it was.

And to do that, there’s the go-to site Glassdoor where workers could anonymously complain about their jobs without fear of punishment.

But now people are panicking as the site has appeared to add real names while they lay into their companies.

According to Wired, Glassdoor has changed its sign-up process so whereas it only used to require email addresses, it now asks people for their full name, job title and employer.

And if you return to the site having previously signed up with just your email, there’s a prompt from an ‘impossible-to-dismiss pop-up’ reading: “Entering your real name is required to verify your profile but other users won't see your name unless you choose to share it.”

This is because in 2021, the company acquired Fishbowl which meant every Glassdoor user was subsequently signed up for an account on there. And since Fishbowl requires users to verify their identity, Glassdoor's terms of service changed which meant all of its users had to be verified.

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So there’s no real reason to totally panic right now as reviews on Glassdoor remain anonymous.

However, the company’s policy of now collecting users’ real names has caused panic.

And some users on social media have claimed they’ve logged in to old accounts on the site to find their names added, without their consent.

On its Help page, Glassdoor says it is verifying users’ identity to ‘provide the most authentic and valuable information to the Glassdoor community and to ensure that our users can engage in authentic, candid conversations with other professionals, co-workers, and company leaders in a safe space’.

One blogger named ‘Monica’ wrote on Cellio that it’s ‘time to delete your Glassdoor account’.

They claimed that after responding to a ‘support email’ the company had ‘updated my profile to add my real name and location’.

The user claimed Glassdoor adding users’ real names to their account ‘puts people at risk with their employers’ and that the company ‘do not care’.

However, while reassuring her that 'your anonymity will still be protected', one Glassdoor employee wrote: "Since we require all users to have their names on their profiles, we will need to update your profile to reflect this."

"No one has the ability to see your user profile and the contents within it, meaning no one, including your employer, will be able to see your details," they added.

LADbible has contacted Glassdoor for comment.