Blind.com: Where Employees Air Their Complaints and Concerns
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Photos above are screenshots from Blind.
Blind (www.teamblind.com) is an anonymous community where employees discuss issues either within their company forums or in topic groups open to employees in different companies. The original purpose was anonymous posting of company issues without worrying about retribution and demonstrating distrust with handling such issues like sexual harassment or abusive supervision. In May 2021, Blind announced it received $37 million addition funding, validating its status as a new go-to forum for employees to talk about their employers. Part of the site's current success may be fueled by the work-from-home trend after COVID-19.
More than 5 million members can visit industry message boards, job groups, or topics such as 'Office Life' or 'Working Parents' (1). Once 30 or more members are verified as being from the same company, an anonymous discussion group can be formed. They are completely anonymous aside from what the company calls the "lounge" where members discuss across companies and their user names and companies are visible. For example, there is a tech lounge.
Among the Blind offerings, the anonymous discussion groups have gained the most interest from the news. DoorDash instituted a new policy the week of December 19, 2021, that all employees (including professional and executives) will be required to shadow customer service agents or perform deliveries to experience all parts of the business (5). By December 24, 2021, more than 1,500 posts were added to a thread on the new policy. In 2021, employees 'lit up' Blind after Better.com CEO Vishal Garg fired more than 900 employees on Zoom (4). His abusive emails were posted on Blind, as well (1).
Earlier occurrences indicated the success of Blind. In 2018, Lyft responded to complaints its drivers posted on Blind relating to sexual harassment (2). A similar complaint investigated by Uber in 2017 when the company responded to anonymous postings on the app regarding unfair treatment and retribution for issuing a complaint (3). Uber CEO Travis Kalanick issued a statement only hours after the post, stating that this behavior "is abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in."
It appears that Blind has caught the eye of job seekers, as well. Soon after the app launched, the company noticed that users were strongly focused on their careers, with 80% of searches using keywords for company names and job types in those companies (1). The users are verified as employed by the companies, so they serve as valid advice about working there. Therefore, the company has launched "Talent by Blind", where recruiters can pay to post job openings. No doubt that the job seekers will also be gathering information on Blind as well before applying.
Topics
Corporate culture, Leadership, Job satisfaction, Organizational citizenship behavior, Human resources selection and retention
Student Discussion/Assignment
Employee engagement. This is an easy one - students can go onto Blind and search for any topic of discussion (aside from getting into the intra-company message boards) when focusing on a certain topic like leadership, harassment, job satisfaction, etc. by searching.
Leadership. What do students suggest be done by the managers/executives at the companies? Should they be searching here for employee complaints and discussions?
Job Search. Why is job search so popular here and what are the chief employee issues that are cited when users inquire about jobs? (Many of the posts are asking things like "Does anyone know about working at x company?" or "Am I paid the industry average at $x as a developer?"
References
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