How do YOU score on Glassdoor?
CRN has pulled together the ratings left by employees of the firms in Top VARs and the Next 100
The IT skills shortage has been well documented and is a cause for concern for IT firms in the UK. What is less documented, however, is the power this places in the hands of experienced IT professionals.
With the number of new vacancies outpacing the number of new candidates, IT professionals hold all the cards and employers need to make themselves as attractive as possible to draw in new talent.
This, according to channel recruiter Marc Sumner, makes a company's internet footprint more important than ever.
Glassdoor is an independent review website where employees can anonymously rate their current or former employer. Crucially, the employer has no control over what is displayed on the site.
Sumner said that the current ratio of candidates to job vacancies means candidates are being far more thorough and picky when it comes to assessing employers ahead of applying for a job.
"We're getting a lot of feedback from candidates looking on Glassdoor before they even go for an interview," he said. "They'll do the research on the employer's website and do all the due diligence, but they're also checking on Glassdoor to see what the employees say.
"The VAR community has taken it for granted that people will assume that if the VAR has a name that's been around for a while people won't look into them, but they will," he added.
"We've had people refuse to go to companies because of their Glassdoor reviews. The candidate is king; they're absolutely in charge because they have so much choice."
The ranking
To assess the Glassdoor credentials of the channel, we've pulled together the feedback left on the 200 firms in CRN' s Top VARs and the Next 100.
To avoid one or two disgruntled employees dramatically bringing down a company's average rating, we have only included firms that have 50 or more reviews. Because of this, some large VARs such as XMA, Apogee and Bytes haven't made the cut.
In total, 37 VARs from the top 200 exceeded this threshold. We have also included new UK entrant PCM, which has rapidly amassed 200 UK staff since touching down last summer.
As in any ranking someone had to be rated lowest, but the fact that these firms have each garnered 50 reviews or more in itself could be regarded as a signal of positive employee engagement.
Glassdoor does not break out different territories of an international company, so the ratings included are for the overall business.
To make the numbers easier to digest we've abbreviated the criteria to include:
- Rating: the average score given by the employees who have left a review, out of five
- Review: the number of reviews that have been left
- RTAF: stands for 'recommend to a friend' and is the percentage of employees who would recommend a job at the organisation to someone they know
- CEO: the percentage of employees who approve of their CEO, based on the number of ratings posted.
Click through to the next page to see the VARs ranked 38-21
How do YOU score on Glassdoor?
CRN has pulled together the ratings left by employees of the firms in Top VARs and the Next 100
38. Reynolds and Reynolds Rating: 2.2
Reviews: 1.1k
RTAF: 55 per cent
CEO: Bob Brockman - 55 per cent; 662 ratings
37. NSC Global Rating: 2.3
Reviews: 195
RTAF: 32 per cent
CEO: Yaseen Khan - 40 per cent; 91 ratings
36. Zones Rating: 2.3
Reviews: 490
RTAF: 30 per cent
CEO: Firoz Lalji - 32 per cent; 137 ratings
35. SCC Rating: 2.6
Reviews: 320
RTAF: 39 per cent
CEO: James Rigby - 54 per cent; 159 ratings
34. Capita Rating: 2.6
Reviews: 1,286
RTAF: 37 per cent
CEO: Andy Parker* - 35 per cent; 861 ratings
*Parker stepped down as Capita CEO last year and was replaced by Jonathan Lewis in December, but is still listed as CEO on Glassdoor
33. Daisy Rating: 2.7
Reviews: 127
RTAF: 38 per cent
CEO: Neil Muller - 56 per cent; 68 ratings
32. ECS Security Rating: 2.8
Reviews: 67
RTAF: 47 per cent
CEO: Paul Thomson - 55 per cent; 40 ratings
31. PCM Rating: 2.8
Reviews: 513
RTAF: 39 per cent
CEO: Frank Khulusi - 44 per cent; 198 ratings
30. Comparex Rating: 2.8
Reviews: 69
RTAF: 38 per cent
CEO: Wilfried Pruschak - 53 per cent; 23 ratings
29. NTT Security Rating: 2.9
Reviews: 79
RTAF: 64 per cent
CEO: Jun Sawada - 68 per cent; 15 ratings
28. Getronics Rating: 2.9
Reviews: 117
RTAF: 50 per cent
CEO: Mark Cook - 45 per cent; 25 ratings
27. Dimension Data Rating: 3.2
Reviews: 863
RTAF: 55 per cent
CEO: Jason Goodall - 84 per cent; 13 ratings
26. Zensar Technologies Rating: 3.3
Reviews: 915
RTAF: 64 per cent
CEO: Sandeep Kishore - 81 per cent; 268 ratings
25. SoftwareONE Rating: 3.3
Reviews: 252
RTAF: 69 per cent
CEO: Patrick Winter - 87 per cent; 184 ratings
24. BT Business Direct* Rating: 3.3
Reviews: 2.2k
RTAF: 63 per cent
CEO Gavin Patterson - 78 per cent; 631 ratings
*BT Business Direct does not have its own Glassdoor profile, so these figures are for the overall BT business
23. Claranet Rating: 3.4
Reviews: 51
RTAF: 65 per cent
CEO: Charles Nasser - 87 per cent; 35 ratings
22. KCOM Rating: 3.4
Reviews: 87
RTAF: 57
CEO: Bill Halbert - 66 per cent; 39 ratings
21. Computacenter Rating: 3.4
Reviews: 357
RTAF: 63 per cent
CEO: Mike Norris - 83 per cent; 182 ratings
Click through to the next page to see the VARs ranked 20-1
How do YOU score on Glassdoor?
CRN has pulled together the ratings left by employees of the firms in Top VARs and the Next 100
20. SHI Rating: 3.4
Reviews: 452
RTAF: 68 per cent
CEO: Thai Lee - 85 per cent; 304 ratings
19. Insight Rating: 3.4
Ratings: 688
RTAF: 65 per cent
CEO: Kenneth Lamneck - 91 per cent; 343 ratings
18. Intercity Technology Rating: 3.5
Reviews: 60
RTAF: 55 per cent
CEO: Andrew Jackson* - 77 per cent; 9 ratings
*The name of Intercity's CEO is not listed on Glassdoor, but Jackson has been the firm's CEO since 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile
17. Bechtle Rating: 3.5
Reviews: 75
RTAF: 74 per cent
CEO: Thomas Olemotz - 90 per cent; 31 ratings
16. Telent Rating: 3.5
Reviews: 51
RTAF: 71 per cent
CEO: Mark Plato - 90 per cent; 29 ratings
15. Version 1 Rating: 3.6
Reviews: 123
RTAF: 66 per cent
CEO: Tom O'Connor - 99 per cent, 13 ratings
14. Proact Rating: 3.6
Reviews: 61
RTAF: 71 per cent
CEO: Jason Clark - 71 per cent; 14 ratings
13. Logicalis Rating: 3.6
Reviews: 197
RTAF: 71 per cent
CEO: Mark Rogers - 79 per cent; five ratings
12. NCC Group Rating: 3.6
Reviews: 102
RTAF: 67 per cent
CEO: Adam Palser - N/A
11. Avanade Rating: 3.6
Reviews: 1.2k
RTAF: 67 per cent
CEO: Adam Warby - 81 per cent; 563 ratings
10. RM Rating: 3.8
Reviews: 185
RTAF: 82 per cent
CEO: David Brooks - 82 per cent; 52 ratings
9. CDW Rating: 3.8
Reviews: 1563
RTAF: 78 per cent
CEO: Thomas Richard - 91 per cent; 861 ratings
8. GCI Rating: 3.9
Reviews: 107
RTAF: 79 per cent
CEO: Ronald Duncan - 94 per cent; 71 ratings
7. NTT Data Rating: 4.1
Reviews: 2.2k
RTAF: 87 per cent
CEO: Simon Williams - 100 per cent; 11 reviews
6. Softcat Rating: 4.3
Reviews: 109
RTAF: 81 per cent
CEO: Martin Hellawell - 99 per cent; 49 ratings
5. Edenhouse Solutions Rating: 4.4
Reviews: 50
RTAF: 88 per cent
CEO: Paul Solomon - 90 per cent; 34 ratings
4. Cloudreach Rating: 4.4
Reviews: 121
RTAF: 85 per cent
CEO: Pontus Noren - 82 per cent; 88 ratings
3. World Wide Technology Rating: 4.5
Reviews: 617
RTAF: 91 per cent
CEO: Jim Kavanaugh - 98 per cent; 448 ratings
2. Chess Rating: 4.6
Reviews: 102
RTAF: 92 per cent
CEO: David Pollock - 93 per cent; 92 ratings
1. QuantiQ Rating: 4.9
Reviews: 56
RTAF: 100 per cent
CEO: Stuart Fenton - 100 per cent; 47 ratings