Yelp increases staff wages, enhances benefits

In February, former Yelp employee  Talia Jane stormed the internet with her open letter to Yelp’s CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, complaining about low pay.

She was shortly fired from her job as  a customer service representative but sparked endless debates on issues ranging from corporate geed to whether today's young people are trying hard enough.

More than two months after the incident, Yelp announced raising pay for customer service representatives from $12.25 to $14 per hour and also offered more leaves- 15 days of paid time off (up from five) and 11 paid holidays (up from zero), with effect from May.

Yelp, however, denied the move had anything to do with Jane's letter.

Dale Sahs head of customer support at Yelp even took the trouble to point out that “many of these changes have been in planning since Q4 2015,” meaning that the pay raise plan was already in place before Jane's letter, the Backchannel reports.

Still, members of the customer service staff strongly suspect that Jane's letter spurred their workplace wins. “I think Talia was the definite whistleblower here,” says one representative.

And so does Jane who believes her letter is a major push factor for Yelp to treat employees better. “I guess you’re welcome?" she said after hearing about the raise.

"I think my letter acted as a catalyst to enact the changes more immediately, especially since I hadn't heard any of this while I was there," she told Quartz. "It was an immediate. This is so great for Yelp employees, I'm so happy for them,".

Image: Shutterstock