Imprecise Questions

Yesterday The Sun ran a research-based headline “1 in 5 Brit Muslim’s sympathy for jihadis”. It quickly came in for a lot of criticism. I don’t want to dwell on the politics, or general journalistic reporting of research. But much of the criticism focussed on specifics of the research. If you want to read about that, you can.

What interested me was the phrasing of the statements they were asked to agree with: “I have a lot of/some sympathy with young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria”. For a long statement, it’s imprecise. Many picked up that they may go to Syria to fight against jihadis. But for me the real issue is the use of “sympathy”. That could mean they support them. It could mean that they feel sorry for them. And it could mean they see why radicalisation can happen for vulnerable young people. 

I reckon some of the responses covered all of those sentiments – but we’ve no way of knowing in what proportion – or why.

And that’s the problem with a lot of employer research too, engagement surveys being the obvious example. Now, they have a fine line to tread: questions specific enough to be meaningful, whilst keeping a manageable number of questions.

But it’s no coincidence that a lot of my projects start where other research has left off. Without a level of precision, all they can hope to do is to identify where there is a problem. But they often can’t tell you precisely what the problem is, or why.

You’ve got to start somewhere, but if you’re dedicating time and energy to listening to employees, make sure that your questions are precise enough to get you valuable insight. Or build in the time to get deeper into the bigger findings.

Golden. Delicious?

Marketing is powerful. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not.

Allow me to re-hash a story about beer. Brits started holidaying in Europe from the 70s. And drank lager there. They wanted to drink lager at home too. So brewers brought it to the UK. But not at 5+% ABV. No, Brits wanted to drink pints (and pints) of it. So they made it weaker. Naturally, it tasted terrible. So they needed very good marketing: “Probably the best…refreshes the parts…I bet he drinks…” And for 30-odd years we chose to drink terrible beer. That’s powerful.

And Hugh Fearnley-Whatsit got me thinking about another old marketing story. When the common market opened access to Europe, we got Golden Delicious apples. And it usurped a lot of traditional varieties. Ask anyone, in a rational moment, what’s the better tasting apple, and a Cox kicks its backside. Golden Delicious is an inspid apple. Neither tasty nor juicy. Often unforgivably mushy. But they have something going for them. Consistency. For all it lacks in anything you might actually want from an apple, on the supermarket shelf it’s always the same size and colour. As a variety, it’s got its own in-built marketing. As shoppers, we like that standardisation. 

But thinking about marketing employers, we often don’t want volume of customers (employees / applicants) – we want quality. When you look at your employer reputation it’s easy to pitch a broad appeal, to fail to differentiate. It’s easy to match the other apples on the shelf. Your ambition should be bigger. You should aim to dig out your unique characteristics and circumstance, to market how your heritage, culture, vision combine to create a unique working opportunity. Wouldn’t we all rather be an Egremont Russet, a Red Pippin, a Worcester Pearmain? And wouldn’t the discerning candidate choose them?

Don’t settle for being a Golden Delicious – find your unique qualities.

People Are Problems

They’re not productive

They don’t take initiative

They can’t perform

They won’t challenge the norm

They’re not having fun

I don’t come to work to have fun

They refuse to be engaged

They’re too poorly managed

They’re not present

They’re too present

They really resent, that

They have too many e-mails, if

They didn’t have the e-mails, then

They could communicate

They don’t want to stagnate

They can’t collaborate

They just won’t innovate

They want to work flexibly

(Where the hell is everybody?!)

They don’t get the strategy

They don’t know “what’s in it for me?”

And did we mention the customer?

Oh.

We forgot about the customer.

That was what I took away from #CIPD15 last week. OK, it would have been a short conference if people were simple. But each person that I spoke to or listened to, added to this idea:

People are Problems

People are the most complex and fallible component of the organisational machine.

And they are irrational. At least customers are predictably irrational. But employees spend so long at work, there are so many assumptions about how we should work, and it all relies on human-human interaction. The predictability goes, the problems start.

But what I also heard a great deal of was:

People are Solutions

Talk to them. Get their feedback. Get their ideas. Try their ideas. Measure the effect of their ideas.

They’ll identify the problems in a heartbeat. Give them a few more and they usually have the solution too. It’ll help you help them simplify, to work through the problems, and get back to the customer.

[With special mention and thanks to Professor Cary Cooper, Glassdoor, Plum Consultancy, Brand Ethos, Octopus, Certus]

Oblique Strategies

I work on my own a lot. There are benefits. Above all, I choose the music. All day. Every day. And if there’s cricket on, I listen to that instead. Bliss.

But, even for an only child, I can miss human contact. Especially the chance to bounce ideas off colleagues. I have some sympathy with Marissa Mayer’s work in the office edict.

There’s another phenomenon I must deal with. Sometimes I’m the expert, the guru, the seen-it-done-it, not-to-be-questioned sage. Sometimes I’m the freelancer; here’s the brief, the scope, deliver these outputs. Neither necessarily builds in the challenge to get to a better solution.

Without colleagues to spark off, or sources of friction, how do I keep getting better? How do I not churn out the same product every time?

Enter Brian Eno. I listen mostly to 6 Music. They play great music, and he’s made a lot of it, so he pops up frequently. And I’ve heard him talk about his Oblique Strategies. These are designed to break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking. I’ve been taking one each day with the instruction to trust the card even if “its appropriateness is quite unclear”.

First up: “Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities”. I was writing an EVP report. Not only was the appropriateness entirely unclear, but it felt like bad - absurd? - advice. But as I came back to it, it sort of came into focus. I kept a lot of specifics but I looked at what people didn’t say, what they alluded to, what it might all mean. It’s still all solid research, but taken that bit further.

Next: “Look at the order in which you do things”. Another report; this needed representative quotes to add meaning. It’s massively valuable, but by god, it’s laborious. I usually leave it last, and it’s a good sense-check. But I did it earlier, it became a more fundamental part of the report and it felt less tedious.

Then: “What to maintain?” I’ve been touting myself about a bit, and I have a lot of things to say. But what really makes people prick up their ears and say “Oh, really?” or “Tell me more…” Work to do but it may make my pitches more focussed.

The lesson: look for inspiration in unlikely places. (Just make sure that those places are likely to be more fruitful than Steve Wright’s “Big Show”…)

Social Listening

It’s a seductive prospect. That you can tap into the internet and understand more about your employer brand. That social media will help you appreciate what punters associate with a career at your firm, and that you can quantify their perceptions.

But there’s a problem. It doesn’t really work*.

Stopping and reflecting, you can probably see why. When did you last speak online and at length about your job? With a balanced picture of pros and cons, and what you expect to gain? And what about your next job or prospective employer? Reader, I prefer to imagine that you have better things to do.

And if people are talking about your employer brand in any volume, you need to rely on automation to sift the employer brand chat from the consumer, and to accurately assess the sentiment. That’s tough.

But, what this means is that there is a range of opportunities for employers.

For one, they can get out there and engage with said punters. Properly, not rolling out a stream of content that gathers no interaction. Actively, socially engaging with those that follow them or tweet about them.

For another, we can put ourselves in the punter’s shoes. If they dive in online, they’ll find a limited amount of useful information. We can make some good assumptions about their perception of your brand, or how it will be formed.

For a third, it means that your .jobs or /careers site will influence the perception – probably to a greater degree than you imagine. There’s the credibility, the they-would-say-that-wouldn’t-they? issue, but that’s hardly insurmountable.

If people aren’t talking about you, then you can start the conversation. And that’s a great opportunity.

* Of course, it can work. I have to have bold opinions, or they revoke my blogging licence. And I’d be delighted to be proved wrong. Where it does work well is where there’s already a strong employer brand (carefully established or lumbered with). It works well for graduate positions. There’s Glassdoor and other review sites and forums. And there’s always some chat that you can find. But it’s about going in with realistic expectations – and probably looking to other options for external perception.