A lovely story did the rounds at the ongoing Australian Tennis Open this week. The first week went surprisingly well for the British contingent, with any number of both men and women both qualifying and making progress. No surprise obviously that Sir Andy Murray and Johanna Konta were front and central. However, far less anticipated and indeed celebrated was the success of Dan Evans. An individual possessing to date perhaps more talent than application, Evans had a fantastic tournament. He took everyone by surprise, possibly including himself, but most certainly including his shirt sponsor.
Despite a recent run of quietly promising (but apparently ignored) form, Nike took the decision to distance themselves from Evans and drop him from their roster. This now looks like a more than questionable decision as Evans won a competition in Sydney just prior to the Australian Open and then made it through to the fourth round of the major, collecting some notable scalps along the way and generating substantial amounts of press coverage.
Perhaps the most memorable aspect of his progress were media articles around his choice of clothing. Rather than having top of the range Nike garments thrust upon him, Evans had to go out to the nearest Uniqlo and buy 18 identical white tee-shirts. Which must have made a nice contrast with the various red faces in the Nike seats as he progressed from round to round.
Another equally touching story has been circulating recently based around the decision making process and how data impacts it. Abraham Wald was a statistician working in the US military during WW2. He was tasked with analysing the aircraft which successfully returned to base and recommending where additional armoured protection should be placed on the aircraft to ensure more of them made the return trip. Too much armour, however, would slow the plane down so this had to be added sparingly. Such recommendations were to be based on where the returning the aircraft had been hit by bullets. This suggested clearly that the additional protection should be applied to the wings and the fuselage, given these were the areas most hit. And this was the guidance Wald was given.
However, he chose to look at the subject and the data more laterally and consider those planes which hadn’t in fact returned home – for obvious reasons. He surmised that those planes that had not survived bullets had been hit in the engines and cockpit, so causing their demise Those planes strafed with bullets around the wings and fuselage had not caused the plane to crash. Wald’s recommendations then, after he had probed the data (and not just the data he was given) was to add protection around the engines and cockpit.
I suspect a lot of elderly American gentlemen will have a lot to thank Mr Wald for.
So, how does this have relevance for talent acquisition?
What sort of data – and what sort of data analysis – is used to shape and form the employer brand and perception of organisations?
Do we rely too much – as candidates and practitioners – on assumption and incidental data sources?
Let’s take the Glassdoor Best Places to Work Survey published at the back end of December 2016. Lazy assumptions would tend to place usual suspects such as John Lewis, Google and Apple somewhere in the top five.
But that’s not what the increasingly influential Glassdoor data is telling us, with Apple at No. 41 and John Lewis just eight places better off. In reality, consumer brands such as ARM, Nando’s and Screwfix, which appear generally ignored and unloved in the talent acquisition space all placed highly.
Whether such compelling data has translated yet into applicant activity is unclear, particularly at a time when Google reports receiving a staggering 100,000 applications each week.
More subjectively, my own personal exposure to one particular organisation draws similar conclusions. Delivering on a consultancy basis the insight and clarity to shape their EVP, I perhaps was guilty of relying on my historical perceptions of the brand. A brand I felt that was generally perceived to be looking backwards rather than forwards.
I was certainly unprepared for an organisation in fierce financial heath, growing strongly, making confident acquisitions across the globe in some fascinating areas with real resonance to some of today’s most pressing business and societal challenges. Hats off, then to BSi.
But in the absence of such inspiring data, perhaps we shouldn’t today be surprised if certain talent pools are not yet clamouring to hear more.
Finally, let’s consider Deliveroo. How do we tend to process the brand? Easy means of accessing takeaway food if we’re feeling on the lazy side? That firm with the irritating moped and bicycle delivery guys with less grasp of the road safety laws than feels advisable?
Do we tend to analyse the available data and perceive them as an organisation adding – as they are currently doing – 300 technology jobs at fast growing Cannon Street offices? A place where CEO Will Shu talks proudly and ambitiously about ‘exporting British-born technology around the world’.
Inspiring stuff but does the hugely in-demand digital talent pool which Shu needs to attract currently have sufficient data to draw them to Deliveroo? Or are they more likely to be sitting on bean bags in Shoreditch using the company to deliver late night sushi?
And if we take broader external talent pools, what data are they working from in order to make the decision as to whether to twist or stick? Stay where they are or make a career move?
The data is potentially confusing. Whilst Markit’s CEO Chris Williamson points to all three UK industry sectors moving forward at their fastest pace for 11 months across business confidence, new orders and hiring intentions, other data is less promising. There were 123,000 redundancies in the quarter to November 2016 (the most recent sounding), the highest reading for nearly three years.
And with inflation hitting a two and a half year high in December of 1.6% and forecast to nearly double to 3% by the end of the current year, are employees likely to start feeling poorer by staying where they are and receiving sub-inflation pay increases?
Appropriately, given the opaque views out of my window right now, levels of employment perceptions can be foggy and unclear.
Employers need to look beyond the obvious and the near to hand – in a way that Abraham Wald did and Nike did not – as they construct a talent acquisition narrative.
And it should be a narrative which has the clarity, focus and impact to permeate talent audiences’ historical assumptions, guesswork and intuition. Organisations such as Deliveroo have a great story to tell, whether they are currently articulating this with sufficient clarity and volume is debateable. The contrast between US tech successes and those elsewhere is often made – why doesn’t Germany or France or the UK create the likes of Google and Uber and Apple?
Something for the likes of Deliveroo to chew on.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 