Burn the Box - Rethinking Business: The Power Shift from Intuition to Data

We all have biases and believe our thinking is the absolute truth. That is not always the case. Let me tell you why. Hey everyone, it's Anthony Ernesto and this is my Burn the Box drop for this week. It's using Adam Grant's book Think Again as a motivating factor for me and something that I was thinking about. So we are constantly trying to think about how even in this competitive market, from a talent perspective, how are we going to reach out and connect with folks? I've always said recruiting a lot of folks will dive into strategy and data. I think those things are important. But it comes down to relationships. It comes down to what I call blocking and tackling. Recruiting is a blocking and tackling kind of thing. But we want to make sure that the blocking and tackling it becomes a little bit easier through automation. I've been talking a lot about AI and automation. How can we connect to folks in a way that creates value for them? And so we've been thinking about how do we drive content? As you already probably know, we have audio in our job descriptions which is very unique. Gives people insights to Suzy through podcasts, like audio on our job description. So gives folks an opportunity to learn more about Suzy. We're thinking about what other content should we deliver or connect with people about that would attract them to come and consider Suzy as an employer. And one of the things that I was thinking about and I really held true was that thought leadership was going to be a key piece of content. That thought leadership people cared more about how smart your company was and the cool stuff that you were doing versus about your culture or anything else. I wanted to test that assumption something we use Suzy a lot, our platform here to do a bunch of things. So I went out on Suzy and I asked the panel of employees part time, full time in the U.S. ask them to rank different pieces of content in terms of their influence. So we, we, we asked them a question and said please rank the following factors that would influence your interest in meeting with a company for a job opportunity. And the rankings were one most influential through six least influential. And what we found was and we looked across a couple of different factors. One was information about the company's culture and values, details about the employee benefits and compensation, insights into career growth and opportunities and development, the company's mission and vision statement, testimonials and success stories from current employees and thought leadership content in the industry and domain. My thesis was that thought leadership was going to be the thing that people would pick. I was wrong, completely wrong in Fact, Thought leadership was the least influential when it came to content or factors. For the Suzy panel that we surveyed, the number one thing was not surprising to a lot of you. Employee benefits and compensation. They want to know about comp and Benny's within your company. The second was information about the company's culture and values was really, really important or at least influential. And. And the last was career growth opportunities and development. Again, most influential, where people put a one or two against those factors. Thought leadership all the way at the bottom, completely going against everything I thought about. And it reminded me of a campaign Susie did years ago called the Hippo, which is acronym for the highest paid person's opinion. And the point was use Susie to grab data to make more informed decisions than being in a meeting and having the highest paid person or the person that was the highest on the org chart make the decision. And here is a perfect example of that where I played the Hippo and I was wrong. Now, is there a place for thought leadership content? Absolutely. And we're actually re asking the question around. Okay, there isn't a job opportunity, but we want to connect with you more often and more frequently. What kind of content would you be interested in? We're assuming that would be thought leadership, but we'll come back to you and let you know. So what the heck is my point here? Well, in short, this experience has reaffirmed the importance of data invalidating or challenging our assumptions in H R. Bringing data to the table is incredibly important, and it's a reminder that what we believe to be true really might need that second look through the lens of data. So here's to embracing a mindset that values data over intuition and being willing to pivot when the numbers tell a different story. That's my quick drop for today. We'll see you next time.