Employee Feedback with Dan Quigg and Guillaume Muller-Greven of Public Insight

Introduction (00:02):

School is in session. This is Recruiting Daily Sourcing School podcast. We’re recording from HR Tech in Vegas, thanks to our friends and partners at Gem. Sharpen your pencils and get your sourcing pants on because we have the scoop on sourcing news, recruiting tech, and all the hot topics that you need to learn about. Here’s your professor, Ryan Leary, with special guests, Shally Steckerl and Mike “Batman” Cohen.

Shally Steckerl (00:29):

School’s back in session. And this time around we are talking about analytics. Yeah, I know we talked about analytics before and we talk about analytics all the time. But, in particular, I want to talk about talent pool analytics which is an interesting subject for anybody that’s trying to figure out where their hires are going to come from. Maybe even where their people went when they left the company. So with us today, we have a couple of guests from Public Insight, which is an analytics company that provides data for talent pools. Dan and Guillaume are here representing. Welcome guys.

Dan (01:12):

Thanks Shally.

Guillaume Muller-Greven (01:12):

Thank you.

Dan (01:13):

Good to be here.

Shally Steckerl (01:14):

All right. Right. So tell me a little bit about what’s happening right now with the information that’s available about talent pools.

Dan (01:28):

Well, I think that, when we think about that workers are generally relocating, I don’t mean just physically relocating. They’re moving. I mean so they’re going from something to something. And so when we think about talent pools, we don’t want to just understand that they’re going to take a traditional path. We already know from the last two years that they’re taking very, very many untraditional paths. So we have to follow along with what those nontraditional paths are and kind of figure out what they’re doing because that is where the market’s changing and we have to understand the different paths that they’re taking. And that’s-

Shally Steckerl (02:10):

So in order to find the talent, you need to understand where they’re going.

Dan (02:19):

Right.

Shally Steckerl (02:20):

And it’s not the same as it’s been for a very long time. It’s changed very dramatically in the last couple of years.

Dan (02:27):

That’s right. Exactly.

Shally Steckerl (02:27):

Perhaps because of COVID or for whatever reason, but it’s definitely changed permanently.

Dan (02:33):

What? Wait, wait, wait. Why can’t I just take buzzwords from a job description and then put them into a social platform? What’s wrong with that?

Shally Steckerl (02:42):

To do what? To recruit?

Dan (02:43):

Yeah, of course.

Shally Steckerl (02:44):

Oh yeah, but see we’re not talking about recruiting, we’re talking about mapping talent pools. So, that’s a little different story.

Dan (03:01):

You mean use strategy instead of buzzwords? My brain-

Shally Steckerl (03:01):

Strategy. So we’ve talked about this in the past, you guys, about the interesting pattern that’s arising, but I want people to understand how different it really is and how non-traditional these paths are. So could you give me a solid example of a very unusual behavior that’s evolving?

Guillaume Muller-Greven (03:26):

Sure. So one of the things that we looked at was education. Governments don’t always adjust salaries as quickly as the market data and there’s been a general attrition of teachers in the space. And where are those teachers going? They’re skilled individuals, but they’re looking for better life in terms of compensation or work life balance. Not everybody wants to be at the school at six in the morning dealing with kids all day. So they’re going into edutech and sales and some other areas like that or moving. And if any teachers you might know, it’s a discussion amongst teachers. And that’s just one example. Dan, I don’t know if you’ve tracked any other examples that are really good to bring up here.

Shally Steckerl (04:10):

It’s just not linear, basically. It’s the tradition of get going upwardly mobile in your career by getting a promotion into manager, director, whatever. What you’re seeing is they’re just moving laterally to another industry that doesn’t even look like it’s something that they should be doing, basically.

Dan (04:29):

Well actually I think though is there is some element of fitting in with what drives them. So for example, Yon mentioned leaving education. The number one industry that education is moving towards is healthcare. If you think about it, it’s not that unusual if you’re really motivated by serving people, you’re serving kids.

Shally Steckerl (04:54):

Okay.

Dan (04:54):

So moving into healthcare, it’s not so much to relieve stress, because going into healthcare is probably not going to relieve stress.

Shally Steckerl (05:02):

No, but if you’re in healthcare and you’re struggling for candidates and you’re listening to this, you should be thinking, “Oh, I didn’t know that. I should probably go look in education.” Because they haven’t been.

Dan (05:11):

Yeah, exactly. Sure. So anything that’s a service area, it’s not like all of a sudden an extrovert becomes an introvert.

Shally Steckerl (05:22):

Gotcha.

Dan (05:22):

If you’re an extrovert, you’re going to probably go into another extrovert-

Shally Steckerl (05:25):

Extroverted professions, but that’s still not a linear path. So I was talking to somebody about what happened to all the healthcare workers, bedside healthcare workers, that apparently vanished during the pandemic because it was a significant number. In some states it was as high as 50% of the talent was off the market. I don’t mean like switch jobs, I mean left the job market or changed completely. And I always wondered, I did an analysis with some data and I wondered where they were going. A big portion of them stayed in healthcare but left the bedside. And another big portion in the less skilled areas of healthcare left for hospitality, which I didn’t really see that one coming. They left the hospital and went to the hotel. Apart from sharing the first initial, it’s surprising.

(06:29)
So a tool like yours can help people understand those shifts. And it’s not just the skillset, it’s also what else. You’ve got compensation data and this changes so frequently now that using the annual compensation report is really not, that you’re almost behind after a month or two from the moment you get that report, two or three months into it’s now completely obsolete. So you are doing more than just getting the BLS report that comes out every, I don’t know, decade or whatever, you’re doing more than that, it’s real time, it’s surveys. Besides compensation data and these career paths, what other types of information are available that we should be using?

Dan (07:18):

Yeah, I want to maybe just piggyback on the example you had. So we looked at, for example, a personal care aid, which is I think kind of what you were talking about when you said bedside to-

Shally Steckerl (07:30):

Bedside to hotel. Yeah.

Dan (07:32):

Yeah. So we found that, we actually did this in a webinar, we did where a personal charades in Florida were, believe it or not, there were many more in Jacksonville than there were in Fort Lauderdale. So if you may be able to incentivize, again, that’s going to require a physical move, but just at the other end of the state, there was a huge difference in supply. So a lot of it might be, and then when you factor in remote work, obviously direct charades have directly remote job, but we looked at almost like the Mason Dixon line for computer support. And you’re looking at alternate pools. You see everybody shifted south, so you might change your strategy. I found, actually the number one area of growth for computer support, one of them was Las Vegas. So here we are sitting.

Shally Steckerl (08:32):

Oh wow.

Dan (08:33):

So would you go after [inaudible 00:08:37]?

Shally Steckerl (08:36):

I wouldn’t have thought of that.

Dan (08:38):

Yeah. Maybe it’s because people like to gamble.

Shally Steckerl (08:41):

Yeah. Right. So what else? Compensation, geography migration, job title, migration, education, what other types of data?

Dan (08:54):

So one other area that we’re really focused in on is employer reputation. It’s really driving a lot of the market. People, they want to work for certain types of companies and they want to have certain lifestyles along with their work and life balance and that kind of stuff. Compensation isn’t necessarily the driving factor where people are migrating to and from companies and industries. It’s really, it’s a holistic-

Shally Steckerl (09:19):

Job satisfaction.

Dan (09:20):

Yeah. Exactly.

Shally Steckerl (09:22):

But why can’t I just go to Glassdoor? Everything on Glassdoor?

Dan (09:27):

Glassdoor has a lot of information, they’re a really rich store. But here’s the thing. So if you go to Glassdoor, you’re going to get 10 years of data in one snapshot, but you’re not going to know how that data two months ago differs from four years ago. And so you can time phase it and see these trends. And it could be, for sourcing, it could be a really good source of talent like, “Hey, this company had really great reputation, but the last three months are terrible.” That might be some changes happening. And that could be a good company to identify candidates from.

Shally Steckerl (09:58):

Target companies that have a sliding reputation. Besides Glassdoor, what other sources of information about company reputation are there?

Dan (10:07):

So we pull data from other sources that are more DE and I focused. So Intersite and Comparably, we also do Indeed. So between all four of those, we capture, I want to say roughly a hundred million ratings and about nine million reviews. And I’m, I’m going to guess around about a year, year and a half long.

Shally Steckerl (10:28):

And with statistics and any analysis, the larger the data set, the more likely that it’s going to have insights that you can actually use. If you just survey people in Jacksonville and try to apply that nationally, it’s not going to work. So this data set is important to sourcing and to figuring out where you’re going to open your next IT call center and all that. So it’s planning, its strategy.

Dan (10:53):

And retaining people.

Shally Steckerl (10:54):

And retaining people. Tell me about that.

Dan (10:57):

So it’s hard to fill positions if you can keep your people, that’s always a win because they’re already trained, they’re already in the organization. So if you can get insights into what other industries and positions that are compatible with your current staff and you can see where they’re going or what you’re up against in terms of the market, that’s going to give you a head a heads up in terms of what you-

Shally Steckerl (11:21):

An opportunity to fix it.

Dan (11:22):

Yeah. What you got to do to keep the people that are keeping your business afloat.

Guillaume Muller-Greven (11:25):

And if I could piggyback onto that, is a lot of employers look at the quantitative aspects so they immediately default. And I’m a CPA by background, so it’s natural for me to think in terms of, “”Hey, I got to pay more. And what we find is that most positions, when we do opinion mining of reviews, compensation or pay is not even in the top five.

Shally Steckerl (11:53):

Oh, wow.

Guillaume Muller-Greven (11:53):

It’s management, it’s culture, it’s environment. And actually, when people are providing their feedback on compensation, four times than not it’s good, not bad. But when you talk about management, it’s almost exactly 50, 50.

Shally Steckerl (12:14):

Oh, wow.

Guillaume Muller-Greven (12:16):

But if you’re an employer and you’re looking at that and you’re saying, “Gosh, what are the things that people are dinging me about on reviews?” It surfaces right up to the top. These are the subjects that are most important, but also from a sourcing perspective, it’s going to tell you, what are the key things that are important? So going back to the personal charade again, because we looked at that, it might be that a personal charade, we’re focusing in on the things that actually do drive them. So some stress is good. So if you’re driven that way, some stress is good. So trying to make it less stressful may not be the right thing because it’s natural.

Shally Steckerl (12:53):

Got it.

Dan (12:54):

If you’re a personal care, and my dad just went through end of life, I know it’s a stressful job to be a personal care aid.

Shally Steckerl (12:59):

And some people are just okay with that because they like to have that active environment.

Dan (13:04):

Yeah, you’re not going to change that.

Shally Steckerl (13:05):

Something always going on.

Dan (13:07):

But the thing that they were, forgive, the expression, they were bitching about was they were the fact that their schedule was not sex zone or they weren’t getting good communication. I mean communication is always in the top five.

Shally Steckerl (13:18):

Communication [inaudible 00:13:20]. Oh, wow.

Dan (13:22):

So.

Guillaume Muller-Greven (13:22):

It’s funny, I did a talk acouple months back and there was a study that the MIT Sloan School of Business put out, and it was a year and a half ago, and it talked about why people were leaving their jobs. And it listed the top 10 reasons. And you had mentioned this in passing, do you know where salary fits on that list? Tell us. It doesn’t. It’s number 12 in terms of reasons for leaving. So those aren’t the reasons why people are posting, most of the time, about this is happening, this is why I left. It typically is about things that are imminently solvable and fixable online. But if you don’t have that data.

Shally Steckerl (14:08):

You have no idea. How do you fix a problem you don’t have? You don’t know you have. Right.

Guillaume Muller-Greven (14:12):

Right.

Shally Steckerl (14:13):

Yeah. And then the other side of that is, well, now that I’m leaving, I might as well ask for more money, but I wasn’t leaving for the money.

Dan (14:20):

Right.

Shally Steckerl (14:21):

Might as well, since I’m leaving anyway.

Dan (14:24):

Yeah. I compare that when we’re talking to candidates and you talk to them like, “Oh, what’s your reason for leaving?” “Oh, I don’t want to commute into the city anymore. It’s just, it’s draining.” Like, “Oh, everything else is okay.” “Yeah, it’s all right.” And you go through the process, they’re like, “I’m actually interviewing with another company.” And you’re like, “Oh, tell me about that.” “Oh, it’s in the city.” And you’re like, but, and they’re like, “But it pays like $20,000 more.” And you’re like, “But that’s not…”

Shally Steckerl (14:48):

That’s what you just said you didn’t want.

Dan (14:49):

You said you didn’t want to do that. Yeah.

Shally Steckerl (14:51):

That thing. But without that data, how are we assessing? We are just about out of time and I like to end all of our podcasts this way. So I’m going to put you on the spot, both of you.

Dan (15:04):

Uh, oh. Buckle up.

Shally Steckerl (15:05):

I know. Yeah. Good luck. Okay. What is one thing you want to leave the listeners with, each of you? It can be about what we’re talking about today. It can be about nothing we’re talking about today. It can be personal, but something that can hit them in the head, the heart, the soul. What is it that you want people to reflect on or feel when they’re done listening to this podcast?

Guillaume Muller-Greven (15:30):

I’ll go ahead and get started.

Dan (15:31):

Oh yeah.

Guillaume Muller-Greven (15:33):

So I think it’s really critical for companies and candidates to come into the marketplace. Candidates need to be open about what they’re feeling, what’s driving them. And then companies need to understand how they’re motivated, what’s important to them. And when companies have the data, they can meet the candidates where they need to be met so they can focus on building a better business and having a better culture. And that ultimately translates into better business practices and better client relationships.

Dan (16:04):

Right now, if you’re listening to this, you’re probably smiling and or feeling like, heck to that statement, that was a mic drop statement and do a little call out right here on you and then to prove a valid point, which was, you were going to sit out on this one and let Dan take this. And Dan was like, “No man, you got to get in here. You got a voice, you got some important stuff to say.” And so I’m calling this out because A, great job. Obviously you’ve done a great job here, but doing different things or uncomfortable things or things where you’re not sure about the value you’re going to add, that’s where A, growth happens, and B, also realizing, “You know what? I do have something to offer.” Or some things in your case. So great job, man. I’m calling that out because thank heavens you are on here.

Guillaume Muller-Greven (16:48):

Oh, this was a great experience. I appreciate you guys having us.

Shally Steckerl (16:50):

So yeah. All right. Dan, you’re not off the hook, bud.

Dan (16:54):

Well, Guillaume comes from the staffing recruiting space, so I don’t, he’s a lot more up to date, so mine’s going to be much more woo, woo. So I like to say that if you quote Isaac, I think it’s Isaac Asimoff, right? That I need to be, not a speed reader, but a speed understander. That’s really what, even though we’re in the data business, just throw data over the wall, you have to use data critically. And that’s really what he meant by that. I need to be a speed understander and not just be processing data. So easy to go through the motions. You post ads. One of my favorite metrics is 40% of all ads during the height of the pandemic were marked as urgent. And if you actually did a study and actually looked at this in my spare time, in the urgent, you actually had less of a chance. If you marked an ad as urgent of placing a candidate, then more of a chance.

(17:51)
And it makes sense because if I want to add more stress, I’m going to respond to an urgent life urgent post ad. Right? But I’ll have a sign on bonus, so we’ll throw that in.

Shally Steckerl (18:01):

Yeah, I love that, Dan. And I’m a woo woo fan and a sci-fi fan, so I loved everything that just happened just now. And it brought up an image for me around what you said, thinking about typing, I type very quickly. And that idea of what is more important, typing very quickly, or typing actual words that people can read without spelling errors. Because if you can type 80 words a minute, but 10% of your words are misspelled, or 60 words a minute with wild proficiency, what’s better? And I think you kind of nailed it, right? Which is, shoot for the actual proficiency of the thing, not just the doing of the thing. So guys, thank you so much. I know it’s crazy here, it’s busy, it’s loud, there’s so much going on. You donated a solid 20, 25 minutes to us today, so thank you both. We appreciate having you here and hopefully we’ll we’ll see you again soon.

Speaker 6 (18:58):

Oh, man, that means it’s over.

Speaker 7 (19:00):

You’ve been listening to the Sourcing School podcast live at HR Tech in Vegas. Sponsored by our friends at Gem.For All other HR, recruiting and sourcing news, check out recruitingdaily.com.