Our CEO finally admits he’s clueless, and the staff at HRO Today is just thankful they have lived to see this day.
No, honestly, what are you thinking? I haven’t the faintest idea. Nor do the other staff members at HRO Today. We really do not. That is why we publish so many Baker’s Dozen Customer Satisfaction Ratings. It’s why we conduct trend surveys and reader surveys. We are clueless—until we ask.
This appalling lack of knowledge and concomitant sense of humility recently occurred to me watching a political news report by one of the 24-hour new channels. It had a journalistic spokesperson on a panel analyzing an endless array of video clips by elected officials. In one of the clips, a politician stated that the loss of the election was actually a great victory with an appropriately plasticized smile. At that, the media analyst broke in and said, “The public is really tired of this kind of spin out of Washington, and it really backfired in the results. The public just will not stand for this.”
I got to wondering. Did the “public” call this journalist? I mean all of them. I am not talking about getting a few hundred tweets from the 300 odd million people in North America. I mean the public. Did they call? Did this person conduct an immediate pulse survey between the clip and the comment? I guess it’s fair to guess that silly political behavior is annoying, but for one to be so definitive on public reaction in an all knowing voice is equally silly. I was waiting for the media analyst to start jumping about reading from Dr. Seuss proclaiming, “I am the Lorax, and I speak for the trees!”
In truth, the media does not know anything unless you specifically tell us. And you do not tell us anything we do not specifically ask. Often, it is like staring at a great cloud and trying to see shapes in it. In 2007, HRO Today embarked on a different path, and we began to ask very specific questions. We began to conduct significant survey research behind our list generation. Today we provide Baker’s Dozen Customer Satisfaction Ratings on a number of different categories of providers, and we conduct trend surveys. The most recent survey on pre-employment screening providers contained in this issue (see page 15) solicited more than double the responses we received last year. We verified 271 complete surveys making this the largest and most comprehensive customer satisfaction study ever done in this single process of HRO.
The opinions and information you provide educates the next generation of HR Officers and leaders. It verifies the trends in the marketplace and returns to you a benefit at renewal in the form of a useable source of data about the various choices available to you for these services. In a sense, we have created a network of information sharing among all of the practitioner readers of HRO Today. You collaborate on improvements in the quality of service delivery by shining a bright light on the companies that excel at it and exposing the ones that do not.
We also have conducted a recent readers’ survey that has given us valuable guidance on sweeping changes to our approach editorially and directionally, as we try to provide case study driven solutions to HR challenges. We will be continuing to evolve our format and promise coverage of the market that is more direct and at times more hard hitting on what does and does not work. We are also adding pulse surveys to our website by year’s end.
We do not propose to be pundits, Loraxes, or planetary spokespeople, but we do promise to ask what you are thinking and then return the data-driven results to you in an understandable format. Oh, and thank you—and thank each other.
Elliot Clark, CEO
What Are You Thinking?
