From Statistics Class to the Workplace

I'm taking a Statistics course this semester, ugh, and within the first few weeks we were asked to introduce ourselves in a discussion post and share an article on probability, in addition to commenting on others’ posts. 

A few posts were interesting reads. One in particular talked about high probability hires - job candidates that have a higher likelihood of success in a particular role with a company - and how to find them and keep them. My classmate shared that his current role involves assisting in interviewing/hiring 4 people for a year-long, paid learning experience. Essentially, learners are hired through a match process, where the company ranks everyone that interviews for the position. Interviewees also rank the company’s programs they interviewed with.

He stated that probability comes into play while his team crafts a rank list of candidates who stood out during interviews, had good letters of recommendation, and the best work experience. However, high-quality employees are in high demand so it is likely that those who were ranked high are also being ranked high by other programs. This leads his company to look at other relevant factors to give the company the best estimate on if interviewees are high probability employees. 

He summarized by explaining that in the past year, his company only filled 3 out of 4 of their spots during the match process, and had to do a second round of interviews. Due to this, they decided to increase the number of interviews for the upcoming year to increase the odds on matching. 

This notion of high probability employees intrigued me, and caused me to think about the employment trends at my job. Though I can't speak for the company as a whole, the department I've been with for years has a high turnover rate. Over the past 4 years, the company has implemented a (voluntary) employee survey yearly. 

Also over the past 4 years, the department has continued to have a high turnover rate. I believe it would be beneficial for my job to lean into this idea of high probability hires and develop some sort of ranking system to determine if a candidate is a high probability employee. 

My classmate did state that interviewees also have the opportunity to rank the company they interviewed with. This part of the hiring process could be beneficial to my job as well and increase the chances of retaining high probability hires. 

Additionally, I think my job could benefit from revising the questions on the survey. I think the questions fall short in terms of relevancy, and after taking the survey for the past few years, the questions have not changed at all. My job asks questions related to whether or not employees feel supported at work, and whether or not they have a best friend in the workplace. 

I think the questions should be more geared toward feelings of management, company culture, job satisfaction, career growth and development, and desired work benefits. 

Much has happened in the last few years, especially in the business world. With the rise of remote work since the pandemic, the survey should ask questions related to work hours, and if employees are more willing to stay if they could work remote even in a hybrid setting, or other questions of that nature. 

Our Statistics textbook discussed collecting data and types of survey errors. The book explained that if you choose the wrong variables to study, you may not end up with results that support making better decisions. I think this is what's occurring at my job, the wrong variables are being studied thus we are not seeing changes or lowering turnover rates. Also, nonresponse errors come into play. This occurs when a survey fails to get a response to one or all of the questions, and needs to be avoided to obtain accurate results. 

I know not everyone at the company takes the survey, and last year I actually decided not to partake in the survey as well. 

I shared these thoughts in a response to my classmate and he responded, agreeing that if my job were more intentional about the variables they studied, they would get better data. He also brought up a great point that if different variables were studied, my job would have to do something about it. However, sometimes companies keep things general to avoid being forced to address the issues at hand. 

I wonder if that’s what’s occurring at my job. 

I’m also curious if anyone has heard of such a match process or participated in something like it before?

Does your job have employee surveys/feedback? What kind of questions are asked, and do you think the questions are relevant?