Marketing has always capitalised on the hopes and fears of consumers to sell them stuff. In a hyperconnected world, we can go a step further. For instance, some males may be embarrassed to admit that they watch soft romantic movies. But Netflix knows how many movies they watch in a month, how many breaks they take and what kind of movies they claim to like but give up after a few minutes. Netflix knows one’s taste in movies better than their friends do.

What if organisations do the same with employees?

Companies can get clues from people’s digital footprints and use it to acquire talent and then play on their vulnerabilities to prevent them from leaving. For that I have to tell you how Cambridge Analytica has actually done this.

The company claims to “measurably improve your brand’s marketing effectiveness by changing consumer behaviour”. It scrapes data collected from social media profiles. A global periodical publisher decided to measure the market size for the current target as well as potential subscribers. It engaged Cambridge Analytica which profiled socio-demographics, political engagement, geography and personality and found that the psychographics of the consumers of that periodical would be people who are analytical and likely to be working in finance. They would be highly neurotic, conscientious, and low in openness. The communication would have to be tailored to that profile. Cambridge Analytica’s website says behavioural communications experts recommended messaging that began with a negative initial stimulus followed by a reassuring solution. The tone should be analytical, detailed, direct and concrete with word choices that should include ‘trusted’, ‘prepare’, ‘determined’ and ‘solid.’

Attract the right talent

Online political advertising is becoming the most important way to win elections. With more than two billion monthly active users, it is a platform that everyone has to leverage. Approximately half of India’s 1.2 billion people are under the age of 26, and by 2020, it is forecast to be the youngest country in the world, with a median age of 29. By 2025, almost 20 per cent of the world’s working population would be living in India. And between Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, you have the youth covered.

Cambridge Analytica describes its work as “combining the precision of data analytics with the insights of behavioural psychology and the best of individually addressable advertising technology, to help you run a truly end-to-end campaign” (emphasis mine.)

Imagine how effective that could be for your competitor who could put out paid ads to spread misinformation about your company and its leaders. These ads show up in the form of videos that appear on your social media (Facebook and Whatsapp) feed. That would make it easy for you to be unhappy and disengaged. Then a subtle campaign about the goodness of your rival would ensure that when the phone rings, you would be happy to go for a meeting with the competitor you have now started admiring …

So how does it all work? Already there are several companies that offer to scrape data from the social media feed of prospective candidates. For example, knowing that a prospective candidate believes in star signs and is unhappy with the present employer (through negative comments made on specific sites) they can craft personalised messages.

The message could take the form of a weekly forecast that predicts that this is your lucky week to find a new job. So when the head-hunter’s phone rings, you are already primed to go for the interview. Knowing what motivates the person is a big predictor of how well the employee will fit into the firm’s culture.

Traditional psychometrics uses the “Big Five” traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism –to understand personality. Cambridge Analytica got additional data by slipping in questions about “sensational interests” – interest in the occult, militarism, intellectual activities, and such. To help craft individualised messages, it offered insights into the kind of issues that may polarise the electorate. What if your next employer did the same to play on your hopes and fears?

Is hiring by algorithm better?

Asking people is ineffective. Have you ever met someone who got hired after stating that they are not good at working with others? Why, then, do firms spend money to run team-building programs? If everyone knows what their job description says, why do firms need to motivate their employees and measure engagement?

According to psychologist Adam Grant, “people consistently overestimate their intelligence, a pattern that seems to be more pronounced among men than women. It’s also why people overestimate their generosity. It’s a desirable trait.”

Gathering real time data gives us many more data points to measure. HireVue blends artificial intelligence psychology to build a video interview software platform. As the person speaks into the camera, the software is mapping the interviewee’s non-verbal behaviour to assess their suitability for the role. Arctic Shores uses game-based assessments that deliver meaningful, job relevant insights into candidates.

Several firms are adopting algorithm-driven processes to create a more unbiased selection method. Blind auditions (where judges did not see the candidate) produced more hires that were women or minorities. While it seems to reduce one kind of bias, when a candidate is repeatedly rejected, they cannot figure what got them rejected. They can never fix that problem and will possibly get stuck in that loop.

Oil spills

Data is the new oil. Various connected devices, wearables and sensors are beginning to churn out data in real time. Amazon patented wristbands that could connect with equipment in warehouses and nudged employees via vibrations if, for example, they were about to place items in the wrong bins. That could improve the customer experience, but can also tell the employer if the employee’s restroom breaks are too long.

In a world where the legal limits on gathering and using people’s data remain largely undefined, the use of such devices could quickly turn nefarious. When an employer hands out Fitbits to employees to help them track their exercise levels, they also gain access to employees’ habits. The employer can track just how much slower an employee is moving, which could have an impact on hiring practices.

The employer might say that the employees have the right to opt out of these programs. Do they? Peer pressure will nudge an employee to sign up for data-sharing. What happens to the data when the employee joins a competitor? Can employees exercise a “right to forget” when they part ways with the employer?

Employers use fingerprints and other biometrics to provide access to their facilities. When an employer uses retinal scans to allow access, and retinal scans can indicate diabetes, should the employee be told about the disease?

What about data breaches? When Sony Pictures got hacked in December 2014, bosses’ salaries and employees’ social security information and e-mail exchanges started circulating. Gender-based pay discrimination came to light and the world learned that Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence were paid lesser than their male co-stars. What would the world know if your employee database got hacked?

What if the employee was let go on charges that were never proven? Or the data on performance was to be floating freely on the internet? Would you worry? Imagine the equivalent of Wikileaks happening with your firm.How prepared is the C-Suite to deal with such oil spills?

(Abhijit Bhaduri is a talent management advisor to several organisations and coach to CEOs. He is the author of The Digital Tsunami)

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