Sentiment analysis is the process of determining the overall feeling that people have about your employer brand. Essentially, it lets you know whether you are perceived in a generally positive or negative way by:
- Your current team members
- Ex-employees
- Job candidates
- Business partners
- The general public
Sentiment analysis is also called opinion mining. The process involves analyzing data to determine whether the sentiment being expressed is positive, negative, or neutral.
How Does Sentiment Analysis Work
Sentiment analysis is something that can be done on a very small or very large scale. There are also multiple ways to collect and analyze data for the purposes of opinion mining.
Here’s an example of a very small-scale, simple sentiment analysis. Imagine that you go to an employer review site, and look up your company.
You read through a sampling of 100 reviews, and take note of the positive and negative views that people express about working for you. You use that information to determine whether opinions of your company culture are generally positive or negative.
The benefits of this type of sentiment analysis are that it is a simple approach, easy to execute, and doesn’t require any sort of tools or technologies. The negatives are that:
- You have no way of vetting the data or the people who shared it
- The sample size may be too small for the conclusions to be accurate
- It’s labor-intensive, even with smaller amounts of data
- There’s a potential for human bias and error to impact the conclusions
Because of this, companies that really want helpful insights will use tools and technologies to help them collect, verify, and analyze useful sets of data. These tools often use artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) to draw accurate conclusions.
For example, you might use a tool to gather feedback from hundreds of verified employees, then analyze the responses to gain sentiment insights about:
- Diversity
- Culture
- Advancement opportunities
- Management style
It’s even possible to drill further into the data to get different insights. For example, you could analyze the data to learn more about sentiment among management-level employees, or the women in your workplace.
Finally, advanced sentiment analysis tools can process texts in addition to rating scales or other limited choice inquiries. For example,
Why Is Sentiment Analysis Important?
Work attrition is at an all-time high. At the same time, companies are scrambling to fill positions. It’s imperative that leadership has a full understanding of how the company is perceived by employees, applicants, and others.
Unfortunately, the usual employee surveys and feedback collected during annual reviews aren’t adequate. To gain a complete and accurate understanding, employers need data. This is where sentiment analysis becomes a crucial tool.
By employing opinion mining, companies can better understand how they’re perceived, and modify their employer branding strategy, policies, and marketing approach accordingly.
Learn How Employees Feel About Company Culture
Culture is often a major factor in an employee’s decision to stay with your organization or move on to other opportunities. Unfortunately, departing employees may not always share this information directly with you, and neither will workers who are planning to leave.
However, if you use sentiment analysis, you can get a clear picture of any issues, and act accordingly. If you find out that your culture scores are positive, you can share this information on your career page or in your job listings.
Gain Insights into Employee Sentiment on Leadership
Do your team members have faith in your executive leadership? Will they trust your judgment when it comes to company policies, growth decisions, and the company’s direction? If sentiment in this area is negative, this can impact growth, morale, and productivity.
Determine Whether Employees Are Satisfied with Diversity Initiatives
Millennials and Gen-Z both strongly indicate that they want to work with companies that make diversity and gender equality a priority. You may assume you are doing well in these areas, but that opinion may not be shared by your staff or by job candidates.
By engaging in sentiment analysis, you can determine how you are doing in this area. You can even learn how workers from different demographic groups or organizational areas feel about your diversity efforts.
Employee Sentiment on Other Factors
What about other topics? You can conduct sentiment analysis on salary and benefits, mission, or any other area of concern. As long as worker input on it can be analyzed, it’s possible to determine sentiment.
Discern the Validity of Sentiment
In addition to letting you know how your brand is perceived, sentiment analysis allows you to measure perception against reality. Then, if there are discrepancies, you can take action to deal with them.
Imagine that you find out that sentiment about your salary and benefits skews largely negative. At the same time, you have compared your pay rates to other companies in your industry, and yours are better than average. You’ve even added a daycare reimbursement benefit and a few other perks.
While it’s disappointing to learn that your company is being perceived incorrectly, once you have that knowledge, you can do something about it. For example, you can adjust your recruitment marketing efforts to focus on your competitive salary and great benefits.
Improve Recruiting And Retention
Ultimately, the point of sentiment analysis is to give you the information you need to understand how people feel about your employer brand. Once you have that knowledge, you are empowered to use it to make decisions that boost your brand and make it easier to retain talent.
