When you read the news these days, regarding women leaving the workforce, the outlook and reality seem bleak. According to the Wall Street Journal,
“Due to challenges created by the COVID-19 crisis, more than 1-in-4 women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce completely.”
The White House Fact Sheet, April 21, 2021 also reported,
“There are now 3.7 million fewer women working than there were in February 2020, in large part because of the pandemic, eroding more than 30 years of progress in women’s labor force participation.”
Not only are these the facts, but this has been my reality. I have spent the last decade and a half building a business career in a traditional corporate setting, across Consumer-Packaged Goods companies that span from cereal to mascara. I’ve built a rich network of connections, and grown my skillset to span across sales, marketing, research, and innovation. I’ve invested in my career, but COVID-19 made me re-evaluate where my investment was most needed.
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When the lockdown hit in March of 2020, I added an entire workstream to my day job: manage childcare and distance learning for my two young children. I also lost my part-time nanny, my relief and respite, due to the pandemic. I did not know how I would stay afloat, deliver against my job’s requirements, while also ensuring that my kids got what they needed.
COVID realities created both unreliable childcare and unreliable school days. One exposure could turn any sense of schedule or order upside down. Some of those months went by in a blur. I recognized something had to give. I had to give. I had to make a change for myself and my family. I chose to leave my corporate job to explore something more sustainable for my life.
Fast forward to early spring 2021 and some of the facts and realities haven’t changed all that much. While the nation is becoming hopeful with relaxing Covid restrictions and rise in vaccinations, women have not as readily returned to the workforce. This year, I shifted to the gig economy and started a new career as a Research Strategy Consultant with SIVO’s On-Demand Talent team, a local women-owned agency that really understands what it looks like to do the work you love while also being present for your family.
For me SIVO has been a beacon, offering me a way to continue investing in my career without compromising my family, especially during a pandemic. SIVO is a woman owned and operated business founded on the belief that the world needs more people doing what they love. SIVO recognized 12 years ago there was an overflow of great talent that wanted to work but NEEDED flexibility, especially parents juggling family and childcare demands.
I’ve learned that part of making it ‘work’ as a working mom is to find the type of work that meets your needs. Workplace norms have pivoted to meet marketplace realities. My advice to women is to consider something that fits YOUR lifestyle priorities instead of the other way around.
I love being a part of an organization like SIVO, a company committed to redefining what work looks like. SIVO is helping companies work differently through their On Demand Talent (ODT) practice, which helps fill in resource gaps for short or longer-term engagements. Sometimes a company just needs an extra perspective on a special project, or someone to fill in during a parental leave.
SIVO’s ODT can provide the right talent – at the right time – so that companies can keep moving forward without disrupting workflows or putting additional strain on existing staff. I am currently on an ODT assignment and am loving the opportunity to work on unique business problems while, not only continuing to nurture my professional career, but also be the kind of mom I want to be for my family.
Are you curious what working differently looks like? – just ask. SIVO Insights can help you figure out the best path forward for you or your company to get the resources – and talent – you need. Schedule a discovery call today to get started.
By Julie Rose
As someone who has spent over three decades in the market research industry, I've seen firsthand how technology reshapes our professional lives. The advent of online surveys, the rise of internet scraping and text analytics, opportunities coming from big data mining, and the now the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) all represent significant milestones in the Digital Age intersecting with the Market Research Industry.
AI isn't just a new tool; it's a game-changer. It's capable of automating repetitive tasks, processing and analyzing vast amounts of data, at speeds previously unimaginable. It is an exciting time to once again, adopt new ways of working that will advance our mission to understand people and deliver insights that drive business growth.
New Heights in Market Research Analysis
In today's fast-paced world, the volume of data generated daily is staggering. AI excels at sifting through this data, identifying patterns, and providing preliminary insights. This capability is invaluable in market research analytics, where the first step is often labor intensive to comb through a variety of data sources to identify patterns, anomalies, outliers, consistencies and inconsistencies.
Here are a few examples of where AI analyses can advance market research:
Practical Considerations
AI takes data processing and analysis to new levels, providing speed and pattern recognition that was unheard of even a few years ago. That said, the storytelling aspect of market research - translating data into a clear and inspiring story with actionable insights that will unlock new growth opportunities - is where human expertise shines.
Embracing the Future of AI in Market Research
As AI technology continues to evolve, so will SIVO’s approaches and techniques. We view AI as a powerful augmentation to our workflows and capabilities and will continue to experiment and adopt new ways of working that drive our effectiveness and efficiency. At the same time, we believe that it is the combination of the AI tools and experienced, empathetic market researchers that skillfully identify the nuances of consumers perceptions and behaviors that leads to actionable, strategic insights. We will continue to invest in both resources – artificial intelligence and human intelligence.
Join us on this exciting journey
At SIVO, we are committed to blending the best of human expertise and AI innovation to deliver insights that drive your business forward. Contact us at Contact@SIVOInsights.com or visit SIVOInsights.com to schedule a discovery call and explore how we can help you take your market research to new heights!
By Kerry Juhl
Managing a business is non-stop, full-time leadership. Typically, 90% of a leader's workday is focused on the daily needs of employees, customers, supply chain, marketing, sales, financials... and the list goes on. However, it is also a leader's job to present their team with a vision for the future, a "north star" that provides direction and goals for the organization, allowing them to compete effectively and transform opportunities into growth.
A great step in looking toward the future is to take stock of the landscape that you operate within, especially when there are changing dynamics in the external environment. The future growth of your business requires you to have a point of view on how your business will be impacted by changing consumer behaviors and preferences, the actions of your competitive set and external partners, and possibly the impact of new technologies. In other words, you need to have a vision of what your category/industry will look like in 5+ years to remain relevant in that future state and capitalize on future growth opportunities.
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Our team at SIVO has experience with helping clients build their category vision of the future. In fact, we have developed a step-by-step process that results in a defined Future-State Category Map to inform the Category Vision and Key Strategies for growth. A Category Vision not only demonstrates category leadership and anticipates the future, but it allows clients to take control and literally create their own destiny…a future where the business can thrive.
Define Current State:
Clients need to define the space that they currently play in. For some it might be narrow, for example, Skin Care. For others it might be broad, for example, Beauty Products. (There are pros and cons for how narrow or broad your category definition is and SIVO can guide your team to get to a definition that is relevant and actionable through our consumer insights solutions).
This step requires the gathering of category, competitive and consumer intelligence from a variety of sources, to answer questions, like:
Articulate Future State:
SIVO facilitates the client team through a small series of assignments and working sessions to envision the Future State of the category and to prioritize where to “place bets” within the category to maximize growth.
Create a Vision & Strategies to build Future State:
With the future state of the category defined, SIVO facilitates client teams through the creation of a Category Vision that serves as the "North Star", and Growth Strategies that the organization can put into action to drive category and brand growth for years to come.
A solid process with proven success. Are you ready to help your business create a category vision for the future? Schedule a discovery call today or reach out at Contact@SIVOInsights.com to develop strategies and plans that not only anticipate the future but create it!
The great resignation took a major toll on businesses across industries in the last few years. Businesses that prided themselves in workplace culture, flexibility, and benefits saw long-time employees step down from their roles. At the same time, more and more companies face transformative restructuring, like acquisitions and mergers. Following such major changes in the world at large and within organizations, the opinions and beliefs held by workers changed tremendously, and even the most forward-thinking businesses have suffered the consequences.
With that, many businesses are looking for a path toward improving performance and commitment in the workplace. How can they avoid employee attrition in the future? How can they improve their processes to boost efficiency and support employees? How can they redirect leadership to provide the support those employees need? At the end of the day, organizational intelligence gets data-driven insights to answer all these questions, and much more.
First thing’s first, what is organizational behavior? Organizational behavior is how individuals interact and behave in groups. It’s especially relevant when looking at the workplace. Forward-thinking businesses take their organizational behavior seriously, because it greatly impacts employee satisfaction and engagement, leadership performance, and overall workplace efficiency and effectiveness. If organizations do not understand their employee behavior, perceptions and opinions, they miss out on insights that could holistically improve their business. The best way to get those opinions, and translate them into a strategic action plan is to leverage organizational intelligence solutions.
Who should gather organizational behavior data? Your team is full of subject matter experts on your business and your industry, but when it comes to gathering information on organizational behavior, they may not be the right facilitators. Internal teams will have natural bias and may have subconscious results in mind, and could therefore not ask appropriate, unbiased questions. Plus, when it comes to listening to your employees, you want to get thoughts from a wide range of team members. That means allocating the task to an outside expert, to increase cooperation by maintaining employee confidentiality. Ultimately, this gives every employee the opportunity to provide their opinions, maintaining employee anonymity while removing all potential bias from the initiative.
So, what are the keys to improving performance and commitment in the workplace? Understanding what motivates your team members is key to educating and empowering leadership to create a path toward a better future for your company. Get a breakdown on employee insights, leadership development, and strategic planning facilitation below:
What are the honest opinions of your employees when it comes to your business culture and processes? When leadership asks them directly, they will likely get a much different answer than an unbiased facilitator. However, there are many ways to gather this information from your team. An organizational intelligence expert can identify a custom learning plan based on your business, and implement solutions designed to get the most valuable feedback from employees. According to the Harvard Business Review,
“High-OQ (organizational intelligence) leaders foster an understanding, or ethos, of “who we are.” When leaders move from managing individuals or small groups to leading entire organizations, they need to create a shared understanding of what’s important and what the organization stands for — in other words, an ethos.”
What kind of exercises result in the best employee insights? This varies depending on the organization, but typically it comes down to both qualitative and quantitative research. Some examples of qualitative research include one-on-one interviews, small group employee discussions, and stakeholder interviews. Meanwhile quantitative research looks more like customized online employee engagement surveys targeted to specific employee teams, departments, functions, and regions. Often, employee engagement surveys are administered with regular frequency, e.g., annually or bi-annually, to measure positive or negative changes in employee satisfaction and engagement over time.
Your industry is constantly changing, your business is growing, and workplace expectations are ever-evolving. Is your leadership adapting to accommodate? Modern businesses must create an expectation for agility in leadership to keep employees engaged and motivated. That means regular leadership training, coaching, and development. Organizational intelligence experts can handle the task and provide tailored, relevant coaching that meets the needs of your leaders. It begins with one-on-one introductory sessions, a 360 degree leadership assessment and follow-up analysis, development planning and coaching sessions with leaders at all levels of the organization - executives, high-potential leaders, and new managers. This results in more effective leadership and impactful business management that can exceed the expectations of their teams.
What solutions are involved in leadership development? First, there is leader coaching and education, which can include leadership assessments, feedback, and career planning directly with leaders. This can take place individually or in group/cohort sessions. There is also team effectiveness training, which helps teams define their purpose, processes, roles and responsibilities, as well as individual contributions. This is especially important for businesses facing restructuring, where new teams are being formed and leadership responsibilities are changing.
You have so many initiatives in the works – strategic planning can feel like one of those tasks that could easily get pushed down the line. However, strategic planning is the high-level exercise that impacts every other element of your organization. Outsourcing guarantees timely and effective execution, especially when you pick the right partner for the job. Market research firms like SIVO offer comprehensive workshops to ensure your team develops a sound strategic plan that will successfully lead the company into the future.
These facilitated workshops are especially beneficial to newer businesses or businesses facing large changes, like acquisitions, mergers or a challenging external environment. Knowing how to bring teams together, leveraging critical and inspirational inputs is no small task. That’s why it’s beneficial to have experienced strategic planning facilitators on your side, to plan and facilitate the workshop so that you leave the session with a clearly defined vision, mission, values, plans and ownership assignments. Sessions may also focus on other topics, such as communications planning, insight activation sessions, special-interest group planning, and even competitive SWOT analysis. Regardless of the focus, each strategic planning session will help leaders develop and align on clear strategies for the future, to drive business success.
No matter the business, every employee wants to be heard. Creating a place for employees to provide their thoughts can only benefit your business. From an employee perspective, these people-focused exercises prove that leadership cares about their opinions and wants to make steps to improve their workplace experience. The same goes for dedicated strategic planning exercises and leadership development. These initiatives create a stronger, people-first organization positioned to succeed. When leaders are effective, employees are motivated, and business strategy is in place, it all adds up to improved performance and commitment in the workplace – and more success in the market.
Organizational intelligence services result in game-changing insights that can transform your business for the better – and position you for even more growth down the line. Your team members have the deep knowledge about the company and industry, and often, their perspectives can unlock opportunities that leadership would have never otherwise considered. Once those insights are relayed to leaders with actionable recommendations, you can accomplish so much more within your organization.
Are you ready to gain insights on your organizational behavior? Get information on every aspect of your organizational behavior with SIVO. Our team of organizational intelligence experts can help you lead your team through any major transition. We work with organizations across industries, and build custom insight solutions that holistically improve performance and commitment in the workplace.
Contact SIVO today to discuss your business needs and get support.
By Kerry Juhl
Do you know how your customers feel about their experience with your brand? Do they love it, or does it leave them feeling frustrated?
If your customers don’t love their experience with your products or services, your market share is likely at risk. According to a study from PWC,
Even if people love your company or product, in the U.S., 59% will walk away after several bad experiences, 17% after just one bad experience.
You cannot afford to not know how your customers are experiencing your brand.
The Importance of your Customers’ Experience (CX)
Understanding your customers’ experience can identify product or service flaws. It can be important, even if you are coming from a place of strength. It allows you to build stronger customer relationships, seize new growth opportunities, and maintain a competitive edge in the market. Companies that prioritize a strong understanding of the customer experience are better positioned to meet the needs of their customers where they are and how they want to be served. This allows companies to thrive in today’s customer-centric business environment
Typical Stages in a Customer Journey
The customer journey is typically divided into sequential stages that represent the key phases of the customer’s interaction with the brand. Stages typically align with the marketing funnel and include “Awareness,” “Consideration,” “Purchase,” “Retention” and “Advocacy.” These stages may differ, depending on the industry, category, or channels that the brand is competing in.
What is a Customer Experienced Journey Map?
A customer experience (CX) journey map is a visual illustration that outlines the steps a customer takes when interacting with a company, brand or specific products or services. It helps organizations gain a deep understanding of the customer’s experience, including their motivations, decision moments, delights, pain points, and emotions that come into play, across all the touchpoints with a brand. Companies may also map the customer journey for competing brands to better understand product strengths and opportunities in a competitive context.
Understanding the Experience
Building a customer journey map requires comprehensive qualitative research exploration and is often followed by quantitative validation. CX Insights Experts start with a combination of observation and qualitative methodologies (e.g., mobile missions, bulletin boards, shop-alongs, in-home visits) to facilitate in-depth conversations with brand or category users. This allows them to delve deeply into each key milestone and brand touchpoint within the customer journey. With the qualitative exploration completed, experts will often conduct an online quantitative survey to validate the journey and quantify the consumer experience with statistically significant sample sizes. Note that the journey may differ for various user segments (e.g., younger vs. older customers, multicultural customers, households with kids vs. no kids, etc.) so the research must be inclusive of customer groups that are important to the business.
Activation Planning with a CX Journey Map
Once the CX Journey Map is complete, it is time to bring the team together to immerse and align on the learning and develop an activation plan. SIVO recommends a 1-day workshop with key team members and stakeholders to:
A Key Asset to Customer Journey Mapping
Hiring a strategic market research agency with proven CX experience, or a fractional Customer Experience (CX) Insights professional to lead the journey mapping process will set you up for success. You will need experts who have a strong background in CX research design, journey mapping, research execution and activation planning. They will help your team:
Contact SIVO, Inc. at Contact@SIVOInsights.com to discuss how SIVO can help you map your customer experience. Also, check out SIVO’s On Demand Talent Profiles to learn more about how a fractional Customer Experience (CX) Insights Manager can be an asset to you and your team.
SIVO Insights brings together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence. Have a business challenge? Let's talk!
We bring together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence
