{"id":84307,"date":"2025-04-01T09:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T13:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/?p=84307"},"modified":"2025-05-26T10:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T14:53:44","slug":"tech-hr-innovation-summit-2025-do-you-have-an-employee-listening-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/tech-hr-innovation-summit-2025-do-you-have-an-employee-listening-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"HR Tech Innovation Summit 2025: Do You Have an Employee Listening Strategy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To gauge employee sentiment, many companies invest in internal satisfaction surveys. Montreal-based company Explorance suggests expanding the scope by analyzing both \u201csolicited\u201d sources (traditional surveys) and \u201cunsolicited\u201d sources (such as social media posts or reviews on platforms like Glassdoor). Samer Saab, founder and CEO of Explorance, presented his approach during the conference \u201cLeading the Way in Employee Listening and Development: What Metrics Will Transform Your HR Programs?\u201d<\/em>, held at the HR Tech Innovation Summit 2025.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project has been in the works for a while. Since 2017, Explorance has been developing its AI-powered qualitative analysis tool, named MLY. Officially launched in 2023 and awarded Gold for AI in Education at the QS Reimagine Education Awards, the tool was updated to version 3.0 in early 2025. Today, MLY can analyze and categorize employee feedback\u2014no matter the platform, be it an internal survey, a Slack channel, or a Glassdoor page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe goal is to be able to automatically analyze everything employees write,\u201d said Samer Saab during his talk. \u201cOrganizations already have so much information\u2014they can find answers to their questions without launching another internal survey.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

MLY\u2019s algorithm has been trained to interpret emotions, themes, and tone in employee comments. A simple two-paragraph message can generate insights about an employee\u2019s well-being or psychological safety. If a comment reaches a critical threshold, an alert is triggered for managers to pay attention to the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confidentiality is Key<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the tool is not intended to be used on an individual basis. The idea is this: employee feedback sources are processed by the AI, which then provides HR best practice recommendations at a macro level. It\u2019s similar to what the company EmoScience is doing\u2014using AI-powered facial analysis to understand the emotional climate of a team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Confidentiality is crucial, emphasizes the Explorance founder. \u201cIf an employee expresses a desire to leave and a manager shows up an hour later to talk about it, trust is broken. Ideally, we want to live in a world of recommendations. My personal dashboard tells me: keep doing this, stop doing that. I don\u2019t care about the individual comments\u2014I don\u2019t want to read the backstage talk. What matters are the key insights from the analysis and the organizational strategies we\u2019ll implement.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Explorance specializes in measuring satisfaction\u2014whether for employees or students (in educational contexts). The company collects data points throughout the entire journey, from school to retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIn a listening strategy, it\u2019s critical to start with what we want to know\u2014not just with what\u2019s coming in through surveys,\u201d explains Saab.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In other words, organizational priorities must be set before MLY dives into employee comments and begins making recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIs the organization focusing this year on performance, on development, or on strengthening its organizational capacity through competent leadership? We want to highlight key analytical points to guide HR strategies and decisions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Importance of Qualitative Data<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Samer Saab acknowledges that the strategy cannot rely solely on unsolicited content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIf you realize you\u2019re lacking information on a theme that\u2019s important to you, then yes\u2014you can run a survey or simply open a Slack channel to collect more qualitative feedback.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He also recognizes that how companies conduct surveys affects the quality of the responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cMany organizations begin their surveys by asking about areas for improvement. It makes employees feel like their voice truly matters. That, in turn, reduces the likelihood of them leaving or damaging the employer brand,\u201d<\/em> he concludes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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To gauge employee sentiment, many companies invest in internal satisfaction surveys. Montreal-based company Explorance suggests expanding the scope by analyzing both \u201csolicited\u201d sources (traditional surveys) and \u201cunsolicited\u201d sources (such as social media posts or reviews on platforms like Glassdoor).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":84311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,156],"tags":[90,37,158],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84307"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84320,"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84307\/revisions\/84320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isarta.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}