Sentiment Analysis

The human resources department of a superannuation company had become concerned that a sexist and gambling culture existed among certain employees.

Background

Based on the findings of an investigation into another issue, the HR department commenced a review of a former senior employee’s emails, and became concerned about inappropriate email discussions relating to gambling and ‘punting’ clubs. The electronic communications of other employees were also reviewed by the HR department, revealing significant use of sexist language and the existence of gambling conversations among certain employees. The company was then faced with the difficult issue of how to assess, review and act upon this information.
 

How we helped

When we were engaged, we helped by:

• Capturing, processing and presenting the large volumes of electronic information clearly within a user-friendly platform, which enabled the company to easily review emails, instant messages and perform other detailed analysis.

• Developing a dictionary of terms and phrases on which further detailed searches could be conducted to detect inappropriate communications regarding:

  • sexism
  • fraud
  • gambling
  • other inappropriate behaviour.
• Running the analysis and reporting on the communication type, whether the communications were internal or external, and to whom.
• Presenting the documents and analysis to the HR department, enabling them to understand both the high-level trends and the detail of the individual communications to understand the context in which this inappropriate language was used.

Result

Our review platform and analytics enabled the company to obtain a clear picture of individuals who were displaying inappropriate behaviour – this information had previously been unseen or unknown to the company. This resulted in the HR department disciplining several employees and firing several others to address the cultural issues.

While the analytics identified disturbing trends in the use of inappropriate language, it also provided a benchmark for future analysis to assess cultural improvements or deterioration.