Netflix Algorithm Tells You When Your Best Employee Is About To Leave You

An anonymous reader writes "Former Netflix data scientist Mohammad Sabah has used the basis of the video-streaming company's movie-recommendation engine to create a new system to predict when valuable employees are likely to leave your company for pastures new. The new application 'Workday Talent Insights' uses the basis of the engine to correlate diverse factors such as interval between promotions and current length of tenure with equivalent job opportunities at employment websites, in order to gauge 'corporate restlessness', and provide options for employers who identify potential leavers."

Comments

Hits Home

[DumbSwede]

This type of monitoring makes me nervous.

I have a job where a few years ago I looked at some job opportunities on a Job Site. The very next day my manager came to me asking if I was happy with my job, which in general I was, but I was unnerved that they knew I was looking at the other options. I suspect they used a honey pot job listing. I decided my job security at that time was more important than looking for other opportunities so I stopped looking altogether. If I was to job hunt to today I would do so much more surreptitiously and under a pseudonym, at least initially.

I am well compensated at my job, but dislike the idea that they are aware of my activities outside of work.

Re:Hits Home

[ultranova]

I am well compensated at my job, but dislike the idea that they are aware of my activities outside of work.

You dislike it and the employer likes it for the same reason: it makes you position on the job market worse. And since they already have a stronger position, there's little you can do about it short of unionizing. But unionizing makes above average talent relatively - though not necessarily absolutely - worse off, and everyone likes thinking they're better than average. That combination of ego and selfishness is easy to turn into a weapon to make people act against their own best interests: all you have to do is tell them they deserve it better than someone else, and will get their due if they only forget solidarity with them. And when it's their turn to be eaten, there's none left to stand with them, so they fall.

Not that it really matters. The revolution of the proletariat failed, but it seems the bourgeoisie is perfectly capable of destroying the entire superstructure their might depends on without anyone's assistance. You can't have a business without customers, you can't have customers if people don't have money, and they can't get money without wages or social security. The only real question is: with communism discredited, what happens when the downward spiral reaches the point of no return? You can't maintain social cohesion without any kind of ideology when bread and circuses stop coming. Will we see the return of fascism, will someone come up with something entirely new, or will civilization simply collapse?

Re:Managers need an algorithm for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how true this is... as a manager, I can predict when an employee is going to leave 1-2 months before they give notice. It's often subtle changes in their routine that become red flags - so subtle I doubt they even realize they have changed.

Opportunity plus

[OzPeter]

Combine this with Googles new automated interview techniques and you can have people being moved automatically from company to company!

Imagine waking up and getting a message saying

Dear OzPeter,
We are sorry to hear that ABC Widget company has let you go. But don't worry, overnight you details were submitted to 14 different companies in your area who subscribe to Googles "Match Me" recruiting service. Based on information automatically provided by ABC Widget co through their Netflix firing algorithm, 9 of those companies bid on you, and we are happy to announce that you are now employed by XYZ Financial services.

Congratulations on your new position!

Please see the attached map to find your way to your new place of work.

Would you like us to update your:
Facebook status y/n?
Linked In profile: y/n?
Twitter account: y/n?
MySpace page: y/n?

Re:Opportunity plus

[neurovish]

Hmmm, well as long as Match Me is smart enough to get a minimum % pay bump with each move, doesn't hire me off to a place too far away, and the work at ABC Widget is interesting....I hate job hunting/interviewing.

Re:Managers need an algorithm for that?

[PRMan]

The same thing happened to me. I saved a company a million dollars a year. Then I got a bad review because I missed a meeting (I proved that I wouldn't get e-mail notifications if I was the last person invited because of some weird Outlook bug) and I quoted the customer saying they were "pissed" (direct quote) while everyone else especially the CxOs went around dropping f-bombs like they were using them up before they spoiled.

Yeah, I wasn't there much longer.

Re:Let me help you with adding more time to that.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you give an employee an awesome review, but tell him that due to your budget, you can only give a cost of living increase.

One of the reasons I left a small company (and don't work for them anymore either): getting told by the owner himself that they can't afford to give me a raise this year then not even a month later seeing his new sports car and finding out about the mini-mansion that he's building for himself. That business went under not even a year after I jumped ship.