will start recruiting the exact same person. We then run the risk of a lack of diversity, whether it be gender or racial. As consumer insights is trying to represent a more diverse base, we need to make sure that we are diverse as well. People find this work rewarding. You’re getting to do things that are genuinely interesting and especially tied with the increasing influence on business. There’s a lot of job satisfaction and low turnover . Sometimes you need a certain amount of turnover just to keep fresh ideas in place. But people want to make a difference and want to have meaning in their jobs. Whether we’re data or qualitative people, that oozes over into how we treat each other as an industry and so that’s why I’m not shocked by the low turnover. We have unique skill sets and it’s a fun industry to be in. Whether you discover it in college, coming out of college or somewhere along in your career, once you find it, you realize, these are my people.
never just taking the number or response for what it is. Whether it’s qualitative or quantitative data, and trying to understand where consumers are coming from. It’s that foundation and skill set that is grounded in social science. Some have strong math skills and business backgrounds. Some are more on the social science side, but as an industry it brings those things together. Make sure that we’re not confining ourselves and we’re not going back to the same schools with the same majors and we’re looking at people with different backgrounds. That’s part of what makes the current group of insights leaders interesting. The difficulty of sourcing new insights talent hasn’t changed. It’s great that there are master’s programs, but you have to look at what else people have done. There’s a lot of people that fall into this industry because they come into a company and they get exposed to consumer insights and they fall in love with it. That is something that we can’t lose.
Just requiring certain degrees can be dangerous, if that’s all you’re looking
for. We need to keep that magic of looking for people from all over. When people get too defined, we run the risk of not being able to find new talent or keep the industry as wonderful as it is because we
Karen Kraft Associate Director, Consumer Insights & Analytics Johnsonville
INSIGHTS SPEND & TRENDS REPORT 2023
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