Hack for Innovative HR: A/B Testing

The difference between doing an experiment and just trying something out is that experiments are backed up by data. If you come up with insights after, they didn’t appear out of nowhere. You can point to solid numbers, and confidently state that it’s not a fluke–your audience can replicate it and get the same results.

Experiments belonged originally science–until we filched them and started applying them everywhere because they’ve been so effective. Lifestyle experiments aside, a less personal–and more business-minded–outgrowth of this is A/B testing.

You have two versions, and you’re not sure which is better. Instead of crossing your fingers and picking one blindly in the hopes that it’ll be a hit, you seek out the answer in the real world. You give out both versions to different groups of people. Whichever gets higher performance based on your metrics, that’s what you go with.

The nitty-gritty of A/B testing

Because we’re not operating in a laboratory, A/B testing isn’t as clean as scientific experiments. It breaks the rule of keeping conditions perfectly constant–for one, people in each group are different.

To compensate for this, you test out changes little by little. Instead of examining two totally revamped designs of your website, experiment first with the position of a button, or different fonts. Don’t underestimate the power of small details–you’d be surprised at how a slight change can affect people psychologically.

Beyond UX designers, A/B testing is also a favorite of marketers. With email campaigns, they can test out several email titles–and they don’t even have to do this manually anymore because there are online apps and software that automate this.

By using A/B testing, you can be sure that your approach is based on evidence and that you’re getting somewhere. Sony applied it on its homepage checkout page, and purchases went up by 20%; Upworthy, the popular video website, reached its viral status with the help of consistent testing down to the smallest detail. You can adopt it for practically anything, from your morning exercise routine to your houseplants–and yes, this includes HR.

A/B testing for HR

The term “data-driven HR” is becoming a buzzword, but you don’t need to grab a data scientist or worry about monitoring your employees 24/7. Instead, to get started, you can perform A/B experiments on your own. Here are some ideas:

Job titles and descriptions

Recruiters are getting more and more creative with their job titles, coming up with cool names such as “Director of Storytelling” and even “Chief Robot Whisperer.” People can decide whether or not to read the description based on the job title, so come up with a compelling one!

You can do A/B testing by posting separate versions on Facebook groups (while accounting for differences in the groups themselves), or by putting up the first version on a job search website, compiling results, then editing it into the second version.

Training programs

When teaching your employees a new skill, you might not be sure what the best way is to do it–should you do an online course split into modules, give weekly workshops, or coordinate team sessions? Just because you’ve always done training a certain way doesn’t mean it gives the best results.

Experiment with various methods and check how much people actually learn after; you can also get their verbal feedback. An optimized training program can make a huge difference–not only does your company productivity increase, employees also get the firsthand sense that they’re making great progress.

Getting feedback

It’s underrated–at the company’s own peril–but you should definitely ask for your employees’ insights and opinions. The more pairs of eyes you have scrutinizing your organization from the inside, the better. If you confine feedback only to management, you get locked into a very specific perspective.

Like training programs, there’s no one way to get feedback. What you have to be concerned about is giving people the space to be honest while motivating them to be thoughtful with their responses, not just shading circles haphazardly on a bothersome form.  

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