From the Department of Dodgy Research
Posted by Maman Poulet on 07 Nov 2008 at 01:40 am | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Peninsula Ireland are at it again. A few weeks ago there was a pile of rubbish about facebook profiles and people being sacked for being caught on a sickie or something. I’ve no doubt that some muppets do stupid things on facebook but the amount of stuff that Peninsula were indicating as ‘fact’ left me shouting at their interviewee on the radio – 87 percent of bosses checking staff facebook profiles to see if employees were really sick and 74 percent of employees having been caught pulling a sickie by their bosses by their facebook profile. (Like you would have your boss friended so he could see all your info and then go and post something about a duvet day or fake headache??)
Seemingly Peninsula Ireland are an employment law firm – they seem to be the Irish subsidiary of a UK set up. They do event organisation and the like too.
They are also very busy churning out surveys – lots of them.
The latest bit of genius says that one in six Irish employees planned to take the day off on Wednesday to recover from watching the US election results the night before. They also added that employers were anxious that other employees might call in sick instead of taking the day off.
Finally the research indicated that some employers were bringing in Televisions and Radios to help staff listen to results so that they would not have to take time off. Bless their cotton socks!!
Now the US election was hardly Italia ‘90. The results came in between midnight and 6 am. I have no doubt that many people like me took the day off on Wednesday or changed our working day to have a later start. However it was nowhere near 1 in 6 of the Irish workforce!
This wonderful piece of research (aka PR to get ‘the name of the company out there for employers and create a climate of panic about employees taking sickies and pay us to help you manage/discipline/sack them’) was based on a sample size of 527 employees and 175 employers. It was conducted by email or telephone.
So did your company bring in a television to your workplace so you could ’soak up the drama of the results unfolding.’ Come on, lets find the companies who had tellys specially brought in for the night shift election junkies? Let’s give your company their 5 minutes of fame!!
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[...] takes a bogus press release to task about 1 in 6 Irish people skipping work due to the elections. We didn’t do that for the General [...]
Priceless!! The only Muppets are the ones proclaiming this research is valid or has soneone been yanking their chain?
Seriously, it’s the proof we needed that we’re closer to Boston than Berlin, the PDs will be so proud! What? They’re winding up bizness as a party? Oh we definitely need to party over that one… especially if the monster for health is going before she lets girls get cervical cancer by neglect.
Darn it MP. Quicker off the mark than I was!
Here where I work ,we went one step better: they allowed us to hook the old internet for the morning and check out what was happening Stateside.
I knew I was encroaching into your area Eoin – sorry but I could not resist!
Gah! This sort of thing infuriates me. Its not so much that Peninsula are just making it up (and I think we can be certain that making it up is exactly what they’re doing).Its the stupidity/contempt for the readership that leads the papers to print it without question.
How are pesimistic are we geetting? Surely the papers wouldnt publish it without some backing. Surveys are surveys, you take what you can from them. There not science well not when done by a law firm. A study by the UK Univeristy of Surry says critical problem raised by telephone-based surveys is that of obtaining representative probability samples. This is the point, its only a telephone survey, people may feel more strongly and be willing to say a negative response over the phone. http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU8.html
John as you currently work for Peninsula – maybe you can tell us more about science not being done by a law firm? I’m interested as a sociologist in how you obtain your samples, hypothesis for testing etc. ?
[...] had already been covered. Then I got this lovely comment. A comment weirdly similar to one left at Maman Poulet under a different name) Of course, it would be petty and childish to publish the post just to annoy [...]
The story about the intern being fired is a true story. His boss caught him out on facebook. That is probably what prompted this survey and others of its ilk. The wall street journal wrote about it. He worked an Anglo Irish Bank’s north american division. http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2007/11/13/facebook-photo-betrays-intern/
i don’t doubt he got fired – it’s the figures for amount of time and research methods used by Peninsula i would like to know more about. I’d also like newspapers to ask questions and stop being spoon fed rubbish!
Of course. But, it’s probably where the inspiration for the daft survey came from!
It was a funny story. I particularly liked the fairy costume!
Laura left the same comment on Tuppenceworth.
Aye and on Conor Popes blog also – but it’s not from the Peninsula IP.
how can you check IP address? Is this not an invastion of privacy? I have put my comments on various blogs, is this going to be reported too? Nobody reports that the blogs link in so if you read one it directs you to another. if my comments dont agree with yours will you check my IP too?? free speach, free opinion (equality) must be for all
IP addresses are left when comments are left on the blog – it’s not an invasion of privacy – and it reminds people leaving comments from companies about their companies who pretend to be someone else that they can’t do so! By pointing out that a comment is from someone working for a certain company I’m just looking for transparency and wishing to advise my readers that there’s ‘games’ being played.
[...] 28 Jul 2009 at 11:18 pm | Tagged as: MSM, eejit.. Sniffle… Peninsula Ireland have appeared on Maman Poulet’s hall of shame before. Invariably they are described in the media as an employment law firm, one with a penchant for [...]
Actually I’ve seen one particularly gormless colleague more or less nakedly declare he was asleep in bed whilst “working from home” on FB, there are people that stupid.
Unfortunately there are also lots of stupid employers quite happy to turn a blind eye also.