Reflection - Aon’s Award-Winning People Analytics Platform

We are in a rapidly changing landscape. Businesses are being met head-on by a workforce who have higher expectations of their work experience¹, driven in part, by the increasingly digital, virtual and AI-driven era we are living in. With the inability to attract and retain talent ranking as the fourth biggest global risk for organisations², it’s never been more important to better understand and connect with people at a much deeper level.

This starts with listening to employees. But what if traditional ways of listening only touch the tip of the iceberg? What if you’re only capturing what your employees are prepared to tell you and not necessarily how they truly feel?

Unlocking Hidden Attitudes and Emotions

Reflection is Aon’s Next-Generation People Analytics Platform that combines neuroscience and technology to by-pass conscious bias and uncover the real drivers behind people’s behaviours and choices.

Why Traditional Feedback Methods Don’t Always Capture People’s True Feelings

Traditional surveys require conscious thinking and only access the conscious part of the brain. So, when you ask people questions and give them a range of answers to choose from, the conscious part of the brain kicks in and inevitably this leads to conscious bias influencing responses. ​

We are all biased, in every choice we make³. This could be because we want to be strategic, disruptive, secretive or because we want to fit in with the social norm. This volatility makes it incredibly difficult to get an accurate picture of how people feel beneath the mask. So, when you survey people using traditional methods, at best, you could be getting half the picture. At worst, the wrong view altogether.

How Reflection Works

Reflection combines two survey methods: Implicit Reaction Time (IRT) and Explicit Questioning.

The ‘Implicit’ section is the first part of Aon’s Neurotech® survey, Reflection. It uses the IRT method and captures automatic, intuitive responses, measuring gut feelings and intuitions that are not within our normal range of control.  Speed is of the essence in capturing the response, before conscious processing takes place.

The Explicit section comes second, after the IRT section. The Explicit section utilises a traditional format where the respondent is asked direct questions and given a range of answers to choose from. This traditional method of surveying engages our conscious mind, which often triggers us to provide a consciously-biased, moderated response.

The data gathered from both the Implicit and Explicit sections is then compared and analysed at the core of Reflection. By looking at both sets of data, Reflection can identify where responses align and where they diverge.

Where responses align it indicates that what the respondents are saying reflects how they truly feel. Where responses diverge, it indicates that what respondents are saying and how they are truly feeling are different. Focusing on where responses diverge is of most interest because these areas of cognitive dissonance point to underlying issues that need addressing.

A Borderless Agile Solution

Reflection has been used in over 55 countries with more than 20,000 participants⁴ and millions of data points captured⁵, enabling continuous refinement of the tool.

Reflection is a fast-turnaround, scalable, neuro-inclusive, global solution that can pivot to measure any business domain: engagement, wellbeing, mental health, psychosocial risk, resilience, conduct risk, ESG, board effectiveness, brand strength, customer satisfaction, and more.

¹ Aon’s 2022 UK Benefits and Trends Survey
² Aon’s 2023 Global Risk Management Survey, Ninth Edition.
³ Jerry Kang, Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA Implicit Bias | Preface: Biases and Heuristics (youtube.com)
⁴ Aon Reflection analytics
⁵ Truthsayers® Neurotech® based on millions data points gathered