DJS Research Ltd

Are you ready for your next career step in market research? We're looking for a brilliant new Research Manager or Senior Research Manager to join the DJS Research family and work within our Healthcare team.

The role offers the opportunity to join a dynamic growing agency, working across a range of exciting projects – as well as work alongside great staff and within a friendly environment.

The position in brief…

Candidates should have excellent research skills and at least 5 years’ experience in project management. Ideally, we'd like to hire someone who has experience working within the healthcare sector and who is able to speak French or German fluently - as the position involves working with some major international corporations.

The opportunity is available at our Stockport or Leeds office – or we are also open to remote working applications.

Read more about the position and apply here

It’s an oft-repeated notion that Eskimos have 50 words for snow. The truth of this is debatable and I’m no linguist. Still, the idea, right or wrong, raises some questions. Does the place we live influence the language we speak? Beyond that, does the language we speak influence the way we think, and does the way we speak impact how we act?

It’s an interesting although not wholly surprising phenomenon that English, for instance, has so many words for water. Obviously there’s water the liquid, ice for water the solid, lake for a big bit of fresh water, puddle for a little bit of water that might be temporary, pond for a little bit of water that looks like it might be permanent, river for a long bit of water, before we even get to, brook, beck, rill, runnel, creek, burn, rillet or a gill (all, basically, streams).

We don’t have many words for ‘sand’.

So, the things we encounter most commonly we give specific names to easily distinguish between their many forms. Our world, our context, impacts our language, which evolves to become the most useful it can be in terms of communicating with others. But, what if it could be useful in other ways? We need a little bit of ground work here.

In English, if I said: ‘This is my uncle’, you would understand me and we could all move on. You might ask his name.

In Mandarin Chinese, the linguistic structure would make it obligatory for me to tell you whether that uncle was by marriage or by birth, on my mother’s side or father’s side, and if he was my father’s brother, whether my uncle was older or younger than my father. This information is obligatory – you can’t speak properly and ignore it.[1]

This means that to speak Mandarin Chinese properly you have to be thinking, to at least a small degree, about the relationships between yourself and family members in a much more detailed way than we do in English.

Now, this issue of language forcing us to consider elements of our lives becomes particularly interesting when we consider time, and the degree to which languages utilise future tenses. In English, we are forced to modify our grammar in order to indicate timing:

It rained yesterday. It is raining now. It will rain tomorrow.

Again, taking Mandarin, the opposite is true. The equivalent phrases would sound odd to an English speaker – yesterday it rain, today it rain, tomorrow it rain.

English then, as with many languages, forces us to actively consider the timings of events or actions in our day to day lives – and our sense of future and past is acute. Conversely, some languages, at quite a fundamental level, do not force speakers to divide time in to neat sections on a regular or near constant basis.[2]

Now, it’s all well and good having to think about your family or the weather. In fact, it might be quite nice. But what if we take this a step further and look at some real-world impacts?

Real world applications

Work by the behavioural economist, Dr. Keith Chen (that bit about Mandarin is his)[3], suggests that some languages, particularly those without a clearly defined future tense, can have an impact on our behaviour in the here and now and affect issues of health, saving and retirement assets.[4]

Chen initially looked at OECD member states (largely, the richer, more industrialised nations of the world) and found that despite large similarities in political freedoms and institutions, these countries have vastly different savings rates. On further exploration, he found a clear connection between these nations and the languages they speak.

The chart above is fairly clearly showing that the futureless languages are further to the left, and are largely present in cultures with higher savings rates, than the futured languages – equating to a difference of roughly 5% of GDP per year – for 2020 in the UK, that’s about 109 billion pounds.[5] Now consider that figure, with compound interest, across a typical working life – serious implications for a sovereign state and its people.[6]

Chen went on to review matched pairs of large datasets in a number of countries around the world where large native populations speak both futured and futureless languages, but controlling for a wide range of other factors (age, income, gender, family status, religion, etc.). In short, the experiment was akin to comparing two identical families in Belgium – one of which speaks Flemish and one of which speaks French.

Even after these large-scale controls, Chen found that futureless language speakers were 31% more likely to save, and to have accumulated 39% more wealth by retirement. They are also 24% less likely to smoke, 13% less likely to be obese, 29% more likely to be more physically active and 21% more likely to have used a condom in their last sexual encounter.[7]

Thinking about the future doesn’t just make you more likely to sacrifice in the present for future comfort, it also makes you less likely to risk pain in the future for gratification in the present.

Anyone with children and a bone to pick about that analogy… you can email me at the top!

Why?

In a language like English, which is heavily futured, we must explicitly highlight the futuristic nature of an activity (e.g. I will, I am going to) and this allows us (consciously or otherwise) to separate the future from the present. Thus, we conceptualise the future in a very different way to how we conceptualise the here and now: the future is, to some degree, a different world.[8]

For speakers of languages without such obvious future markers, such as Mandarin, the future can seem a lot closer.

So what?

Well, as a starter for ten – if you want a nice retirement home and your kids have a choice between French and German at school, pick German every time. Based on the OECD data, see if you can get Japanese or Mandarin on the curriculum.

Closer to home, researchers need to be aware of the effects of these subtle variations in linguistic architecture for global studies – particularly as a driver of difference in multi-country work.

In the here and how though, this strikes me as something worthy of more exploration for a whole host of applications around nudging. Whilst we can’t change the language people speak, can we look at the way we speak our own language and the way we phrase things? With this kind of data outlining the positive influence that a way of speaking can have on a way of thinking and acting, can we get even more granular in the techniques we use to encourage people to make positive choices?

Do you know what I mean?

Let me know on LinkedIn.

We are delighted to announce that Elliot Simmonds has been promoted to Research Director after an exceptional contribution to the company for more than a decade, and following his successes as Associate Director.

Elliot first joined the team back in 2007, when the agency was in its relative infancy, and has since played an important role in driving the business forward.

He said: “Thirteen years is a long time to be associated with a business, but I’m really pleased to have continued in my role at DJS as we’ve grown and to have had the support and mentoring of the whole team, but particularly the Board. DJS is an advert for the value of family-owned businesses, and I’m incredibly proud and thankful to have been able to contribute over the years in a few different ways.”

Describing Elliot as 'an exceptional researcher’ who has been instrumental in ‘pushing DJS to the fore in a variety of different ways’, Board Director, Sharon Nichols, praised his successes in research and business development as well as his contribution to other areas of the organisation including thought leadership, marketing and innovation.

His capacity as a researcher has seen him work with many leading clients and organisations across many sectors, with particular expertise in education, culture and heritage, and software and technology. Elliot also plays a key role in developing and delivering a number of proprietary tools, including VoicED (our proprietary teacher offer) and Alumnus (alumni experience benchmarking and affinity tracking).

Managing Director of DJS Research, Danny Sims, said of the appointment:

“We are delighted to announce Elliot’s promotion to Research Director at DJS Research. Since he first walked through our doors over a decade ago, we knew he had a great deal to offer the company and he has proven to be a huge asset.

"Not only is Elliot an exceptionally talented researcher, he’s been instrumental in driving the business forward. This promotion is incredibly well deserved – and we’re excited to see what the future holds.”

From the entire DJS team, huge congratulations!

Are you ready for a new role in market research? With more and more clients demanding our services, we're looking for a brilliant new Senior Research Executive or Research Manager, and a further Senior Research Executive (2 positions in total) to join the DJS Research team.

The roles offer the opportunity to join a dynamic growing agency, working across a range of exciting projects and within a friendly environment. The positions are available at either our Stockport or Leeds offices - or remote working will also be considered.

What we're looking for...

Senior Research Executive or Research Manager

We're looking for a talented Senior Research Executive or Research Manager who is self driven and ready to get involved with all aspects of research. We would especially like to hear from you if you have experience in the public sector, charities, utilities and/or employee engagement.

Find out more about the role and apply here  

Senior Research Executive

We are also looking for another SRE with both qualitative and quantitative skills to join the team. It would be an advantage for applicants to have experience working across utilities, education, sports or culture.

Find out more about the role and apply here