The Best HR and People Analytics Articles of October 2019
October proved to be a pretty special month with two personal career highlights.
First, I had the honour of being MC of the Main Stage at what proved to be the biggest and most memorable show yet as UNLEASH returned to Paris. Marc Coleman and team have created something truly special with a heady mix of terrific speakers that challenge conventional thinking (the best group of keynotes yet), fabulous production, the leading HR Tech companies in the world all in one place and a heavy dose of fun. Thanks to all involved especially Lucy Nicholas.
Just a few days after UNLEASH, I flew with my Insight222 colleagues Jonathan Ferrar and Anastasia Ktena to Israel where we delivered a two-day People Analytics Seminar to 90 eager HR professionals from the Israel Electric Company at their Haifa HQ with the objective of kickstarting their people analytics initiative. The energy and passion we encountered for analytics was infectious and a huge thank you goes from me and the team to Amit Oberkovich, Eyal Inbar, Maya Munter and the rest of the IEC team as well as Littal Shemer Haim for making us feel so welcome.
October also proved to be a memorable month for articles on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work, as the following collection shows. Enjoy!
ARTICLE OF THE MONTH
ORGANISATIONAL NETWORK ANALYSIS / WORKPLACE DESIGN
ETHAN BERNSTEIN & BEN WABER – The truth about open offices
A runaway winner for Article of the Month, Bernstein and Waber outline some of the unintended consequences of open offices on collaboration (“A major consumer products company found that people on the same team were six times as likely to interact if they were on the same floor, and people on different teams were nine times as likely to interact if they were on the same floor”). Guidance is also provided on experiments that measure how employees really interact within an organisation to inform workspaces and technology that best support employee needs and lead to better business outcomes. There are also several examples from the likes of GSK and Mori Building.
Just as high-frequency A/B testing is common in marketing and sales, rapid experimentation is key to workplace design
STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING
BEVERLY TARULLI & DAMIEN DELUCA - Evolving the Strategic Workforce Planning Strategy at PepsiCo | BUDDY BENGE - Analytics and Strategic Workforce Planning Increase Leadership Success at Bayer | BRIAN HEGER & ANISHA AULBACH - Building the Foundation for Strategic Workforce Planning at Bristol-Myers Squibb | TANYA MOORE & ERIC BOKELBERG - How IBM Incorporates Artificial Intelligence into Strategic Workforce Planning
Strategic Workforce Planning is the key topic du jour for many clients of our People Analytics Program at Insight222. The Fall edition of SHRM’s People + Strategy magazine is a SWP special and is jam packed with great articles including the four here – all written by practitioners and describing work in this area at PepsiCo, Bayer, Bristol Myers-Squibb (see FIG 1) and IBM.
FIG 1: SWP Supply and demand risk factors (Source: Heger and Aulbach, Bristol Myers-Squibb)
THE EVOLUTION OF THE HR BUSINESS PARTNER
JOSH BERSIN - 8 Skills HR Business Partners Need for Success | Tracing the evolution of HRBPs
Josh explains why the HR Business Partner role is continually evolving and in the first article outlines eight competencies of an agile HRBP including business focus, data literacy and digital acumen. The second article provides Bersin’s view of how the HRBP role will continue to evolve and how to develop the HRBP of the future.
Today, HRBPs must have the ability to analyse and interpret data, use it to help business leaders better understand workforce needs and incorporate results into workforce strategy and planning
DAVE ULRICH & IAN BAILIE - What does it mean to be a HR Business Partner Today?
Ian Bailie draws on Dave Ulrich’s new course HRBP 2.0: The Digital and Data-Driven HR Business Partner to outline how the expectations for a HR Business Partner have shifted since the origin of the role over 20 years ago. Ulrich explains that “being a business partner is not about doing HR for HR. It’s about doing HR, so that we (the company) wins in the marketplace.” The course itself outlines thirteen areas (see FIG 2) that HR business partners need to drive impact and value in their organisations.
The world of HR and the role of the HRBP is ever changing and evolving and quite frankly one of the most exciting areas to be in today as we work to craft our place as a strategic advisor to the business
FIG 2: 13 areas required by HR business partners to drive impact and value (Source: Dave Ulrich, myHRfuture)
DATA CULTURE
McKINSEY - How leaders in data and analytics have pulled ahead | TOM DAVENPORT, TIM SMITH, JIM GUSZCZA & BEN STILLER - Data Not Leading to Insights? Culture May Be to Blame
Research we conducted earlier this year at myHRfuture on HR Skills of the Future found that contrary to popular opinion, HR business partners are eager to learn more about analytics. The importance of creating a data culture is reflected in two recent research studies. The first article highlights findings from McKinsey on the strategies and organisational cultures of companies leading the way with analytics. Giving access to data, leadership, a culture tolerant of failure and data literacy (see FIG 3) all feature. The second article from Davenport et al presents new research from Deloitte, which suggests culture can be the catalyst for successful change - or the culprit causing companies to fall behind.
FIG 3: At high-performing organisations, employees at all levels are better educated on data concepts (Source: McKinsey)
LAURA STEVENS - Building a Data Culture: Lessons from the science behind habit formation
Laura Stevens also highlights that the absence of a data-driven culture is the biggest factor impeding real business adoption of data and analytics. Breaking with traditional convention in this area, Laura argues that the missing piece of the jigsaw is that most cultural change programs fail to recognise that changing culture is essentially about changing human habits. In her article, the first of what promises to be an excellent series, Laura outlines how to translate evidence from the science behind habit formation into guidelines on how to build an effective data culture.
The real challenge is not in conducting some advanced analytics or fixing the basics, but in changing deeply rooted human mindset and behaviours within your organisation
THE SKILLS OF A PEOPLE ANALYTICS TEAM
CHRIS BRAHM - Solving the Advanced Analytics Talent Problem | ANNE FISHER - Now Hiring: People Who Can Translate Data Into Stories and Actions
At Insight222, we are often asked by organisations starting out on their people analytics journeys what skills they need to incorporate within their teams. The Six Skills for Success model we use is based on the model created by our CEO Jonathan Ferrar in his book The Power of People, which was co-authored by Nigel Guenole and Sheri Feinzig. Two of the skills highlighted in the model – advanced analytics and translators – feature in these two articles. First, Chris Brahm highlights the cities where advanced analytics talent tends to cluster (see FIG 4) – valuable data to support hiring and growth strategies. Then, Anne Fisher writes about the surge in demand for data translators – a role that requires people to be able to interpret data science into actions that drive change or fix problems.
FIG 4: Advanced Analytics Talent Clusters in Major Cities (Source: Bain & Company, MIT SMR)
ETHICS
FRIDA POLLI – Using AI to eliminate bias from hiring
Frida Polli, CEO of pymetrics, explains how AI could eliminate unconscious bias and pre-select candidates in a much fairer way. Frida provides two primary reasons of how AI can reduce bias: i) by eliminating unconscious bias, and ii) by assessing an entire candidate pipeline rather than forcing time-constrained humans to implement biased processes to shrink the pipeline from the start. Learn more from Frida on this topic in our recent podcast discussion.
It is impossible to correct human bias, but it is demonstrably possible to identify and correct bias in AI
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
PHILIP ARKCOLL - Designing Effective Workplace Nudges
As Philip Arkcoll writes in his article, nudges have become a hot topic in HR as they promise powerful new ways to drive organisational change. However, concerns around complexity and ethics have stymied adoption. Philip busts some of the myths around nudges and provides several examples (including FIG 5) of how these can be applied, implemented and measured.
FIG 5: A weekly aggregate nudge email including a number for recommendations on actions a manager could take to improve the experience on their team (Source: Worklytics)
ORGANISATIONAL NETWORK ANALYSIS
FRANCISCO MARIN MAYER - Choosing the Right Champions: How ONA Conquers the Change Adoption Trap
To complement October’s Article of the Month comes another ONA themed article. Francisco outlines the ‘Change Adoption Trap’ (see FIG 6), which means formal leaders are not necessarily the best harbingers of change. ONA can help identify the top informal leaders whose influence is 40% greater than the average influence of formal leaders. By positioning informal leaders as early adopters of strategic changes, executive teams can mitigate the risks that make up the change adoption trap. For more on ONA, check out my article: The role of ONA in People Analytics.
FIG 6: The Change Adoption Trap (Source: Cognitive Talent Solutions)
ROI | HR METRICS
GOOGLE - What is employee lifetime value, and how can measuring ELTV improve your organisation?
Interesting piece from the Hire by Google team, which I came across thanks to Hung Lee’s excellent Recruiting Brainfood. The article explores the what and how of the Employee Lifetime Value (ELTV) metric, which seeks to place a value on an employee and support the case for investment in areas such as hiring, onboarding and training (see example in FIG 7). For a real-life example of ELTV, check out Maia Josebachvili’s article from 2016: How to understand the ROI of investing in People.
FIG 7: Employee Lifetime Value (Source: Hire by Google)
HR TECH
JOHN SUMSER – Flight Risk Thinking
As John Sumser sagely observes there are no shortage of HR Tech vendors offering flight risk models, which can be a powerful tool to understand your organisation better. However, John then goes on to outline the reasons why applying flight-risk thinking to individuals can increase the risk of attrition and why these models actually far more valuable at the aggregate level.
Used as a lens through which you can understand your organization better, flight risk analysis is a powerful tool. Like many things in the new world of intelligent tools, it’s not as useful in individual cases as it is in the aggregate
PODCAST OF THE MONTH
DAVE ULRICH - How Companies Like Google and Alibaba Respond to Fast-Moving Markets LARS SCHMIDT & ANNA BINDER – Business Acumen in HR | LARS SCHMIDT & MARC COLEMAN – Inside UNLEASH | LEENA NAIR & DAVID GREEN – How HR Drives Business Value at Unilever
In this month’s podcast selection, Dave Ulrich talks to HBR on the need for companies to replace old hierarchical models with a “market-oriented ecosystem” citing research from the likes of Alibaba, Google and Huawei. Then two episodes from Lars Schmidt’s consistently excellent 21st Century HR podcast featuring Anna Binder (Asana’s Head of People Operations) on why business acumen is critical for HR, and Marc Coleman on the story behind UNLEASH. Finally, Leena Nair joins me on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast to outline how Unilever has deployed AI throughout the employee lifecycle and why HR needs to walk with swagger.
VIDEO OF THE MONTH
IAN O’KEEFE - Building People Analytics Products and Predictive Capabilities
It’s been an absolute delight working with Al Adamsen to co-host the People Analytics & Future of Work (PAFOW) conference series over the past few years. In a recent development, Al has been sharing recordings of presentations from the show via Slides Live – such as this brilliant speech by Ian O’Keefe on how his team builds people analytics products at JP Morgan Chase. It’s a highly recommended view. If you want to hear more from Ian, please check out our recent podcast on the Workforce Analytics Journey at JP Morgan Chase.
RESEARCH REPORT OF THE MONTH
MCKINSEY – Women in the Workplace
The standout finding from McKinsey’s fifth iconic Women in the Workplace research is that rather than a “glass ceiling” preventing women from reaching senior leadership positions, the biggest obstacle that women face is much earlier in the pipeline, at the first step up to manager – the “broken rung”. As Keith McNulty highlights on LinkedIn, there is some seriously good data viz (e.g. FIG 8 below) in the report and some salient commentary throughout.
FIG 8: (Source: Women in the Workplace 2019, McKinsey)
COURSE OF THE MONTH
BEN ZWEIG – Why should you use Python for People Analytics?
We’ve been launching several new courses on the myHRfuture platform in the last few weeks. The latest one sees Ben Zweig walk through the basics of using Python and how you can use it for your people analytics projects, as well as teaching you some of the basic code that you need to get started. Sign up for the course here. In this taster, Ben explains how the tools being used in people analytics today are changing and why Python is becoming one of the more popular choices to analyse large sets of data.
SEE ME SPEAK AT PAFOW SAN FRANCISCO IN 2020
Join me and Al Adamsen for what promises to be the biggest PAFOW show yet in San Francisco from 29-31 January. More speakers will be announced soon but the likes of Dawn Klinghoffer, Alexis Fink, RJ Milnor, Heather Whiteman, Stacia Garr and Dafna Aaronson already confirmed. There are also PAFOW shows confirmed for Sydney (on 3-4 March) and London (29-30 April). See you there.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David is a globally respected writer, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As an Executive Director at Insight222, he helps global organisations create more cultural and economic value through the wise and ethical use of people data and analytics. Prior to joining Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at TrustSphere, David was the Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM Watson Talent. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations embark upon and accelerate their people analytics journeys.
SEE ME SPEAK AT THESE EVENTS IN 2020
Now that my speaking gigs are over for 2019, it’s time to look forward to 2020. I’ll be chairing and/or speaking about people analytics, data-driven HR and the Nine Dimensions for Excellence in People Analytics model at the following events until the end of May 2020.
29-31 Jan – PAFOW San Francisco
19-21 Feb – Tech HR, Singapore
16-17 Mar – HR Core Lab – Leading with Talent Analytics, Barcelona
24-25 Mar – UNLEASH Spring, London
29-30 Apr – PAFOW London
12-13 May – UNLEASH America, Las Vegas