The Best HR & People Analytics Articles of September 2020

 
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Does everyone else feel rushed off their feet at the moment? I don’t think I’ve ever had so much on at any time in my professional life. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I know I am fortunate to be in this 'predicament' given what is happening in the world.

The lens on HR and People Analytics teams has perhaps no been so intense. Our leaders and our employees are looking for us to help navigate them through the crises that have enveloped is in 2020. It is, as Katarina Berg outlines in one of the articles I’ve selected this month, HR’s chance to shine. We must not waste this opportunity.

If the Insight222 Global Executive Retreat, which took place last week, is anything to go by our profession is meeting the expectations of our stakeholders. The Organizational Guidance System, which Dave Ulrich outlined at the Retreat, presents a fascinating opportunity for HR to help guide optimal investment in talent, leadership, organisation and HR itself. The work Tanuj Kapilashrami and her team at Standard Chartered are doing around humanising the employee experience garnered huge interest from the 90 CHROs and Senior HR leaders participating in the Retreat. Finally, the research Michael Arena unveiled on the shift between virtual and physical environments and the potential impact of the former on the critical bridge connections required to drive innovation and creativity demonstrated the complexity in designing the optimal hybrid work environment.

I’m also looking forward to seeing similar themes at the PAFOW Global Fall 2020 virtual conference, I’ll be hosting next week with Al Adamsen. Click on the link above to register and look at the stellar line-up of speakers, which include Prasad Setty (Google), Dawn Klinghoffer (Microsoft) and Jason Averbook.

This is a time of research – we are in the midst of the biggest remote working experiment in history. Two surveys I recommend getting involved in if they apply to you are:

  1. The first research is being led by Amit Mohindra and examines the experiences of founding people analytics leaders, so if you have experience of founding people analytics in your current or a previous organisation, please click on the following link: https://lnkd.in/euGfwwz (15 minute survey).

  2. The second research is being conducted by Volker Jacobs and the team at TI-People, on the 2020 State of The Human Experience of Work. The link to the survey is here: http://lnkd.in/eDi2SCr  You can also watch the video below, to find out more.

 
 

This month’s collection of articles is probably the strongest I have ever compiled. It combines contributions from HR leaders from companies like PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson, UBS and Spotify, the latest research on remote working, the shift in learning, the development of talent marketplaces and the focus on data culture.

Enjoy reading, share some data driven love with your network and above all – stay safe and healthy.

REMOTE WORKING

ANDREW MARRITT - Working from Home: What are we seeing in the data?

In a fascinating article, Andrew shares his learnings from using text analytics to make sense of almost one hundred thousand multi-language, text-based employee comments over the last few months. Together these provide a helpful understanding of employee experiences, the challenges related to working from home and how these themes relate to each other (see FIG 1). If you haven’t already, I highly recommend subscribing to Andrew’s Empirical HR weekly newsletter.

 
FIG 1: Probabilistic co-occurrence network of selected themes in ‘Working from Home’ feedback (Source: Andrew Marritt, Organization View)

FIG 1: Probabilistic co-occurrence network of selected themes in ‘Working from Home’ feedback (Source: Andrew Marritt, Organization View)

 

ADRIANA DAHIK, DEBORAH LOVICH, CAROLINE KREAFLE, ALLISON BAILEY, JULIE KILMANN, DEREK KENNEDY, PRATEEK ROONGTA, FELIX SCHULER, LEO TOMLIN & JOHN WENSTRUP – What 12,000 employees have to say about the future of remote work | ANDREA ALEXANDER, AARON DE SMET & MIHIR MYSORE – Reimagining the postpandemic workforce

It seems the crisis will be with us for the foreseeable future, which means the largest remote working experiment in history will continue. An extensive study by BCG, conducted on 12,000 employees, finds that 75% say that they have improved or maintained productivity on individual tasks and 51% say the same for collaborative tasks. The article then delves into four factors impacting virtual collaboration: connectivity, mental health, physical health and tools, and also highlights findings related to future flexibility (see FIG 2), which suggest the “future of work will be increasingly hybrid.” The second article from McKinsey explores the notion that “pandemic-style working from home may not translate easily to a “next normal” mix of on-site and remote working,” highlighting the potential impact on culture and the need for social cohesion. A model (see FIG 3) is provided to help practitioners to optimise the hybrid-virtual continuum.

 
FIG 2: Worker preferences around flexibility and/or when work gets done (Source: BCG)

FIG 2: Worker preferences around flexibility and/or when work gets done (Source: BCG)

 
 
FIG 3: Optimising the hybrid-virtual continuum: Six models reflecting a mix of on-site and remote working (Source: McKinsey)

FIG 3: Optimising the hybrid-virtual continuum: Six models reflecting a mix of on-site and remote working (Source: McKinsey)

 

THE FUTURE OF WORK

RICHARD FLORIDA - The Uncertain Future of Corporate HQs | ETHAN BERNSTEIN - Getting Smarter About Smart Buildings

As Richard Florida writes in the preface to his fascinating article, “Now, more than ever, the issue of where we work — of place and location — remains a fundamental question.” Based on extensive and longitudinal research, Florida pinpoints “the role of talent as the key factor in the geography of corporate headquarters today,” highlights the key talent spots in the US (see FIG 4), explains why urban corporate headquarters aren’t going away and analyses the likely impact of Covid-19 on location strategy. Ethan Bernstein’s article, which provides four recommendations on how intelligent environments can improve workplace safety and collaboration is a terrific companion piece. The four recommendations are: i) focus on promoting collaborative, effective human interactions (not just sensors and automation); 2) improve both physical and virtual work simultaneously; 3) generate data that is visible and usable by "us" (everyone) not just "them" (managers); and 4) make "smart" a moving target, not a certification at a building's birth.

In today’s increasingly fraught economic, political, and social environment, decisions about where to locate are becoming more, not less, important

 
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ALEX KANTROWITZ - How Amazon Automated Work and Put Its People to Better Use

Replacing people with AI may seem tempting – particularly in a recession, but it’s also likely to be a mistake. Amazon’s ‘hands off the wheel’ initiative, which is described in this article, might be a model for how companies can adopt AI to automate repetitive jobs, but keep employees on the payroll by transferring them to more creative roles where they can add more value to the company. The article outlines how Amazon’s choice to eliminate jobs but retain the workers and move them into new roles allowed the company to be more nimble and find new ways to stay ahead of competitors.

If Amazon is any indication, businesses that reassign employees after automating their work will thrive.

THE FUTURE OF HR

STEFAN SEILER - Managing human resources in a digital world

The first of three articles written by CHROs and Senior HR leaders exploring the future of the profession. In his article, Stefan Seiler, Group Head of Human Resources at UBS, outlines four mindsets required to manage HR digitally: i) embracing data-driven insights; ii) making the most of automation to drive efficiency; iii) using digital processes to improve the HR experience for employees; and, iv) putting in place the infrastructure that allows your digital tools to talk to one another and connect people.

Data should always be used in combination with experience and intuition, but you should be willing to keep an open mind and let data challenge your assumptions.

ALLAN H. CHURCH & SERGIO EZAMA - Digitalization Drives the New Face of Engagement

Similarly, Allan H. Church and Sergio Ezama of PepsiCo highlight three shifts the acceleration of digitalisation precipitated by the crisis will have on talent management according to their data: i) Reconfiguring the nature of work and careers (“…a shift from ‘attention to the masses’ to a sharper focus on the key capabilities that will be deemed critical to long-term success”); ii) Ruthless process digitalisation (“HR leaders and professionals (will need to) raise their collective skills on deriving insights from data and advanced analytics”); and’ iii) Focus on the ‘New Face’ of engagement (“a new form of employee-employer relationship needs to be defined and operationalized through an integrated talent life-cycle architecture.”) The article also presents PepsiCo’s GREAT-5 leadership framework (see FIG 5), for determining leadership potential in the post-COVID-19 world.

 
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KATARINA BERG – All eyes on HR | TOMAS CHAMORRO PREMUZIC & KATARINA BERG – Lockdown E11

The third HR leader taking a look at the profession is the brilliant Katarina Berg, CHRO of Spotify, who was my guest on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast last year. In her article, Katarina highlights that HR’s role has never been so important and why that means the profession needs to pressure test the four dimensions of learning agility: i) People agility; ii) Mental agility; iii) Change and results agility; and, iv) Self-awareness. If you enjoy Katarina’s article, I also recommend checking out her recent podcast with Tomas Chamorro Premuzic, where they discuss talent and culture in the Covid age, how culture can be an organisation's main strategy, and whether diversity and inclusion is evolving as fast as it should, as well as the role of data in decoding and influencing humans at work.

JOSH BERSIN - Introducing Resilient HR: A New Way To Run Your Business

In his article, Josh Bersin examines the rapid shift the crisis has made to the HR operating model, which he believes has seen a transition from a responsive model focused on efficiency to one that is predicated on resilience, speed and adaptability (see FIG 6). Josh then digs into the components that enable a Resilient HR model including skills (“professionals at all levels need a never-ending focus on training”), shared awareness (“all the work we’ve done in people analytics must now become real-time, shared, and available to all”) and eschewing siloes (“pooling our teams across HR and also with IT, facilities, legal, and often finance”).

 
FIG 6: The Big Reset in HR: New operating model (Source: Josh Bersin)

FIG 6: The Big Reset in HR: New operating model (Source: Josh Bersin)

 

PEOPLE ANALYTICS

DAVE ULRICH - How to Increase the Impact of Your Talent Initiatives | Knowing Which Organization Capabilities Make a Difference

At the recent Insight222 Global Executive Retreat, Dave Ulrich presented the pilot findings of the work he and his team at RBL have completed to evaluate their Organizational Guidance System (OGS), which is designed to help guide HR leaders on which combination of investments will deliver the most optimal results for their specific company. In these two articles, Dave provides highlights further findings from the pilot data on i) the talent initiatives that drive key outcomes; and, ii) how well organisations perform on twelve well-studied capabilities designed to deliver outcomes that help them succeed in the marketplace, including mean, variance and reliability as well as the impact on four organisational outcomes (see FIG 7).

 
FIG 7: Guidance on relative impact of organisation capabilities on key outcomes (Source: Dave Ulrich, RBL)

FIG 7: Guidance on relative impact of organisation capabilities on key outcomes (Source: Dave Ulrich, RBL)

 

PATRICK SIMON, CAROLINE TUFFT AND PIERPAOLO ZAMPELLA - Closing the skills gap in retail with people analytics

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, 52% of all activities in retail can be automated with existing technology. Investing in data and analytics – especially people analytics (see FIG 8) – is key to streamlining the onboarding process, retaining strong employees and ultimately maximising productivity.

 
FIG 8: People analytics helps to staff up stores and maximise productivity (Source: McKinsey)

FIG 8: People analytics helps to staff up stores and maximise productivity (Source: McKinsey)

 

MICHAEL HOFFMAN & CLINT KOFFORD – How Johnson & Johnson is Applying Data Science to Unlock Human Potential

Thanks to Geetanjali Gamel, Senior Director of Global Workforce Analytics at Johnson & Johnson, for highlighting to this article on how data science is transforming the company’s approach to career growth & development. The study, which is ongoing, has identified that employees with a greater diversity of experience (such as experience working across sectors, functions or regions) are promoted with greater frequency at J&J than their more stationary peers. The findings of the study are being used to better understand the drivers of career advancement at the company, what is needed to accelerate career velocity and personalise development. This is the type of work the more advanced people analytics teams are doing.

The big-picture goal is to understand what drives career advancement at Johnson & Johnson. If we know that, we use our knowledge of those drivers to help employees reach their career goals faster

ANIL KHURANA, ROGER WERY & AMY PEIRCE - How companies can transform information into insight

This PwC article highlights how the pandemic has reinforced the need to build world-class data and insights capability across the enterprise and outlines six organisational elements required to achieve this (see FIG 9). In our experience with the clients we work with at Insight222, it is the first step around tying people analytics work to the needs of the business that is the most important – and the one that best sets up people analytics functions for success.

 
FIG 9: The six elements for transforming information into insight (Source: PwC)

FIG 9: The six elements for transforming information into insight (Source: PwC)

 

RAVIN JESUTHASAN & QUEENIE CHAN - What Talent Means in the Post-COVID-19 Workplace | IAN COOK - What the new SEC disclosure rules mean for the CHRO | WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM - Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation

Last year the ISO (International Standards Organization) published their first set of human capital Metrics standards (ISO30414) and the Business Roundtable redefined its purposefrom a sole focus on shareholders to one that serves all stakeholders (consumers, employees, suppliers and communities – as well as shareholders). The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted once again the value of talent – or human capital – to an organisation. These three resources all shine a light on moves to better measure (and disclose) the value of talent and the return on investment in employees. First, Ravin Jesuthasan and Queenie Chan lay out seven principles as well as a three-step framework to help shift thinking in how talent is valued (see FIG 10). Then Ian Cook analyses the recent move by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to adopt a broader set of human capital disclosure requirements, and what this means for Chief HR Officers and People Analytics teams. Finally, the WEF report outlines 21 metrics for measuring and reporting on the workforce, many broken down by workforce composition and category – thanks to Jeff Higgins for highlighting this resource. Collectively, these all potentially raise the importance of people analytics even further.

 
FIG 10: Seven guiding principles to shift how human capital is valued (Source: Willis Towers Watson and the World Economic Forum)

FIG 10: Seven guiding principles to shift how human capital is valued (Source: Willis Towers Watson and the World Economic Forum)

 

LEARNING, SKILLS & WORKFORCE PLANNING

INA GANTCHEVA, ROBIN JONES, DIANA KEARNS-MANOLATOS, JEFF SCHWARTZ, LINNET LEE AND MANU RAWAT - Activating the internal talent marketplace

In what is an absorbing and in-depth article, researchers from Deloitte look at advances in ‘talent marketplaces,’ which have experienced accelerated growth due to the pandemic. They cover iterative talent marketplace design and their “Four Ps” model: Purpose (see FIG 11), plan, program and platform.

The pandemic has accelerated marketplace adoption as organizations have to scale and flex their talent models to meet business and workforce needs

FIG 11: Strategies for implementing a Talent Marketplace (Source: Deloitte)

FIG 11: Strategies for implementing a Talent Marketplace (Source: Deloitte)

NICOLAI CHEN NIELSEN, FARIDUN DOTIWALA AND MATTHEW MURRAY - A Transformation of the Learning Function: Why it should Learn New Ways

Companies rely on their learning-and-development functions to help workforces learn fast. But often, the function itself needs a transformation. This McKinsey article looks at the L&D department of the future, which, in their opinion, must strike a balance between dynamism and stability (see FIG 12).

FIG 12: The L&D function must strike a balance between stability and dynamism (Source: McKinsey)

FIG 12: The L&D function must strike a balance between stability and dynamism (Source: McKinsey)

LEADERSHIP, CULTURE & EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

LYNDA GRATTON - The Pandemic’s Lessons for Managing Uncertainty | LYNDA GRATTON & DAVID GREEN – How can HR help shape the re-skilling and learning agenda

My recent guest on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, Lynda Gratton, writing for MIT SMR, shares her learnings from following four large organisations (Tata Consultancy Services, Vodafone, Arup, and Artemis Connection) navigating big unknowns during the crisis and draws out common themes that are crucial to coming out the other side (if there is one). In our podcast, Lynda and I talk about the role of HR in shaping the skills and learning agenda, discuss what we have learnt about people and organisations in the crisis, explore how our workplaces of the future will be designed around serendipity, examine the importance of managers and discuss ways to make re-skilling and up-skilling stick within organisations.

AARON DE SMET, CAITLIN HEWES & LEIGH WEISS - For smarter decisions, empower your employees

Taking as its premise that “fully empowered employees make good decisions and resolve problems,” this article from McKinsey presents an ABCD model for categorising decisions (see FIG 13) and then dives deep on the ‘D’ – Delegated decisions, exploring how a variety of leadership and management styles can best support them.

 
FIG 13: The ABCDs of categorising decisions (Source: McKinsey)

FIG 13: The ABCDs of categorising decisions (Source: McKinsey)

 

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

MITA MALLICK - Do You Know Why Your Company Needs a Chief Diversity Officer?

Mita is the head of diversity and cross-cultural marketing at Unilever, and in this article she outlines six questions that leaders should ask themselves before they hire a Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer including where the role should sit, how much budget to allocate and perhaps most importantly how you will measure success.

We know that what gets measured gets done. Be clear about what success in year one will look like.

HR TECH

JOHN SUMSER – HR data makes its own gravy – Part 1 and Part 2

John Sumser continues his formidably prodigious writing this year on topics associated with HR Technology, people data and ethics with his very clear definition of the tools associated with HR data and where they could be heading. Part 1 outlines the different types and attributes of data and intelligent tools (see FIG 14) and Part 2 describes them in more detail.

 
FIG 14: Types and Attributes of HR Data in AI and Intelligent Tools (Source: John Sumser)

FIG 14: Types and Attributes of HR Data in AI and Intelligent Tools (Source: John Sumser)

 

SARAH JOHNSON - The Two Most Important Questions in People Analytics | PETER BUCHAS, STEPHEN HEIDARI-ROBINSON, SUZANNE HEYWOOD & MATTHIAS QIAN - 7 Strategies for Leading a Crisis-Driven Reorg | SHIRAN YAROSLAVSKY - Why Managers Analytics is an emerging product category, and how it relates to Shopify | JOSEPH FREED - Why Empowerment, Not Monitoring, Will Drive Success In The Remote Work Age

In this month’s lightning round-up of the articles from HR Tech companies that caught my eye, Sarah Johnson (Perceptyx) kicks things off by highlighting the two fundamental questions for people analytics: So What? and Now What?. Then the team from Quartz Associates provide a timely outline of how to lead a re-organisation during a crisis. Next, Shiran Yaroslavsky (Cassiopeia) provides a helpful classification of the future of work analytics categories (see FIG 15) and outlines why a new category she calls manager analytics has emerged. Finally, Joe Freed (Cultivate) looks at the two strategies to optimise talent – empowerment and monitoring – and outlines why the former is not also less creepy but will actually provide better results – for both the organisation and its employees.

FIG 15: The future of work analytics categories (Source: Shiran Yaroslavsky)

FIG 15: The future of work analytics categories (Source: Shiran Yaroslavsky)

PODCASTS OF THE MONTH

MORTEN ANDERSEN & CHRISTINA GRAVERT - Nudging – A Friendly Push In The Right Direction | LARS SCHMIDT & MARK LEVY – Employee Experience | GIANPIERO PETRIGLIERI & DAVID GREEN – How do you create a learning culture in the workplace | KAT KENNEDY & DAVID GREEN - Improving Employee Experience through Learning, Skill Development & Mobility

Four podcasts for your aural listening pleasure this month. First, Morten Andersen kicks off his ‘What Monkeys Do’ podcast on change management with a fascinating discussion with Christina Gravert on how nudges can help us in our personal and professional life. Then Mark Levy guests on Lars Schmidt’s Redefining HR show to discuss the evolution of EX and why it’s more important than ever to take this approach when building people programs. It’s also been a busy month on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast – the episodes with Diane Gherson and Lynda Gratton are highlighted elsewhere within this collection, but please do check out my conversations with Gianpiero Petriglieri and Kat Kennedy, which are both centred around learning, skills and the technologies that support them.

 
 

VIDEO OF THE MONTH

DIANE GHERSON & DAVID GREEN – How IBM is reinventing HR with AI and analytics | IAN BAILIE - How does IBM use AI and Analytics to Measure Employee Skillsets?

To launch the autumn/fall schedule of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, my very special guest is Diane Gherson, who announced last week, after a glittering seven-year tenure, that she was stepping down as CHRO of IBM.In our discussion (which you can listen to by clicking the link above or watch by viewing the video below), Diane and I discuss how IBM has infused AI and analytics into HR, creating a culture of continuous learning, innovation and agility. Diane also describes the company-wide jam she initiated to explore new ways of working at IBM post the crisis. Ian’s article looks at one aspect of my conversation with Diane: How IBM’s learning platform brings together skills, learning and careers with a talent marketplace solution. 

 
 

RESEARCH STUDY OF THE MONTH

STACIA GARR & KARINA FEITAG - The Purpose-Driven Organization: HR’s Opportunity During Crisis & Beyond

Stacia Garr, Dani Johnson and their team at RedThread Research are rapidly emerging as the leading analysts in our space, and their latest study on what we can learn from purpose driven organisations is no exception. The link above should allow you to sign up and download the report for free – hurry before this offer is withdrawn!

 
FIG 16: Summary of Practices to Create Purpose-Driven Employee Experience (Source: RedThread Research)

FIG 16: Summary of Practices to Create Purpose-Driven Employee Experience (Source: RedThread Research)

 

FROM MY DESK

People analytics: finding people solutions to business questions

In my keynote from People Matters TechHR 2020 I shared some examples of how organisations can use people analytics to create business value. The article (click link in title) by Mint Kang provides an overview of what I discussed, and you can also watch the video of my talk below.

 
 

CATCH UP ON THE DIGITAL HR LEADERS PODCAST

If you haven't listened to all of the episodes of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, you can catch up now by clicking on the links below.

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. David also hosts the Digital HR Leaders Podcast on myHRfuture.

Future of Work, People Analytics, Digital HRDavid GreenPeople Analytics, Continuous Learning, Change Management, Future of Work, Digital HRComment