3 Tips for a New People Analytics Leader
“Insight without outcome is simply overhead”
This statement perfectly summarises what each People Analytics team should be striving to achieve through the work that they carry out. While drawing insights for your stakeholders is incredibly important, if these insights do not result in action or outcomes then you’re simply not adding value.
This phrase was coined by Piyush Mathur, the Global Head of Workforce Analytics, Data Strategy and Governance at Johnson & Johnson, a recent guest on the Digital HR Leaders podcast hosted by David Green. Piyush and his team are helping to drive business outcomes at the same time as improving the employee experience of J&J's 140,000 employees. Throughout the podcast they discuss a wide variety of topics from how to set up a people analytics function and engage stakeholders in the business, to examples of people analytics case studies at Johnson and Johnson and whether AI and Automation is a threat or an opportunity for HR. You can listen to the full podcast episode here.
This episode is a must listen for anyone in a workforce or people analytics role, HR and business professionals interested in how people data can drive business outcomes and CHROs looking to build or scale their people analytics capabilities.
In this extract taken from their conversation, Piyush and David discuss the three tips that new people analytics leaders should consider when building their People Analytics function. Having done exactly that for Johnson and Johnson, Piyush draws on his own experience.
Over the last five years we’ve witnessed a considerable shift in HR’s approach to data, and the need to become more business centric. It is fair to say that this shift in mindset and the need to ground decision making in data, like other functions such as marketing and finance do, has led to an exponential growth in People Analytics (the practice of gathering and analysing workforce data to create insights that drive better decision making).
This has been further strengthened by growth in HR professionals wanting to upskill and build their people analytics capability. In the HR Skills of the Future research conducted by Insight222, people analytics ranked as the #1 skill HR professionals most wanted to learn.
We now have a HR function that not only understands the need for a people analytics function, but HR professionals that are keen to upskill or who have upskilled and are raring to go. But as a new people analytics leader how can you ensure that you’re setup for success? Piyush shares three tips for new people analytics leaders to consider as they embark on this journey to building their people analytics teams.
1. Just ‘get going’
The first tip is to “just get going”. It is very easy to get bogged down in the detail as you try to determine what kind of data you require in order to drive real business value, whether your data is considered ‘clean data’ or what types of tools you should to be investing in prior to actually getting started. Piyush’s advice is to hit the ground running and get started. He explains:
…there is so much to learn from that kind of experience with starting from scratch and not knowing where to go. I would call out three things as I look back, the first one would be: just get going.
Many times you kind of start imagining, oh I need this kind of tool or I need that kind of data. If you know the gender of your employees and if you have Microsoft Excel, you can do people analytics. My first key learning was that whatever we have, we can actually start doing analytics and imagine in that example, if you looked at gender by level you can start seeing where the tipping point is and you can start taking action, to build women in leadership. So that is a simple way of just getting going.
Interested in learning more about People Analytics? Take a look at our online People Analytics training courses on myHRfuture
2. Building your foundation is a journey
The second tip Piyush shared with David was the importance of ensuring that you continue to build on your foundation. Naturally, like building a house – you always start with a solid foundation. However, Piyush explains that he was quick to learn, unlike when building a house, building a solid foundation for his analytics data was in fact a journey that could run alongside the projects his team were working on allowing them to deliver real business insight much faster. All the while continually developing on their foundation and adding new data sources. Piyush explains
So interesting example when I came in, I think it was my first month, I called my unit ‘from foundation to foresight’. It was a lot about let's build that foundation first and then we will do some foresight work, like attrition modelling, and very quickly, in three months, I realised that foundation is a journey. Right now it is about, let's say Workday data, but as it evolves it will include LinkedIn data. It will include Glassdoor data, so this is a journey that will keep going. Very quickly, in three months, we renamed that unit and called it ‘foundation and foresight’ because you can do both of them.
3. Be resourceful in finding resources
Finally, the third tip that Piyush shared throughout the podcast was the importance of ensuring that that you are resourceful in finding resources for your people analytics team. In any workforce analytics function, it’s clear that the people you include on the team will be vital to its long-term success, so it’s important to get the right people. However, you might not always have the budget readily available to hire a plethora of people into your new team, so you might need to get ‘resourceful about resources’. As David Green explains in his article “Getting Started with People Analytics”, make friends with analytics practitioners in Finance, Marketing and IT. Their experience in obtaining, cleaning and analysing data will be invaluable in giving you a head start. Moreover, you will need to combine people and business data to solve business problems, so don’t be shy and get out of the HR bubble. Whether it be through a stretch assignment or a community of practice there are lots of innovative ways to acquire the necessary resources you require to be successful.
Piyush explains, in his first months at Nielsen he did just this and setup a community of practice:
“So I think, again, in my 90 days of setting up this function at Nielsen, I realised that there were so many people who raised their hand wanting to get involved in this initiative, and I did not have the resources or the budgets to do that. So what I did was I found a community of people analytics initially all the HR people who were interested they joined in and when I left Nielsen 18 months later, that community was 67 strong. It had people from finance, from commercial, from IT, from data science, all putting their hands up and wanting to really add value for the community. So I think as you start this function, start with that kind of a mindset.”
When setting up your people analytics team, it is important to remember these three tips. Start with the data that you have, it’s possible to “do people analytics, as long as you have Microsoft Excel”. Ensure that you continually build on the foundations of your analytics data, it’s a journey that will keep evolving as new data sources appear, and finally, be resourceful about your resources – make friends with analytics practitioners outside of the HR bubble and leverage the expertise that exists in other functions across your organisation.
Build the HR skills you need for the future
The myHRfuture academy is a learning experience platform for HR professionals looking to invest in their careers. Our online training helps HR professionals to become more digital and data-driven and build the skills you need for the future of HR. The myHRfuture Academy provides you with an on-demand platform where you can get access to over 500+ pieces of short, bitesized learning content all expertly curated to help you build knowledge in People Analytics, Digital HR & HR Technology, Design Thinking, Workforce Planning, Consulting & Influencing and Stakeholder Management. Sign-up today for unlimited to access to myHRfuture for only £25 per month.