2020 is proving to be a notable year. We are still in the midst of the largest global pandemic in over a century, which at the time of writing, according to data from Johns Hopkins, has now seen over 500,000 global fatalities.

The brutal killing of George Floyd prompted a surge of protests around the world that even managed to knock Covid-19 off of the front pages. It is to be hoped that the protests prove to be the catalyst for the curse of racial inequality to be eradicated from our societies and our organisations.

Both Covid-19 and #BlackLivesMatter have led to a significant increase in the quantity and quality of writing on HR and people data inspired content. This ‘silver lining,’ if I can call it that, means that I have extended the usual 12 articles to 20 this month.   

Before we start, I also wanted to highlight a happier event – Liverpool ending a thirty year wait to win the Premier League! As a fervent Liverpool supporter, this has brought a glimmer (ok, substantially more than a glimmer!) of joy in these troubled times. Interestingly, Liverpool’s use of data science and analytics is widely considered to be the most advanced in football, which allied to Jürgen Klopp’s exceptional leadership and the talented squad he has assembled might provide a few clues behind the club’s success.

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

#BLACKLIVESMATTER

TORIN ELLIS – Dinosaurs, Lions and Diversity | VIVIAN HUNT - Where Do We Start? | ENRICA N. RUGGS & DEREK R. AVERY - Organisations Cannot Afford to Stay Silent on Racial Injustice | QUINETTA ROBERSON - Beyond Diversity: are inclusive organisations truly attainable? | ADAM GRANT - Why White People Stay Silent on Racism, and What to Read First | DAVE ULRICH - Personal and Institutional Movement on Racism: “Now is the time” (Martin Luther King) | IBRAM X. KENDI – How to be an Antiracist

There’s only one place to start this month and that’s with #BlackLivesMatter. One can only hope that the protests around the world that followed the brutal killing of George Floyd will act as an epiphany against the curse of racial injustice. As with Covid-19, this second monumental crisis of 2020 has provoked a slew of powerful articles. Some of these were featured in two successive editions of the Digital HR Leaders Newsletter here and here. For those HR professionals looking to understand more, I suggest starting by watching the powerful video featuring Torin Ellis below. The articles by Dame Vivian Hunt and Enrica Ruggs with Derek Avery provide guidance for leaders and organisations whilst Quinetta Roberson’s lecture examines how to create truly inclusive organisations. Adam Grant highlights that “research has repeatedly shown that when majority groups stay quiet, they inadvertently license the oppression of marginalized groups.” In his powerful and personal article, Dave Ulrich offers some prompts to personal and institutional change. Finally, I urge everyone to read Ibram X. Kendi’s electrifying manifesto on how to be an antiracist.

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

McKINSEY, SUNDIATU DIXON-FYLE, KEVIN DOLAN, VIVIAN HUNT & SARA PRINCE – Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters

The perfectly timed third report in a McKinsey series investigating the business case for diversity finds that the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time (see FIG 1). By incorporating a “social listening” analysis of employee sentiment in online reviews, the report also provides new insights into the critical role of inclusion. It shows that companies should pay much greater attention to inclusion, even when they are relatively diverse, and provides guidance into how this can be achieved (FIG 2).

KATIE WULLERT, SHANNON GILMARTIN & CAROLINE SIMARD - The Mistake Companies Make When They Use Data to Plan Diversity Efforts

Small numbers cannot be a rationale to stall progress: companies and people analytics teams need to: “be willing to analyze small numbers, gather detailed interview data on employee experiences, engage managers as allies for change, and hold themselves accountable to making small numbers grow.”

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE FUTURE OF WORK

ADAM GRANT – How Jobs, Bosses and Firms May Improve After the Crisis | DAVE ULRICH - What’s Next in the HR Space Post COVID-19 | TOMAS CHAMORRO PREZMUZIC & AVIVAH WITTENBERG-COX - Will the Pandemic Reshape Notions of Female Leadership?

We’ve been hearing a lot about the Covid-19 pandemic acting as a catalyst for business transformation and the future of work, but what positive changes can we expect when we emerge from the crisis? Adam Grant’s article in The Economist offers a vision of greater job satisfaction, more ethical leadership, a deeper sense of trust and the holy grail of shorter working days: “We can be every bit as creative and productive in six focused hours a day as in twice as many distracted hours.” Dave Ulrich takes a similarly positive view in offering five general ‘principles in progress’ for HR post-pandemic including: increased personalisation, a shift of work from ‘place’ to ‘values’, and people decisions increasingly being informed by data and analytics. Finally, noting that countries with female leaders have performed significantly better during the crisis, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Avivah Wittenberg-Cox ponder whether this will improve our readiness to promote more women into leadership roles.

A shorter work day would be a healthy legacy of Covid-19—though it wouldn’t prevent our kids from raiding our Zoom meetings.

THE FUTURE OF WORK

DELOITTE, ERICA VOLINI, JEFF SCHWARTZ, BRAD DENNY, DAVID MALLON, YVES VAN DURME, MAREN HAUPTMANN, RAMONA YAN & SHANNON POYNTON,  - 2020 Global Human Capital Trends - The social enterprise at work: Paradox as a path forward

Deloitte’s annual Human Capital Trends report is always required reading and this year’s focus on companies embracing three attributes – purpose, potential and perspective – to remain human in a technology driven world, carries even more resonance due to the crisis. There are 12 chapters to absorb plus a special report: Returning to work in the future of work. Three chapters I’d recommend for people analytics aficionados are: i) A memo to HR on how to expand focus and extend influence of the function, ii) Governing workforce strategies on how data can help anticipate risks, inform strategy and drive discussion on the future of work within organisations, and; iii) Ethics and the future of work on shifting from ‘could we’ to ‘how should we’ – see FIG 3.   

PEOPLE ANALYTICS

STACIA GARR & PRIYANKA MEHROTRA - The 5 Pillars of Business-Aligned People Analytics – For COVID-19 and Beyond

A really well-researched study by Stacia Sherman Garr and Priyanka Mehrotra of RedThread Research covering the rising importance of people analytics and identifying five pillars (see FIG 4) to align the work with the needs of the business – both during the crisis and beyond. Features insights from a host of people analytics leaders and CHROs including: Tanuj Kapilashrami, Marilyn Becker, Annemieke Nennie, Blair Hopkins, RJ Milnor, Dawn Klinghoffer, Serena Huang, Alexis Saussinan, Nick Garbis, David Shontz, Thomas Rasmussen, Sally Smith, Patrick Coolen, Guru Sethupathy and Gary Coover.

Our 2020 People Analytics Tech Research – Participate Now!

Stacia, Priyanka and the RedThread Research team have also just launched their 2020 people analytics technology research. If you are i) a People Analytics Technology Provider, OR; ii) a customer of a People Analytics Technology Provider, please click on the link to find out how to participate and to access the 2019 report and tools. Stacia and Priyanka's preliminary research has already identified an interesting disconnect between the vendor and practitioner community on ethics - see FIG 4a below.

MCKINSEY, NICOLUAS HENKE, ANKUR PURI & TAMIM SALEH - Accelerating analytics to navigate COVID-19 and the next normal

When we talk to companies that are part of the Insight222 People Analytics Program, one of the features of the crisis is how they have stood up new analytics capabilities in a matter of weeks to support the business and its workforce during this challenging time. This McKinsey article shares six lessons that have enabled companies to successfully do this – bridging both people and enterprise analytics. The first lesson that Analytics must be aligned with business priorities, is the most valuable lesson of all.

Leaders have the opportunity to accelerate employee upskilling and build on the cultural shifts, such as the move to more agile ways of working, currently taking place.

JASON WIDJAJA - How Analytics Maturity Models are Stunting Data Science Teams

At Insight222, we’re not big fans of the traditional maturity models for people analytics such as the infamous Bersin by Deloitte model in FIG 5 below. As Jason Widjaja reflects in his excellent article, whilst these models may captivate imagination, they are actually presented in a way that prompts poor decisions about building data science (and people analytics) teams. The problem with these models is that they imply i) you start at the bottom and move sequentially through the levels, ii) each higher level brings more value than the level before it, and iii) the way you manage reporting and analytics lie on the same spectrum. None of this is true, and Widjaja successfully debunks these theories in his article.

MAX BLUMBERG - PeopleAnalytics Data versus Models: Which is more important?

Max Blumberg also cites people analytics maturity models as one of the reasons, along with a lack of focus on continuous learning, why some analysts resist using certain statistical models in their people analytics work. In the article, Max uses FIG 6, to highlight that the quality of people analytics decisions relies on the quality of data and the statistical model used.

SHERRY XIE & DAVID GREEN - How People Analytics is Supporting Merck’s Growth in China

Sherry Xie, from Merck's Global People Analytics and Strategic Workforce Planning team, who is based in Shanghai explains to me why People Analytics and Digital HR is growing so fast in China, and how Merck has organised people analytics in China. Sherry then outlines two case studies: i) MIA Analytics, which combines HR and business data and uses machine learning to support scenario planning and redeployment of sales professionals in China (see FIG 7), and ii) predictive attrition.

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

ANDREW MARRITT - How to segment employees and personalise experiences

A fascinating article by fellow Liverpool supporter Andrew Marritt eschewing the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach many companies still adopt towards their workforce. Instead, Andrew advocates that employees be seen as consumers of work and outlines how to conduct needs-based segmentation based on survey responses (including in FIG 8 by topics discussed in open-text questions), how to develop these into personas and how to convert these into segment-based action plans.

ALEXANDER DiLEONARDO, DAVID MENDELSOHN, NIKIL SELVAM & ALEXANDRA WOOD - Personalizing change management in the smartphone era

Not content with publishing a terrific article on the subject himself, Andrew Marritt’s excellent EmpiricalHR newsletter also alerted me to this powerful case study by McKinsey. It outlines how a global manufacturer blended digital technology, analytics and behavioural science to segment employees and personalise its organisational change program and overcome the roadblocks identified in FIG 9 below.

LEARNING & BUILDING A DATA CULTURE

MAARTEN MOLENAAR – How Serious Gaming can Help HR to Increase Awareness on Data & Analytics

In research we’ve undertaken since creating Insight222 in 2017, only 34 percent of HR professionals tell us that their company offers training to increase data-literacy and analytical-savviness. ABN AMRO, Merck Group and Capital One are three companies that have invested in training, taking a novel approach involving a game based around the Escape Room concept, and designed especially for people analytics called ‘Analysis Paralysis.’ The article sees Patrick Coolen, Mircea-Stefan Glavici and Tom O’Connor describe their experiences, how the game works and how it drove an increase in data-driven behaviours within their HR colleagues. For more on the Escape Room at ABN AMRO, read my article with Patrick and the team here: How to help HR improve its literacy in data and people analytics.

The biggest surprise is how quickly we’ve seen players apply the learnings from the game to their work

ORGANISATIONAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

DANIEL Z. LEVIN & TERRI R. KURTZBERG - Sustaining Employee Networks in the Virtual Workplace

As an article in last month’s collection from Michael Arena divulged, one of the biggest drivers of who interacts with whom in organisations is physical proximity. Put simply the shift to virtual means that many interactions diminish, relationships recede, work networks shrink, and the organisation becomes less interconnected. This article looks at the risks to collaboration of working virtually before providing ways managers can reinforce trust and connection within and between teams including: i) cultivating solidarity and shared mission, ii) acting as network brokers, and; iii) preserving teams with longer working relationships.  

Research shows that work ties that have been dormant even for many years can be reactivated very quickly, with little or no loss of trust or feelings of closeness.

MACHINE LEARNING IN HR

ADAM McKINNON & MONICA ASHTON - A Beginner’s Guide to Machine Learning for HR Practitioners

In this insightful and practical article, Adam McKinnon and Monica Ashton provide a helpful overview of Artificial Intelligence, outline three broad types of Machine Learning (reinforcement, supervised and unsupervised) and provide practical examples of Machine Learning applied to HR – including FIG 10, an example of supervised learning informing employee turnover.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

KATHI ENDERES & NEHAL NANGIA - Mitigating bias in performance management

As Kathi Enderes and Nehal Nangia highlight in their article, workplace bias can lead to unfair decisions and systemic discrimination as well as limit innovation and impact negatively on brand. In performance management, bias can lead to inconsistencies in setting and evaluating goals, coaching, feedback and rewards. The article outlines how bias can impede performance, why bias needs to be addressed, and provides a threefold approach for mitigating bias in performance management (see FIG 11).

MICHAEL SCHRAGE - Rethinking Performance Management for Post-Pandemic Success

In this terrific article, Michael Schrage contests that pre-crisis workplace performance metrics are no longer fit for purpose as they don’t capture the nuances of digital workflows and remote work. Recalibrating KPIs is essential to ensuring that remote work actually works, but as Schrage explains, to ensure transparency and trust, data-driven workforce support should also heavily feature. Several examples are provided before Schrage provides advice to leaders that encompass committing to i) a continuous feedback culture, ii) clarity between assessment and development, and iii) transparency. An essential read.

Transparency is the foundation for a performance culture that can also literally be seen as a fair and equitable culture

ETHICS

CNBC - How Employers Could Be Spying On You While Working From Home | ADAM SATARIANO - How My Boss Monitors Me While I Work From Home | GABRIEL BURDIN, SIMON D. HALLIDAY & FABIO LANDINI - Why using technology to spy on home-working employees may be a bad idea | REID BLACKMAN - How to Monitor Your Employees — While Respecting Their Privacy

According to a video report from CNBC (see below), some companies are turning to ‘productivity management’ software to track their employees while they work from home. The video covers similar ground to Adam Satariano’s article in the New York Times. This type of employee surveillance is downright creepy and will surely prompt a swift downturn in employee trust in any company foolish enough to deploy snooping technologies like these. Indeed, the third article by Gabriel Burdin et al provides a compelling case why this level of intrusion is likely to be counterproductive. Finally, Reid Blackman, whilst also eschewing the need for corporate surveillance, offers six recommendations to companies prepared to walk this tightrope.  

Despite the easy availability of options, however, monitoring comes with real risk to the companies that pursue it. Surveillance threatens to erode trust between employers and employees.

LUCAS RUIJS - Walking the tightrope of People Analytics – Balancing value and trust

The first co-creation project we undertook with clients of the Insight222 People Analytics Program when we set up the firm in 2017 was to develop an Ethics Charter to mitigate risk, drive value to the workforce and create a firm foundation for people analytics to flourish. The Ethical Framework (see FIG 12) presented by Lucas Ruijs in his article provides a solid basis to assess the transparency, objective and alignment of work before, during and after a project.

HR TECH

FRANCISCO MARIN - The Role of ONA in the Future of Work: Enabling Distributed Flat Hierarchies | MEREDITH METSKER - Why Your Human Resources Professionals Need HR Analytics | PATRICK KULESA - The impact of the coronavirus crisis on employee experience | SOPHIA LEE - How COVID-19 is changing the employee experience

Last month’s collection of articles from HR Tech companies proved popular with readers, so here are another four. First, Francisco Marin of Cognitive Talent Solutions outlines how ONA can provide a way of assessing and enabling distributed and organisational hierarchies. Then Meredith Metsker of Emsi provides a comprehensive overview of people analytics and how it can support HR professionals across the employee lifecycle. Finally, Patrick Kulesa of Willis Towers Watson and Sophia Lee of Culture Amp look at the impact of Covid-19 on the employee experience.

PODCASTS OF THE MONTH

STEVEN BAERT, VAS NARASIMHAN, SIMON BROWN, PAUL ASHCROFT & GARRICK JONES - Curiosity – The CEO and The Chief People and Organization Officer Perspective | JONATHAN KESTENBAUM & MATT ALDER - The Future of Recruiting Technology | JEREMY SHAPIRO & DAVID GREEN - How People Analytics Has Progressed in the Last Ten Years

Three podcasts for your aural pleasure. First, the CEO and Chief People Officer from Novartis join the authors of a great new book 'The Curious Advantage' to talk about how Novartis has worked to ‘unleash the power of their people’ and change the culture driven by an ‘Inspired’, ‘Curious’ and ‘Unbossed’ people strategy. Matt Alder is approaching 300 episodes of the extraordinarily consistent Recruiting Future podcast, and this episode sees Matt talk to Jonathan Kestenbaum to look at how Covid-19 has affected the future of the recruitment technology market. Finally, Jeremy Shapiro joins me on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast to reflect on people analytics ten years on from the landmark HBR article he co-authored with Tom Davenport and Jeanne Harris as well as to discuss how people analytics is supporting the business and employees at Merck during the crisis.

VIDEO OF THE MONTH

JOHN SUMSER - Intelligent Tools (AI and Data) in the HR & Recruiting space

John Sumser is always worth listening to and his knowledge on what he refers to as ‘intelligent tools’ in the HR and recruiting space is perhaps second to none. In this talk, John covers the key points companies need to understand about AI and other intelligent tools to successfully implement systems and gain their full benefits.

BOOKS OF THE MONTH

IBRAM X. KENDI – How to be an Antiracist | DAVID C. FORMAN – Fearless Talent Choices: That Can Make or Break Your Business| HEATHER WHITEMAN & NICK GARBIS - Explore the Power of People Analytics

One of the positives of being in lockdown over the last few months has been the opportunity to read more books. If everyone read Ibram X. Kendi’s electrifying manifesto, which I already highlighted earlier, we would likely live in a more racially just and equitable world. I can also recommend David Forman’s timely new book and Heather Whiteman’s and Nick Garbis’ free e-book on people analytics.  

FROM MY DESK

How Can People Analytics Drive Business Value?

To celebrate the first year of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, we thought we would do something different. The team managed to persuade me to record a special role reversal episode of the podcast with me in the hot seat and the show’s co-creator Ian Bailie, firing the questions that some of you, including one of our previous guests Dave Ulrich, kindly took the time to send in. Click on the link above to listen to the episode and watch the extract below on how to get started in people analytics.

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.

• EP 40: David Green - How can People Analytics drive business value?

• EP 39: Jeremy Shapiro - How People Analytics has progressed in the last ten years

• EP 38: Heather McGowan - How Covid-19 is accelerating the Future of Work

• EP 37: Thomas Rasmussen - How National Australia Bank has scaled People Analytics

• EP 36: Ravin Jesuthasan - Six imperatives for HR in the Future of Work

• BONUS EPISODE: Amit Mohindra & Dawn Klinghoffer - What is the future of People Analytics?

• EP 35: Peter Hinssen - What is the role of HR in driving and enabling innovation?

• EP 34: Bruce Daisley - What do business leaders want from HR?

• EP 33: Dirk Jonker - Why People Analytics needs to behave like a start-up

• EP 32: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic - The role of storytelling in People Analytics and Data Visualisation

• EP 31: Piyush Mathur - How Johnson & Johnson uses People Analytics to drive business outcomes

• BONUS EPISODE - Heather Whiteman, RJ Milnor & Ian Bailie (Live at PAFOW) - How to develop the HR skills of the future

• EP 30: Katy Gray - How Arup uses reward data to drive behavioural change

• EP 29: Uri Ort - What is the future of talent assessment?

• EP 28: Zara Nanu - The role of People Analytics in Gender Pay Analysis

• EP 27: Julia Shaw - How can technology reduce bias in the workplace

• EP 26: Stela Lupushor - How HR can be a Catalyst for Change

• BONUS EPISODE: Volker Jacobs - How to scale Employee Experience

• EP 25: Julie Digby - How HR Drives Transformation and Org Design at Mars

• EP 24: RJ Milnor - How McKesson uses ONA to identify what drives high performance in sales

• EP 23: Rupert Morrison - Rethinking Workforce Planning & Organisation Design

• EP 22: Dawn Klinghoffer - The Evolution of People Analytics at Microsoft

• EP 21: John Boudreau - Reinventing Jobs: The Future of Work and it's impact on HR

• EP 20: Tanuj Kapilashrami - How Standard Chartered designed an exceptional Employee Experience

• EP 19: Anna Tavis: What is Agile HR and how are companies adopting it?

• EP 18: Sarah Johnson: How to use employee surveys to create strategic value

• EP 17: Leena Nair - How HR drives business value at Unilever

• EP 16: Keith McNulty - HR 3.0: more data driven, more agile and more business focused

• EP 15: Jason Corsello - The Shift From HR Tech to Work Tech

• EP 14: Jill Larsen - How does the CHRO successfully partner with the CEO

• EP 13: Frida Polli - How AI and Behavioural Science can reduce bias in recruiting

• EP 12: Ian O'Keefe - The Workforce Analytics journey at JP Morgan Chase

• EP 11: Dave Ulrich - The role of HR in the Digital Age

• EP 10: Jordan Pettman - How Nestlé uses People Analytics to measure Gender Pay Gap and Equity

• EP 9: Catalina Schveninger - The Evolution of Corporate Learning at Vodafone

• EP 8: Richard Collins - How is Automation, AI and Analytics changing recruiting?

• EP 7: Katarina Berg - Spotify's CHRO on Leading HR in a digital world

• EP 6: Nick Holley - How HR can become more business relevant 

• EP 5: Eden Britt - How to build a People Analytics team in a global organisation | The People Analytics journey at HSBC 

• EP 4: Yvette Cameron - How Blockchain will disrupt the Future of Work and HR Technology 

• EP 3: Didier Elzinga - How to Create a Culture First Company 

• EP 2: Edward Houghton - The Head of Research at the CIPD on Driving Business Performance with People Data 

• EP 1: Sharon Doherty - How to transform HR to be more digital and building a culture of diversity

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.