According to recent research from Insight222 looking at people analytics trends, 90% of CHROs have made it clear that data and analytics are an essential part of the HR strategy, yet only 42% of companies have a data driven culture for people data and analytics.

One of three components identified as critical to developing a data driven culture for HR (see Insight222’s model of a data driven culture below) is to ‘embed data driven decision making’ across the organisation. In order to do this, HRBPs in particular are expected to develop their data literacy skills. Once again, the research showed a clear discrepancy between expectations and reality as 81% of CHROs expect HRBPs to use people data and analytics in their daily work but only HRBPs in 43% of companies are developing their data literacy skills.

I recently sat down with Vipin Sharma, Head HR Strategy, Analytics & HR Innovation Labs at Tata Steel, to understand how his team is tackling these challenges. Their focus on simultaneously democratising access to people data for decision making and upskilling HRBPs and the wider HR community has stood them in good stead to address important business challenges with people analytics, including bias in performance management, which we discuss here also.

1.     Why is it important to democratise access to people insights across an organisation?

It is very important to democratise people insights and provide access to leaders, managers and HRBPs in order to institutionalise data-driven decision making on people matters. One of the main objectives of people analytics is to improve the decisions that we make that impact people and eliminate biases and thus it is very important that when such decisions are taken by leaders or managers, they have access to relevant people data.

2.     How have you democratised access to people data at Tata Steel?

When we started our people analytics journey 4-5 years back, we realised that a people analytics team sitting in one corner of the organisation generating insights and models will not be able to create a large impact until we involve the larger HRBP team. So, in each of our projects or initiatives, we had HRBPs and other functional HR people working with us not only as a user of people analytics but also as an extended arm of people analytics. We have also worked on improving the capabilities of the HRBP team and came up with a structured program as well as self-service analytics portal to democratise people data. We worked in following areas:

Data: We worked in a very focused manner to improve the data quality and also worked on setting up a Business Warehouse for people data. We involved the rest of the HR team in various projects to improve data quality and set up a data council with clear responsibility for maintaining the data quality of our HR master data. This also helped us to integrate people data across various systems and provide a single source of truth, which laid the foundation for all people analytics initiatives.

Analytics: All our analytics projects, whether a visualisation dashboard, descriptive analytics or predictive models, start with the end user in mind and the business problem it addresses. For all visualisation dashboards, we hold an in-depth discussion with leadership and HRBPs on KPIs and insights which they need in real time to improve their decision making. Similarly, any analytics project starts with clearly articulating the relevant business problem.

Capabilities: We have designed a structured analytics capability development program called “Marvel” for the HR team and we roll it out every 1-2 years to a group of 20-25 participants. The program runs over the course of 2-3 months and covers various aspects of people analytics. We select 4-5 participants out of this program and take them through an advanced analytics program. To generate interest, we organize “Datathons” and incorporate gamification in many of our initiatives. Over the years we have seen huge participation in such events, and we have been able to upskill the vast majority of HR professionals.

We have also rolled out our HR Analytics Portal – Analytica. This is a self-service people analytics platform where we host all dashboards, analytics reports, analytics capability programs and people analytics news across the world. This platform acts as an epicentre for us to democratise people analytics across the organization.

3.     What is the business impact of addressing bias in performance management?

Performance Management is a key people process and has a very high impact on employee engagement. The impact of engagement on business results has been well documented. Performance management is one of the key improvement drivers in our engagement results and over the years we have made various changes in the process based on the feedback of employees and managers. When we started working on the performance management bias model, we analysed our engagement data and had a discussion with a cross section of employees before delving further into the data to understand the employee perception of bias in performance management. We did the exploratory analysis and tested various hypotheses and came up with a model that highlighted statistically significant signals of biases. This model provides key insights to our central performance management team and HRBP team who in turn take the insights to managers and leaders. The additional data driven insights aide in making the process more robust and reduce bias.

4.     Was there resistance from managers when this was implemented? And if so, how did you overcome it?

We deployed the model last year and used it to educate managers and HRBPs to be more conscious of biases. We did face some apprehension, but we were able to overcome it by focusing on the data.

5.     What are you hoping to address with advanced analytics next?

We are looking at various use cases of ONA (Organisational Network Analysis). We roll out 360 degree surveys every year and are exploring the use of ONA in recommending stakeholders for each individual. Considering the hybrid workforce, various wellbeing initiatives can be made more robust with insights generated from ONA. We are also exploring psychographic profiling which is widely used in marketing for profiling customers. We evaluate all interventions considering data privacy norms. Ultimately our aim is to have a better understanding of our people through a data driven approach so that we can drive best-in-class employee experience.

THANK YOU

Thanks to Vipin for his time and for sharing his views on the business value of democratising people data, how they’ve been democratising people data at Tata Steel and how they’ve been addressing bias in performance management. If you want to find out more, you can connect with Vipin on LinkedIn.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vipin Sharma is Head HR Strategy & Analytics at Tata Steel. At Tata Steel, he leads the area of People strategy, People Analytics, Employer Branding, Employee Experience, Employee Engagement and HR Innovation labs. He has start his career as HR Business Partner at Tata Steel and over the years he has worked in several businesses to drive the people agenda. In the current role, he drives many transformation interventions aligned with long term people strategy and lead various teams. Vipin has an MBA from MDI Gurgaon.

David Green is a globally respected author, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As Managing Partner and Executive Director at Insight222, he has overall responsibility for the delivery of the Insight222 People Analytics Program, which supports the advancement of people analytics in over 70 global organisations. Prior to co-founding Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at TrustSphere, David accumulated over 20 years experience in the human resources and people analytics fields, including as Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations increase value, impact and focus from the wise and ethical use of people analytics. David also hosts the Digital HR Leaders Podcast and is an instructor for Insight222's myHRfuture Academy. His book, co-authored with Jonathan Ferrar, Excellence in People Analytics: How to use Workforce Data to Create Business Value will be published in the summer of 2021.

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