How ING Uses Skills Data To Support Workforce Planning And Employee Experience
Findings from PwC’s 23rd Annual Global CEO Survey
There is an increasing shift towards a focus on skills, which is arguably leading to a radical transformation of HR. Perhaps this isn’t a surprise given that 74% of CEOs are concerned about the availability of key skills, and worried that the shortage of talent will constrain growth. Also, the World Economic Forum’s, Future of Jobs 2020 report, predicts that by 2025, 50% of all employees will need to be re-skilled as 97 million new jobs emerge, and 85 million jobs will be displaced by a shift in labour between humans and machines. This pressure translates to HR with, according to Gartner, HR’s top priority being to build critical skills and competencies for their organisation. Our research at Insight222 into the future of workforce planning, found that while nearly all companies want to build a skills-based workforce planning process, only a quarter are actively doing so,
I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Luigi Maria Fierro, Head of HR Strategy and People Analytics at ING to hear more about how ING is using people data to derive insights into the skills and capabilities required across the bank and how these insights can be used to inform their future workforce strategy.
1. Please can you provide readers with a brief introduction to your background and responsibilities at ING?
I am the Global Head of HR Strategy and Analytics at ING. In this role, I look after HR strategy and play a key role in defining where we as HR want to put effort to ensure we empower our people to create business impact. I also shape the direction of our people analytics practice to enable us to make more data-driven decisions within our business.
I have a consulting background and spent 15 years working in financial institutions across EMEA on strategy, business planning, transformation, change management, advanced analytics and HR tech.
I am really excited by the opportunity that data brings us. People data can give us significant insights into our skills and capabilities across the bank and can assist us in investing in the right areas so we can ensure we are ready for the future. At the same time, it can allow our people to get insights into where they could develop and evolve their skills to remain competitive and ahead of the curve.
2. What is the optimum balance between advanced analytics and human decision making in HR?
This is a very important question. For years we have had this discussion as to whether machines will replace human beings. I really believe this will not be the case, as artificial intelligence is never meant to replace humans. Especially in Human Resources, it’s all about facilitating valuable human interaction, enabling continuous conversations between managers and employees for instance. I see artificial intelligence very much as an enabler to help human decision making, to streamline processes or to deliver more standardisation. The idea is to leverage data on different sources but to support humans in better decision making, not replace them.
Say for example you are considering hiring a cyber security expert in your team. When you create the vacancy, you need to make sure you list all the skills and competencies this person will need to have. Artificial Intelligence can support you in scanning the market. What are the cyber security skills my competitors look for? What are the skills and competencies I need for the future? Have I missed certain capabilities that we need to bring in? You can use machine learning to filter the best candidates to ensure you adopt future needs. AI can assist you and give you the ten most optimal candidates based on benchmarking.
However, humans are indispensable when it comes to recruitment. Hiring people is still something that requires human to human interaction, to ensure you appoint the right candidate. So, while AI can really support us and enhance data driven decision making, the human factor will always have the upper hand in my view.
3. Thinking about data democratisation across HR, how do you support HRBPs to become more data driven?
In HR, many of us are trying to become more data-driven, with data increasingly important to support decision-making. Our HR communities of experts and leaders who create people practices and tools - have become more data driven to ensure HRBPs can use these data-driven insights when advising their business leaders.
At ING, we are currently trying to optimise our data, making sure different systems are communicating with each other to enhance our data comparability, quality and therefore our overall people insights and decision making.
For example, we analyse the current capabilities and competencies we have in-house, and this enables us to identify the areas we need to improve on or in which areas we need to bring in people with specific skills or capabilities. At ING, we defined six key capabilities that we need to focus on in the coming years - three distinctive and three foundational. We are also setting smart methods, to measure the extent of these capabilities we already have in our workforce and consequently identify areas for workforce development. This is made possible by having a standardised job catalogue, with pre-defined skills and proficiencies across the organisation. By using these insights, HRBPs are now able to design reskilling/ upskilling journeys; and look for talent in key areas.
We do of course make sure that the data we analyse is high level and anonymised and complies with data protection regulations. Data is just a starting point for a discussion and provides us with ideas.
Interested in learning more about skills based workforce planning or Employee Experience? Take a look at our online Workforce Planning and Employee Experience online training courses
4. Can you talk us through an example of where you are using advanced analytics in HR at ING?
At ING, People Analytics works closely with the rest of HR to define areas where we can add value using data. There are a few broad themes that we focus on, spanning workforce analytics and employee listening.
Firstly, we use advanced analytics to enhance our understanding of our workforce footprint, from a location to a talent point of view, and to optimise our recruiting strategy. An example of this would be to scan the external market for the latest trends on skills based on the most searched profiles. Bringing an external view to our HRBPs on for example “what skills are currently trending”, “what skills are our competitors recruiting for” etc., empowering them to better plan the ING workforce for the future.
Secondly, we have implemented Natural Language Processing solutions, to better understand, in a fully anonymous way, the sentiment of our employees in relation to key topics, such as career development. We provide these insights to HRBPs so they can incorporate employee feedback into improving our talent development approach.
These are just a few examples, and I believe as the technologies continue to mature, further impactful applications can be derived. That said, it is important to emphasise that human interaction will remain the most important element.
5. What are the skills of the future that your work uncovered? Were there any surprises or was it in line with your human predictions?
We are still at an early stage of our research, but the first indicators are all pointing towards better data skills. This is not a very surprising discovery because we already knew this is an area that is gaining in importance. All the large tech companies are data-driven and for banks and many other businesses this is exactly the same. We know this is an area in which we want to enhance our skills and capabilities; that’s also why we included data fluency and cyber security in our Big 6 capabilities as areas we want to focus on. In the coming years data will only become even more important and therefore having data skills and bringing in new expertise will be vital for most businesses.
6. How do you combine internal and external skills data for workforce planning? What advice would you give to other organisations looking to shift to skills-based data-driven workforce planning?
We are moving towards a more skills and competencies-based organisation. By analysing this, it is helping us to understand the skills portfolio of our workforce, to make sure we upskill and to prepare for a future proof workforce. We could also use these insights to provide certain learning journeys, something we are currently trying to develop. This will help both our people as well as ING to ensure we have the right skills that are future proof.
I believe external market insights can also be very valuable. Benchmarking yourself against the skills that are being asked for in the market can help you stay ahead of the curve. It can support HRBPs with getting the right talent into the right roles by making sure we include candidates with a certain skill set in our shortlists.
7. What have been some of the early impacts and feedback from the business of this work?
We are seeing more data-driven conversations as a direct result from benchmarking the skills in the market. We also see standardisation around decision making in HR. But more importantly, we are bringing visibility to both the HRBPs and also our employees. HRBPs and business leaders have started to understand their workforce much better due to these insights and they now have a better understanding of which skills we still need to improve on or bring in additionally.
Our people are being encouraged to build their skills and design their careers, by enabling them to identify their skill strengths, and also their development areas. We are aiming to provide a seamless journey for employees from understanding their skills, identifying development needs and then finding opportunities to build those needs via either via learning modules, or short-term projects, or new job roles.
8. And finally, how does a data driven lens make the future of work more tangible?
It is HR’s role to enable business performance and our people are key to deliver on our strategy. That’s why we need to invest and understand the skills and capabilities of our people, but also where we could collectively improve. Having broad data insights that can help us see high level trends on capabilities and skills in our workforce can play a key role in this. It can enable our business leaders to make better decisions – based on data-driven facts instead of assumptions.
THANK YOU
Thanks to Luigi for his time and for sharing some of the exciting work that ING is doing to better understand the future requirements and skills needs of the bank and the steps they’re taking to truly build a data-driven culture. If you want to learn more, you can connect with Luigi on LinkedIn.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Luigi Maria Fierro joined ING Group in 2015 and he is currently Head of ING HR strategy and people analytics, leading HR’s future strategic agenda, development of new analytic solutions for HR function, new HR operating model. During his journey in ING he has covered the role of Global Head of Performance Management and Global Head of HR strategy and Transformation. Luigi Maria is also a University Lecturer for Master in HR and Organization at the Bologna Business school, and advisory board member to a US Based ed-tech start up. Prior to join ING Luigi Maria has been working for 10 years in McKinsey and Co. serving several of the leading financial institutions in Europe, Middle East and North Africa. Thanks to this experience Luigi Maria has developed an extensive experience on the financial institutions sector that is combining HR business and strategic perspectives.
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 90 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 was published in the summer of 2021.