The Insight222 People Analytics Trends 2021 study shows that people analytics is growing in size – and in importance. To be successful, the people analytics leader needs to productise solutions and take the responsibility to create a data driven culture for HR.

Alongside the Demand Engine and the Solution Engine, the Insight222 Operating Model for People Analytics recommends a Product Engine with an Implementation team who ensure the effective design and product management of people analytics solutions. It includes the associated project management and change management to provide effective adoption of each solution.

This article will explore the role of productisation in scaling people analytics by answering the following questions:

1.     What is Productisation?

2.     How have Leading Companies invested in the Product Engine to ensure productisation is successful?

3.     What is the first solution at scale that People Analytics teams should deliver?

4.     What are examples of advanced solutions at scale that People Analytics teams deliver?

What is Productisation of People Analytics?

Productising people analytics solutions is about making data-driven insights accessible across the organisation – in other words, getting the right data to the right people at the right time to help them make more informed decisions. To put it another way, productisation leverages technology to deliver user-friendly solutions at scale to employees, managers and executives.

To be successful it requires:

• Investment in the people analytics team in specialist roles such as Data Scientists, Data Engineering, Research in addition to establishing a ‘Product Engine’ with Product Managers, Project Managers, Change delivery and Design Engineers.

• Investment to either buy or build technology solutions such as analytics dashboards or specialist people analytics technologies such as Talent Management and Skills Inference

• A data infrastructure that can support scalable, repeatable solutions

Adopting a user-centric mindset and a commitment to continuous improvement based on user feedback is critical to deliver successful analytics solutions at scale. In an episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, Ernest Ng, Vice President of Global Employee Success Strategy and People Analytics at Salesforce describes how they work with their stakeholders to understand their business challenges and what data they will find most useful to drive efficiency and effectiveness in their work.

To deliver successful products, it is critical to think about the user needs and the user experience, and to constantly refine the product based on user feedback. As Ernest explains,

“You have to think about your stakeholder…you have to make it easy for them to understand your analysis because sometimes your analysis is going to be complicated, so as you think about the productisation, as you think about that product mindset, you have to really think about, what am I actually trying to impact? And how am I solving for that? How is this going to help solve for that? That constant refinement is extremely important in order for you to be effective and also efficient in your work.”

How have Leading Companies invested in the Product Engine to ensure productisation is successful?

Last year, Insight222 Research presented an analysis of "Leading Companies” in People Analytics for the first time. “Leading Companies” are those companies or organisations that have demonstrated that they have a people analytics function that is considered a leader in the field.

Leading Companies are more advanced in all engines of the People Analytics Operating Model. In particular, 100% of Leading Companies have invested in the Product Engine and the Demand Engine, in addition to Advanced Analytics.

Among other attributes, Leading Companies in People Analytics productise solutions to scale to employees, managers and executives. Leading Companies focus on building capability in consulting and influencing, product management and change management to a much greater extent than all companies. The difference is very large: A 45 percentage point difference. This shows their desire to make their solutions and predictions effective by making “analytical products” for employees, managers and executives as required. Through their work, leading people analytics teams embed analytics into people processes across the company.

What is the first solution at scale that People Analytics teams should deliver?

A question that is top of mind for many people analytics leaders is, “what is the first solution at scale I should deliver?” It is astute to start with insights at scale for managers and HR professionals by investing in Second Wave people analytics technology such as SaaS-based data democratisation systems (for example, Visier, Crunchr, One Model) or building a dashboard suite using tools such as Microsoft Power BI or Tableau.

In an episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, Jeremy Shapiro, Head of Workforce Analytics at Merck, explains that their first tranche of delivering insights at scale was,

“getting the right data at the right time, using a tool like Visier to ensure that HR business partners and others can segment the data easily and simply and understand the story moments before walking in to a meeting”.

Democratising data across the organisation by investing in accessible and easy-to-use tools is just one of the critical steps in developing a Data Driven Culture for HR.

What are examples of more advanced solutions at scale that People Analytics teams deliver?

In another episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, David Green discusses how “the shift towards a skills-based organisation is transforming the role and impact of HR”. Research for the Insight222 Playbook for Workforce Planning found that nearly all companies surveyed (90%) expressed a desire to build a skills-based workforce planning process. However, only a quarter of companies (26%) were actively doing so, indicating that this transformation is in its early stages.

 A number of People Analytics teams in organisations such as IBM, Salesforce and Vertex Pharmaceuticals have significantly contributed to driving this change by building technologies in-house which can infer the skills of employees within the organisation.

Interesting in learning more about People Analytics? Take a look at our online People Analytics certifications

At Vertex Pharmaceuticals, the people analytics team partnered with Data Science and IT to develop a high-quality custom skills model with an algorithm to match employees to open jobs. When comparing against external products in the market, they found their model to be more superior. The team have since deployed their custom job matching algorithm, as the first people analytics product, to help people navigate their career at Vertex. They are now expanding the use case to match people to career goals to generate career paths that help employees understand how they can reach their career destination.

These types of personalised analytics solutions at scale enable better workforce experiences. In an episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, Patrick Coolen, Global Head of People Analytics, HR Intelligence and Organisational Design at ABN AMRO, shares how the next step for him and his team is to productise insights coming from models in software and processes to support internally mobility. The team are looking at what data they can use on their employees, factoring in GDPR, to create a skills profile based on machine learning. The intention is that the skills profile can then be used to match against vacancies and provide the employee recommendations with a matching percentage. These matches will include internal vacancies, re-skilling vacancies, and in time, matches of external vacancies for employees at risk.

 Read more about skills based workforce planning and internal mobility:

• Building an Effective Skill-Based Workforce Planning Capability

• How to Use Skills Data for Workforce Planning

• Taking a Skills-Based Approach to Workforce Planning

• How Novartis is Building a Skills Operating System for Workforce Planning

• How Companies are using Talent Marketplaces to Promote Internal Mobility

• The Value of Measuring Employee Skill Data

For the most advanced people analytics teams, a factor they consider in developing solutions at scale is where do they want to differentiate? If they are working on something unique, keeping the product development in-house has many benefits, including the possibility of developing an entirely new product for the HR technology marketplace.

This is exactly what Olly Britnell, Global Head of Workforce Analytics and HR strategy at Experian did, when leading a project to develop a predictive workforce analytics solution. In 2016, Experian’s global HR function found itself facing resignation rates globally that were 4% over the industry benchmark. The team set about building a data-driven analytics solution that would equip global HR teams with advanced insight into employee needs and motivations. The Workforce Analytics solution helped reduce attrition by 4% and saved the business $14m over 2 years. It also became the backbone of how Experian makes decisions for its people by anticipating and predicting what employees value which in turn enables more informed retention strategies. This success was the catalyst to make this solution available to other businesses and Experian now works closely with external organisations to help them tackle similar challenges by using the Workforce Analytics for Retention model.

Final Thoughts

HR has been on a long journey from a function that was focused on compliance, process and making decisions based on gut instinct, to one that is going to be, and already is in many cases, focused on products, personalisation and data. For People Analytics teams, partnering with stakeholders and enterprise technology to deliver solutions at scale is critical to drive and enable this change, and to ultimately help move the business forward. Productising People Analytics requires investment in technologies that are accessible and easy to use. Creating products that are scalable and putting the insights into the hands of HR professionals to allow them to make more informed decisions is one of the critical steps in building a data-driven culture for HR. Personalised products driven by machine learning in areas such as skills, internal mobility and retention not only help the organisation to solve some of the most complex challenges facing companies today, but also enable managers to be more effective and create better experiences for employees.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Naomi Verghese is currently the Senior Director for Insight222's People Analytics Program®. This unique program develops the knowledge and skills of People Analytics leaders and their teams to increase value, impact and focus through bundled learning, networking and advisory solutions. Prior to joining Insight222, Naomi built out and led the People Analytics Consulting team at Barclays. She has also held roles in HR Business Partner teams and in Reward.

To learn more about Insight222's People Analytics Program® or how Insight222 can support you in productising people analytics in your organisation take a look at their website or click here to contact them.