The Core Roles of a High-Performing People Analytics Team
Every team and department within a business has a core set of roles and capabilities that contribute to the organisation's overall success. The structure, processes, and operating model within the function are all of the utmost importance.
Each role serves a distinct purpose, but together, they form a cohesive system that turns data into impact. But what roles support these capabilities, and why are they critical to building a transformative people analytics team?
The Five Essential Roles of a People Analytics Team
To understand the essential roles of a people analytics team, let's look at the core capabilities of a people analytics ecosystem. Through the interviews with people analytics leaders conducted for the research on the People Analytics Ecosystem: Operating Model v 2.0 and the 271 global organisations surveyed for the Insight222 People Analytics Trends 2024 Report, there are five core capabilities that have been identified as "non-negotiable" in people analytics teams. Each capability has a unique role in the people analytics ecosystem, and when combined, they create a powerful team that can drive real change within an organisation. These capabilities include:
Consulting
Data Science and Research
Employee Listening
Analytics at Scale
Adoption
Consulting
Data alone doesn't drive action—people do. To provide insights that drive business value, you need to know the end goal: what problems you're trying to solve and how you can deliver the insights that advise each business leader's problem.
That's why the role of a people analytics consultant is essential in ensuring that the insights derived from analytics are framed within the context of the organisation's business goals. These consultants work closely with HR leaders, business executives, and functional heads to identify where data can make a difference, ensuring that analytics efforts align directly with business priorities.
Essentially, they take on the role of translators, bridging insights into the language of business and making them understandable to stakeholders. As such, 78% of people analytics teams surveyed now include a dedicated consultant.
These teams know that without a strong consultant, they risk producing technically accurate but strategically irrelevant insights—ones that may never see the light of day. They know that without this role, insights remain theoretical, disconnected from the actions they're meant to inspire and fail to drive change.
Data Science and Research
While business-facing roles are key to applying insights, generating those insights needs to occur in the first place. While people analytics professionals have the skills and abilities to look at vast amounts of data and find meaningful patterns, data science skills take this to the next level.
The nature of the people analytics is centred around the behaviours of people, therefore it makes sense to have a solid understanding of human psychology and behavioural science. Especially when developing natural language processing and machine learning models to understand employee sentiment from unstructured data sources.
Interestingly, despite the importance of this role in assuring a high-functioning people analytics team, organisations appear to be investing in data scientist capabilities later on in their people analytics journey. This is largely due to a focus on prioritising analyst and consultant roles. However, our research found that adding a data scientist to the team from the start-up phases of the function can help the team develop insights that make a greater impact on the business and their analytics efforts.
It will speed up the buy-in of people analytics efforts from leadership. Thus, enhancing the likelihood of further investments and the business value that the organisation can retrieve from people analytics efforts.
Employee Listening
With all the black-swan events over the last few years, organisations have realised that understanding employee sentiment is no longer optional—it's essential for creating a resilient, engaged, and productive workforce.
Employee expectations are evolving, and so must the ways in which organisations understand and respond to their needs. Employee listening is not just about sending out annual surveys anymore; it's a continuous process. It's about capturing real-time employee feedback, analysing trends in engagement, well-being, and inclusion, and providing leadership with the insights needed to make informed decisions.
With 52% of people analytics teams now owning the employee listening function (rising to 75% in more mature teams), it's clear that organisations see the value of staying attuned to their workforce. They understand that employee listening requires a dedicated role, one that is skilled in survey design, advanced data analysis, and communication.
As such, every successful people analytics team should – under no- negotiation - have a dedicated employee listening specialist to ensure employee feedback is collected, analysed, and integrated into decision-making processes.
Analytics at Scale
Producing brilliant insights is not enough if only a select few can access and understand them. People analytics leaders from "A" Teams understand this. They have demonstrated an emphasis on prioritising analytics at scale, driven by their committed focus on transforming insights into tangible products.
Whether it's through dashboards, reports, or automated tools, the goal is to provide the right data to the right people at the right time, empowering them to make informed, data-driven decisions.
These people analytics leaders know that the impact of people analytics is drastically reduced without a role that focuses on scaling insights and algorithms across the organisation. They also know that if insights remain siloed within the analytics team, they fail to influence decision-making at scale.
To avoid this pitfall, having a dedicated role that focuses on democratising data and scaling insights is critical. This role is responsible for ensuring that analytics insights are accessible, understandable, and actionable by all relevant stakeholders across the organisation - ensuring that the impact of people analytics is felt at every level of the organisation.
It may be that one of the team members takes on this responsibility, or it may be an entirely separate role, like a data democratisation specialist. Either way, focusing on scaling insights is key to maximising the impact of people analytics in an organisation.
Learn more about how to democratise data for manager effectiveness.
Adoption
Adoption is often the missing link between data and business transformation, as data can only drive change if it's adopted and used in decision-making processes. Even with the most sophisticated technology and tools to enhance data-driven decision-making, it will be challenging to see real change if employees and leaders do not understand the benefits or how to use them.
This is where change managers come in and focus on embedding analytics tools and insights into business processes, ensuring they are used effectively and consistently across the organisation. Ideally, these change managers need to acquire project management and even product management skills. They need to understand the intricacies of organisational dynamics and communicate effectively with different stakeholders to ensure they incorporate data-driven decision-making.
The role of the change manager is to integrate people analytics into the organisation's DNA, driving adoption and enabling true business transformation. Without this role, data-driven insights may remain stagnant and unable to create real change.
However, despite the criticality of having this role within the people analytics teams, it was found that only 30% of the people analytics teams have a project manager and a product manager, and just 11% have a change manager within the team structure.
Gain expert insights into effective strategies for HR tech adoption.
The Power of a Well-structured People Analytics Team
It's important to note that the success of a people analytics team lies not just in the individual roles but in how these roles work together. Through our years of research, we have found that a well-structured team operates as an ecosystem where data flows seamlessly from collection to analysis to action.
The right structure ensures that the organisation doesn't just generate data—it uses it to drive strategic decisions, enhance employee experience, and improve business outcomes.
Without a strategic consultant, insights may lack relevance. Without a data scientist, insights may be shallow. Without an employee listening specialist, the organisation may be disconnected from its workforce. And without scaling and change management, even the best insights may fail to deliver value.
At Insight222, we specialise in helping organisations structure their people analytics teams for maximum impact. Through our consulting services, we work with companies to identify their key business challenges, assess current people analytics capabilities, and design future-proof operating models. Our approach ensures that organisations are equipped with the right roles, tools, and strategies to turn their people data into a source of competitive advantage.
From guiding organisations in identifying high-value business opportunities to helping them build a roadmap for people analytics and HR transformation, we provide the expertise needed to accelerate their people analytics journey. Whether a company is just beginning its people analytics function or looking to scale, our tailored approach ensures that the team is not only functional but transformative.
To that end, remember that these teams are not just about individual roles but how they work together to create a powerful ecosystem that drives business transformation through data and insights.
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