As HR is increasingly becoming a strategic partner in driving organisational success, the call for evidence-based practice (EBP) in HR is louder than ever.

But what exactly does it mean to adopt an evidence-based approach? How can it transform how we attract, develop, and retain talent? And how is it different from people analytics?

In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast Rob Briner, Professor of Organisational Psychology at Queen Mary University of London and Associate Director of Research at the Corporate Research Forum, underscores the simplicity yet profound impact of integrating data, scientific research, stakeholder insights, and professional expertise to improve HR effectiveness.

Throughout the conversation, David and Rob explore:

• The principles of evidence-based practice and its critical role in contemporary HR strategy

• Practical case studies demonstrating the application of evidence-based HR and guidelines for its implementation within organizational structures

• What the differences are between Evidence-Based HR and People Analytics

• How do these two approaches complement each other to enhance the HR function

• Recommendations on when HR should lean towards people analytics versus evidence-based HR practices to make informed decisions

• A debate on whether all HR practices should be evidence-based

• Expert recommendations for Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) and HR leaders on incorporating EBP into organisational frameworks

• Essential skills and competencies HR professionals vital for mastering evidence-based HR

This episode is a must-listen for HR professionals eager to and build a data-driven HR function and elevate their strategic value and effectiveness through evidence-based practice, a testament to the power of integrating science with the art of human resource management.

Support from this podcast comes from global platform leader for employee experience, Culture Amp. Learn more about how Culture Amp can help you create a better world of work at http://cultureamp.com

Additional Resources: Evidence-Based HR: A New Paradigm

[0:00:00] David Green: Hi, I'm David Green and you're listening to the Digital HR Leaders podcast.  As HR continues its journey from what was ostensibly a support function to a strategic business partner, the need for evidence-based practice has never been more important.  But what exactly does it mean to adopt an evidence-based approach in HR?  How can it transform our HR practices?  And how does it differ from people analytics?  My guest on this episode is Rob Briner, Professor of Organisational Psychology at Queen Mary University of London and Associate Director of Research at the Corporate Research Forum.  Rob is a leading authority on evidence-based practice in HR, having authored three reports for the Corporate Research Forum since 2011. 

Today, we are going to discuss his research and the very essence of evidence-based practice in HR, its foundations and why it matters more than ever in today's data-driven business world.  We will explore the challenges organisations face in implementing it, real-world examples of evidence-based HR in action, and Rob's insights on the differences between evidence-based HR and people analytics and how these disciplines can complement each other to enhance HR strategies and ultimately business outcomes.  So, if you are an HR professional looking to implement more evidence-based practices, then this episode is for you.  With that, let's get the conversation started with a brief introduction from Rob.

[0:01:48] Rob Briner: Thanks very much and thanks for having me on the pod.  So yeah, as you mentioned at the start, I'm a Professor of Organisational Psychology at Queen Mary, but I'm also, as another role, I'm Associate Director of research with the Corporate Research Forum.  And my background is as an organisational psychologist.  I've been an academic for 30-something years, so I'm quite interested in practice, in organisational psychology practice and HR practice, and about maybe 25 years ago, I got very interested in evidence-based practice as it applies to both organisational psychology and HR. 

So, although I've had these interests in particular areas like the psychological contract, well-being at work, ethnicity, I felt quite a long time ago that what academics were doing was producing this research, no one was paying any attention to it, it wasn't their fault in particular.  So, I felt more important for me anyway, my professional development, was rather than churning out more and more and more research is actually saying, "Well, how can scientific research as one source of evidence be used to help inform practice?"  So, yes, I spent a lot of time thinking about that and working on that. 

[0:02:53] David Green: Can you explain a little bit about what evidence-based practice actually is? 

[0:02:57] Rob Briner: So, in general what it is, before we get into HR in particular, it kind of emerged maybe 30 years ago in medicine to sort of tackle a problem which all practitioners have.  I think this is a really important point.  Evidence-based practice can sound very, "Well, what's that got to do with me?  Sounds a bit technical, sounds a bit like science", whatever, whatever.  Sure, that is part of it, but it's to tackle a fundamental problem.  So, all professionals, whatever profession you're in, essentially want to do, I guess, two things.  You want to focus on what's important for your clients, customers, business, whoever it is you are serving as a professional; and once you've identified that, you want to do stuff that's more likely to work and to be effective to help resolve whatever problems or issues or opportunities the client or customer or business has.  This is a widespread problem so although it started in medicine, there's a whole host of professionals who've now tried to adopt it as a way of doing those two things.  So, from policing to policymaking to architecture to finance to social work to education, all these different professions have adopted something very similar in terms of this model just to try and do those two things.  And essentially, it's about improving the effectiveness of what we do as professionals, that's really its point. 

[0:04:12] David Green: So, I mean I'm very simplifying it here, it's a way of a practice that helps you focus on the right problems for whatever stakeholders that you're trying to serve, is that customers, people in the business, leaders, employees, whatever, and then it's something that helps you prioritise the work that's actually going to potentially have the biggest impact? 

[0:04:34] Rob Briner: Yeah, it is.  And I think, although you said oversimplify, I think that's kind of it.  And one of the challenges I've had for some time in describing this to people is they kind of say, "Oh, is that it?  I go, "Yeah, that is it".  And on the one hand, I think certainly in HR and other professions, people are quite used to silver bullets, magic solutions, they're looking for something wow and you go, "This isn't wow, this is actually quite simple.  But if you actually want to be more effective in your role, in your profession, this is where we need to start, not looking for exciting, new, shiny things".  So, in a way it is very simple, but it's quite hard to do, I think. 

[0:05:12] David Green: Let's look at evidence-based practice in HR, and obviously that's really what we're going to focus on for this podcast.  I mean, without stating the obvious, why is it important, and what does your research tell you about how widely or maybe how it isn't being used today?  And maybe because you've been studying this since 2011, it would be great to understand how we've progressed as a function or not during that time.

[0:05:39] Rob Briner: Yeah, I mean as we all know, HR has had a long-standing credibility issue, fairly or unfairly.  And in fact, I would say you can look at other functions within a business and say they have those credibility issues too, like marketing, or whatever, but it has this credibility issue.  And I think historically, it's dealt with it in a number of ways.  One is in the whole kind of seat-at-the-table thing.  I think one way it's dealt with it is by trying to do what the business asks it to do, so to be order takers.  And I'm simplifying it, it's not quite fair, but kind of the business partner model, so where you say to the business, "What do you want?"  They ask for this, you go, "Great, we can do that".  And that, to me, really doesn't get you very far in terms of not only improving credibility, but also truly helping the business.  Because as we know, the things we get asked to do in HR are not necessarily of value to the business, the things people want us to do or they like or they think are cool, not the same stuff.  So, I think it's responded a bit like that. 

But more recently, I think it's got into the idea of using data and evidence in terms of people analytics, and particularly using internal organisational data.  So, there's definitely been a shift and I'll say in all the years I've been looking at this, the biggest shift to me is now it's very hard for me to find an HR practitioner, an HR professional who doesn't agree with the idea that HR could and should make better use of data and evidence in its work, and that is a shift.  I think when I first started talking about this, I think, I mean this is not quite right, but somebody once described me as the most unpopular man in HR.  I don't think I was.  I mean, obviously, that's really cool, right, but I don't think I was!  But what they were getting at is, I think there's a sense in which some time ago, if you say to any practitioner, "You're not making very good decisions, you're not using the best available data, a lot of things you're doing are missing the point and aren't effective", one response to that is kind of, "How dare you?  We're good, we're professionals", etc.  But more recently people are, "Yeah, you know what, we could do better", that's been a big shift. 

So, I think HR needs evidence-based HR or something very much like it, or certainly people analytics too, and I think it's reached a point where my sense is people feel now this is just something we have to get on with; we've spent enough time feeling inferior, feeling we're not respected, we're not really pushing the business forward, this is a way of kind of doing it.  So, I think evidence-based is just something that, I mean I'll say whose time has come, I thought it came 25 years ago, whose time is still coming and maybe we've just reached it now.  So, it has shifted yeah. 

[0:08:23] David Green: Just a couple of questions that I've taken from the executive report, Rob.  Firstly, let's start with an easy one, what are the principles of evidence-based HR?

[0:08:37] Rob Briner: Yeah, so I think this is a very important question, to start with the principles, because I think sometimes when people look at the models, they're kind of thinking, "What the hell is this; what is this?  You're trying to make me make a structured decision, and what is all this evidence and what's all this data and what's all these sources of evidence?"  To go back to principles is really important.  So, examples I sometimes use are when we make personal decisions in our lives.  So if you, say, are moving to a new country, if you're really thinking of completely changing your career, or if you're planning a really complicated family holiday, there may be six or seven people, they all want different things, you've got limited time, limited budgets you want to really understand, you're not going to make everyone completely happy but you want to make decisions about where to go, what you're going to do that's going to get most bang for your buck and please most people. 

So, obviously what you would do is ask different people what they wanted, you'd really think about it, you'd look for destinations, you'd look for hotels or activities, whatever it was, that was going to make sure at least most people, who might have very different views about what they want, were going to get some of what they liked.  And if you think about that as just one example of a personal decision where the outcome's really important, the principles are in there, because what you would do is firstly, you would really try and understand what the issue was, what do people really want?  You'd understand that before you started looking for solutions, and then you start to look for what's going to work.  So, you think about that as a sort of structured approach.  The second thing you'd do is you would really try to think about the quality of the information you were getting.  And the third thing is looking at the quality of evidence and also be using multiple sources of evidence.  So typically, with a really important decision, you don't just look at one source of evidence.  You don't just look at TripAdvisor or a guidebook.  You say, "Okay, the guidebook is telling me this.  Let's look at some pictures, let's look at the Wikipedia page, let's look at multiple sources".

So, those three principles are really the principles of evidence-based practice in every field.  And they weren't handed down on tablets of stone from God or something.  They're just what we tend to do anyway when a decision is very important.  So, I'll just repeat it, it's taking a structured approach, multiple sources of evidence, and thinking about the quality of the evidence and only paying attention to the best quality.  So, these principles underlie evidence-based HR as well. 

[0:10:49] David Green: Yeah, so I suppose it's a difference between going to senior stakeholders in a business and asking them what they want and then just going and doing it, and then asking people what they want, why they want it, what's the problem they're trying to solve, and really trying to get really underneath what the issue is.  And if you can really get to the issue, then you've got more chance of, "Okay, so what's the data we need?" maybe you need to test that and understand the extent of that problem, "Is it a problem in this part of the business, is it a problem in other parts of the business as well?"  And then, the solution is more likely to be able to solve the actual problem rather than what they want.

[0:11:21] Rob Briner: Exactly, yes.  And you mentioned stakeholders there, and that's something that quite surprises people.  So, when we talk about what sources of evidence to be used within evidence-based HR, there's four.  One is your internal organisational data, and that is typically where, I guess, people analytics tend to focus.  It's, what's your data from inside your organisation?  The second source of evidence is scientific evidence.  So, if you're dealing with a problem around wellbeing or diversity and inclusion, what does the scientific evidence say about what that problem is and what you can do about it?  The third source is, as you said, stakeholders.  So, what do stakeholders believe is going on?  What do they think the issue is?  And their views are part of, a key part of that whole evidence picture.  And the fourth area, which actually quite surprises people, because I think evidence-based HR is not a very clear term, is its professional expertise.  You are coming into this situation as an HR professional with your own views, with your own opinions, with your own experience.  And that is important, that is a source of evidence and data. 

But like every source of evidence and data, the question is, is it reliable?  Is it trustworthy?  And is it relevant to the problem?  Or put it another way, you're expected to bring your professional expertise as part of what you're being paid for, if not wholly what you're being paid for.  But it needs to be incorporated as another source of evidence in just the same as those other three.  So, I think again, one of the strengths of it and one of the unique things about evidence-based HR and evidence-based practice is that it explicitly says multiple sources of evidence for purposes of triangulation, contextualisation are really important.  An example we can all relate to is you may do lots of analysis of different kinds of data, you go and talk to two or three managers who explain what's going on, you go, "Okay, let me check that out", and you go, "They are right.  The data was pushing me one way, but actually now I've talked to other people, I've gone back to them, I can see actually their perception actually is what's going on". 

So, the idea, as I say, this cross-checking triangulation, multiple sources is really core of evidence-based HR. Can you share some examples of evidence-based HR in practice, because I think that really helps bring things to life for our listeners. 

[0:14:45] Rob Briner: Yeah, I mean let's stick with the -- I think attrition, I guess it's always been one of the chestnuts of HR, hasn't it?  But attrition is quite a nice example.  So, what you might do, and evidence-based HR always starts off with a perceived business issue or perceived business problem, so the starting point would be you or your colleagues or the senior management team says, "Oh, we think there's an issue here with attrition".  Okay, that's your starting point.  The first stage is to really understand, well, what is that issue around attrition?  So, again, going over those four sources of data, it may be, "Well, what do we know are the causes and effects of attrition from the scientific evidence?  What does our professional expertise tell us about what might be causing this?  What does our data tell us?"  And this is again where people analytics is absolutely key about who is leaving, where they're leaving, when they're leaving, and also the stakeholders, what the managers believe is the reasons, or do they see a problem.  And you really look at that first to identify the problem.  And crucially, does that matter?  So, does the attrition matter?  Matter in what ways?  Matter to who?  Matter to which outcomes? 

Once you've got the grips with that, and if there was a particular issue, and typically with attrition, there's never just one problem, it's multiple problems.  Some of those problems are important to the business, some of them not so important, but focusing on the ones that are, then it's, "Okay, stage two, lets follow the same process, multiple sources of evidence to say what can we do about this.  Is it salary?  Is it, to your point, is it about development?  Is it about competitors are offering something else, it's not about salary?  Is it to do with there's just a whole new labour market opening up?  What's actually causing it?"  And then you can get some idea about what can we do about this, and what are the interventions that might work?

So, it's this two-stage process, multiple sources of evidence really, sticking with what's the issue and then and only then moving towards the solution.  And again, I think apart from the multiple sources of evidence, the model we've tried to develop really separates out these two parts because I think everyone can relate to the experience of people spending not much time on identifying the problem because it's hard and it's difficult and it causes conflict sometimes and it's confusing, and very much wanting to move on to, "Let's action this, let's do something", back to doing stuff, "let's do some stuff, let's intervene".  And typically, people spend way more time on that and not enough time on saying, "What is the business issue, have we bottomed this out enough to help us think what we need to take action on?"  So, this two-stage process is really crucial as well I think. 

[0:17:24] David Green: There's that classic quote that's attributed to Einstein about if he had an hour, how much of the hour would he spend on the problem rather than the solution, and I think it's something like, and I mean I may be getting this wrong, 55 minutes on really understanding the problem and 5 minutes on the solution, and I think maybe we don't do enough of that. 

[0:17:42] Rob Briner: We don't, and that's partly why I think evidence-based practices evolved to be a structured way of doing it, because it's quite difficult for all of us to stick with the analysis of the problem, and I think understanding that is hard, it is difficult, it is confusing.  Typically, the first hunches we have turn out not to be quite right, or it's more complicated than we thought, or it even turns out it isn't a problem, which is a bit annoying as well, when we spent so much time thinking it was a problem.  So, I think really think about how can we hold and stay on that kind of problem, opportunity, diagnosis part of drawing a line, and say only then can we go on to it.  Because also, of course, the other issue here is you get solutioneering, where people like the idea of a particular solution, like I don't know, "We need a talent development programme or management development programme.  I like that, I've seen my colleagues do it elsewhere, it's really cool, let's do that", and then you retrofit the data to justify the solution.  And again, you want to draw a really strong line and say, "We're not even going to talk about any interventions or solutions yet, let's just really bottom out what seems to be going on.

[0:18:49] David Green: And that leads on quite nicely to, I know it's an element of the research, but it's an article you published recently which created a fair few comments, shall we say, on the difference between evidence-based HR and people analytics.  What are the differences between the two; but maybe more importantly, how can they complement each other?

[0:19:09] Rob Briner: Sure.  Yeah, I mean the reaction to that article is quite something.  I mean for a little while, I thought I'd become the most hated man in people analytics as well.  So, it produced in some, not in you I have to say, David, but it produced in some quite negative reaction, because I think people are thinking I was saying that evidence-based HR is better than people analytics, or people analytics is rubbish.  Of course, I wasn't saying that.  And I think what I was trying to say is, there are differences.  Why should we think about those differences?  Because I think a lot of HR functions and some people analytics teams, they say, "Oh, we're doing evidence-based HR, we're doing it". 

I've been asking this question for years, "Okay, can you show me what you're doing?"  And it's extremely unusual for any people analytics team to be doing evidence-based HR.  I'm not saying they're not doing great work, I'm not saying it isn't important, but it's something different.  And I think if people think they're doing it already, they're just going to ignore it.  So, I think the purpose of that article is trying to say, "Look, they are different, they're complementary", as you said, "they're different, but you're probably not doing it, or you're doing some of it, you could do more of it". 

So, what are the differences?  I think the first difference is that evidence-based practice, as I mentioned, evolved outside HR.  It doesn't mean it's better or worse, but it means the origins of it are a much broader, I guess, attempt to solve this problem, as I said at the beginning for every practitioner, every professional, are we doing what's important; and once we've identified that, are we implementing things that are most likely to work?  So, that is a fundamental process.  I think the second difference, which we've touched on quite a few times, is sources of evidence.  So, of course, people analytics does use some external data, maybe like some benchmarking data.  Of course, it primarily looks at internal organisational data.  I would say I've never heard a people analytics team explicitly say they incorporate their own professional expertise or that of the HR team.  Yes, they have a chat to people, great, and that's helpful, but it's about being a bit more explicit, incorporating that a lot more, and also talking to stakeholders.  Again, it happens, but I would say in my experience it happens most by kind of, "Yeah, we chatted to these people", it's kind of incidental.  It doesn't mean it's not useful, but the differences in evidence-based HR, it's really important you treat each of those sources of evidence as potentially equally important.  So, it sounds like sometimes it's focused on internal data and as an afterthought or just as a supplement, yes, we'll get some other source of data as well.  So, that's another difference. 

I think focusing on a really structured approach to decision-making, what's the issue?  Is it a problem?  If it is, going on to the second stage, what can we do about it, is again something that people analytics doesn't necessarily do.  Some teams do it.  I would emphasise that I haven't come across many examples, but sometimes I have seen a people analytics team who is basically doing evidence-based HR.  They don't call it that, they don't maybe do it all in an explicit way, but they're more or less touching those four bases, taking the structured approach, what's the issue; what we can do about it?  And I think the next difference is a really explicit approach to say, "Here's some data, whatever the source is, is this data reliable; can we trust it; and is it relevant to what we're trying to do?"  Again, that can happen.  But also what can happen is a people analytics team, like any function in an organisation, has a lot of data so it tends to want to use it.  From an evidence-based HR perspective, no, you don't use it, you only use it if it's trustworthy, reasonably trustworthy, and if it's relevant. 

So, I think that there are some key kind of differences there that means to me, people analytics is an absolute part of this evidence-based HR picture, but if you supplement it with other sources of evidence, I think it'll be much more effective.

What guidance would you offer to CHROs and HR leaders that are looking to incorporate evidence-based HR into their functions?

[0:23:56] Rob Briner: I think that's a really important question.  It was something we asked in the latest CRF report.  And one of the things that came out, which I thought was really interesting, is the role of leadership.  So, I think for CHROs, again in my experience, they've got a lot more experience than me but they vary a lot in their attitudes towards data and evidence.  Some see it as a kind of almost necessary evil, others think it's absolutely fundamental to the function.  But what is key is that, for the people we spoke to who have developed this, is they say leadership is really important, are you asking a lot of questions?  When people are planning stuff, do you ask them where the evidence and data are?  Do you ask why a lot?  Are you happy to stop doing things to say, "Oh, you know what, we were doing this thing, we've done it for three years, but actually it's making absolutely no impact.  We should just stop because we don't know why we're doing it, it doesn't seem to work, let's just stop". 

So, the role of leaders in encouraging the whole function to question what they're doing and to not come to any decision-making process or meeting without thinking about data and evidence seems to be absolutely key.  So, leadership is really important.  And I think for any CHRO, they have to look inside themselves, without getting too psychobabble about it, but are they comfortable with this or not?  And if they're not, well, why is that, and should they get more comfortable with it?  And what do they think their role is as a CHRO; what do they think the purpose of the HR function is?  I mean to me, the purpose of the HR function is to help the business.  It will do lots of other things to get there, but if that's really what you want to do, then I can't see another way of doing it without using more data and evidence, what's the problem?  What can we do about it?  So, I think even keeping it, as you described, very simple, that if you think that's important for you, for your function, and to help the business in that way, then what are you going to do about it?  So, the idea of leadership is really important.

[0:25:56] David Green: It's leadership and it's role-modelling, isn't it?

[0:25:57] Rob Briner: Exactly.  So, yes, it is. 

[0:25:59] David Green: Yeah, and that's what's really interesting is, we did another research study at Insight222 last year into companies that are building data-driven HR functions, or basically building data literally in their HR professionals.  And actually, we found one of our key findings was that you need the CHRO and the HR leadership team to role-model, so not just say it's important, but do it themselves.  And as you said, it's not easy for some CHROs or senior HR leaders. 

[0:26:24] Rob Briner: It isn't.  And I think that -- sorry, I missed that.  Absolutely.  So, part of that leadership is also role-modelling, and I think the role-modelling, and I think this is the reason some people may be a bit uneasy about it, a senior leader might think, "Oh, the people analytics team, they're the people that do, I don't know, multiple regressions and multi-level modelling, whatever it is.  I don't know anything about that and that makes me feel like I'm a bit excluded from that".  Well, you're not because you're a senior decision-maker.  You don't have to know how multiple regression works.  What you can do is ask really good questions, question the quality and relevance of the data, think about the decision-making process, and ultimately say, "Why do we think this is important for the business?"  You don't have to be a statistical expert to ask those questions and to get answers to them.  So, I think part of that role-modelling is constantly asking really good questions and pushing your team to go a bit deeper into stuff and think a bit more critically around data and evidence of all kinds. 

So, a couple of people who've done this I think quite effectively said, if you want to get into this, you have to be prepared, not just as a leader, but I'll say many levels in an HR team, is you have to be humble and prepared to have your beliefs and views really, really challenged.  So, giving up cherished beliefs you have about various HR practices and the way things work around HR is also really important.  Another thing that came out, and it links back a bit to leadership and I guess role-modelling, again I know this is a debate within people analytics as well, is that this should not be something that you have a little unit within an HR function that's the evidence-based HR unit.  This is a way of thinking and approaching everything that HR does that's important, and you have to understand for the business, whatever level you're at, I think, because it's a way of working as a group of professionals.  So, what you don't want to do is hive it off into a little group of brainiacs and imply only some people can get this who are really smart.  It's not what it's about at all.  So, I think that's another thing that came out quite strongly from the report.

[0:28:38] David Green: Yeah, really interesting.  I mean, we'll get onto that particular about how you infuse it across the whole HR function in a minute.  But just, as listening to you there about the leadership and role-modelling, and we've actually worked with a couple of HR leadership teams who recognise that they needed to upskill themselves, and they almost needed to upskill themselves before they asked the rest of their function to do the same.  And that leads to the next question, Rob, which is around how do you -- as you said, don't just make this some clever unit of brainiacs in a siphoned off part of HR that just supports leaders and the HR leadership team.  How do you infuse it across HR?  What are the skills that HR professionals should be focusing on to develop their capabilities to be evidence-based as well? 

[0:29:25] Rob Briner: Yeah, so this is a very key question.  So, it's one thing to say, "Here's a model, here's an approach, it makes sense, I get it, we should be doing it, fine.  There's all kinds of reasons why we're not doing it, fine.  But how can we start actually doing it?"  And I think there's a number of things.  First is, you asked me right at the start, what are the principles?  I think, remind people the basic principles what evidence-based practice means.  Remind people about what the purpose of HR is.  I almost think you could have a big thing on people's screensavers or on the wall of an office saying, "Is this helping the business, and how do we know?  What's the problem; what are we trying to do?"  So, just inculcate that sense of everything we do should be helping the business.  If it's not, we have to go and retrospectively say, "What is it; what's the problem; what's the issue?" and if it isn't, just stop doing it and focus on the problems, that becoming an everyday kind of way of thinking.  The principle's important.

I think the other thing -- and we're trying to do this in the latest report in CRF, which is by the way accessible to anyone; it's soft-gated so you can get a copy if you want, or you can contact us if you want to know more -- is in it there's a toolkit.  And this toolkit I developed because for this reason exactly, people sort of get it, they kind of want to do it and they just can't seem to get started.  So, this toolkit has a lot of techniques in it, frameworks, models, checklists, that really I hope, and we're still working on it, we're developing it, get people going with this.  So, for example, just a small example, there's an HR fad checklist we developed.  So, lots of work inundated in HR with practices and techniques and new exciting stuff.  Is there a quick way you can say, let's just think about this?  Are we doing it because the cool kids are doing it, or are we doing it because it really has identified a problem which we know it's going to help solve?  So, you can quickly check, there's 12 questions, is this thing that's coming over the horizon likely to be a fad or not?  So, that's one thing we're doing. 

Another thing we're doing is a very simple way of checking the quality of data and evidence from whatever source it is.  So, you can literally sit down, there's six questions on, is this data probably reliable or not?  Another thing is the model itself, we said there's a two-part model, each part has six steps in.  You can actually follow it and we give examples of the kinds of questions you can ask.  So, these are all very practical scaffolding to put around the process of doing it, because I think if you don't do that, I think some people get it straightaway and they can just run and do it, most of us need supports, scaffolding, protocols, checklists, just things to make it all a bit easier.  So, I think the toolkit is one thing. 

The other thing we've developed is an audit tool, and the audit tool does two things.  One is, it looks across a team about the extent to which you are engaging in what we describe as evidence-based HR behaviours.  So, the way this works is you get individuals within a team to complete it first.  It's pretty straightforward, like rating on a scale from zero to 100% of the time.  It might be, "For important business problems, what percentage of the time do you look across multiple sources of evidence, like at least three?  Do you do it 100%; do you do it 50%?" to try and get a sense of how much of this people are doing.  And then, once people have filled it individually, then try and get a consensus score and discuss why people might see it differently.  So, that audit tool says, okay, as an HR function, which would include people analytics too, these are the bits we're doing pretty well, these are the bits we're not doing so much of, and again there's guidance about how you can start to do more of those.  So, it tests your behaviours, but also you can use a similar framework to test your practices.

[0:33:14] David Green: And where can people find those tools or information about those tools, Rob?

[0:33:18] Rob Briner: Yeah, so you can email me to get hold of them, or CRF.  And if you go to the CRF evidence-based HR hub, knowledge hub, there's links there to both the tools and the frameworks and also, yeah, other ways you can get hold of them, yeah. 

[0:33:35] David Green: Yeah, that's really good, and I think that leads nicely, Rob, to the last question actually.  So, this is a question we're asking everyone in this series of the podcast.  And again, please apply your evidence-based HR lens on this one.  What are the top three ways you believe that HR could play a pivotal role in creating a thriving organisational culture?

[0:33:59] Rob Briner: Well, what is culture?  I might bypass the word, "culture", but I would say just because personally I find it a bit unhelpful.  But I think in terms of what it can do to help organisations be more thriving, I would say the top three things is kind of one thing, sort of packaged together, which is I think within HR and within management, there are some very old ideas, like job design, where you think about what do people need to do; or role design, what do we want them to do?  Why do we want them to do it?  Have they got the resources?  Are they getting feedback?  I think there's a number of really basic things that somehow along the way, got slightly lost.  And to create any thriving environment, I think there's some really basic stuff, do I know what people want me to do; do I know why I'm being asked to do it; do I feel that people value what I'm doing; those kinds of basic principles.  And I think getting those right as much as we can, it seems to me the key thing to creating a thriving environment. 

Now, it may be to do with culture, it may be a cultural thing, it may not be, but I think there's some real fundamentals there.  So, sometimes I feel we in HR need to go back and look at some of the stuff, not because old stuff is better, but from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, where people really were thinking about what is work; what gives it meaning; how do people perform better; what does good performance do; all those kind of really basic questions that were answered not brilliantly, but reasonably well at the time.  Some of the stuff that came out of that was really important.  So, I think reflecting on, yes, there's all kinds of new stuff.  There's AI, there's virtual, yes, absolutely.  But some of those fundamental psychological behavioural principles, I think, will never probably change.  So, I think going back to some of those is really important, and making sure that all the fancy stuff we do, the techniques, the policies, the practices, the interventions, bear in mind these basic things that we need to get as right as we can.

[0:36:11] David Green: And then I guess using evidence-based HR to really validate what does give people meaning? 

[0:36:17] Rob Briner: Yes. 

[0:36:17] David Green: And what impact does that have on them and their performance and the business, frankly.  Can you let listeners know how they can contact you, if you're on social media as well, and find out a little bit more about your work?

[0:36:30] Rob Briner: Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn and my name is relatively unusual so I'm very easy to find.  I'm on Twitter and you can also contact me via the Corporate Research Forum web page.  You just look there, you'll find me, you'll find my contact details there as well.  So, yeah, so please, if you're interested in evidence-based HR, I post quite a lot of stuff on LinkedIn.  Doesn't always make me the most hated man in people analytics.  But I've tried to post a lot of stuff about scientific evidence, other kinds of evidence, and thinking about how the HR function can become more effective.  So, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, yeah, have a look at some of the stuff I post there as well.

[0:37:04] David Green: And you're not the most hated person in people analytics, Rob, or the most hated person in HR. 

[0:37:08] Rob Briner: Thanks!

[0:37:09] David Green: You ask good questions, you ask the right questions to make us really think about what we're doing, and I think that's really, really important.  So, thank you for sharing some of your research with listeners today, thank you.

[0:37:21] Rob Briner: Great.  Thank you very much, David.  Thank you.