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4 min read
Steve Hall
In our previous blog on problem-solving with One Model, we explored how analytics platforms must go beyond standard reports to uncover deeper insights. Building on that foundation, this post examines why adaptability is crucial for organizations facing complex, evolving workforce challenges. Many organizations rely on pre-configured People Analytics solutions, but these often fall short when unique challenges arise. Every business has its own workforce dynamics, and rigid tools can’t always provide the insights needed for complex, real-world decisions. That’s why adaptability is the game-changer in People Analytics. Why Adaptability Matters in People Analytics Workforce data isn’t one-size-fits-all. Organizations face evolving questions that demand flexibility in how data is collected, structured, and analyzed. A standardized analytics platform might answer common HR questions, but when deeper exploration is needed—such as uncovering hidden turnover patterns or understanding engagement shifts over time—rigid systems become a barrier. The Problem with Pre-Built Analytics Many platforms impose a fixed structure on users, restricting how they ingest, model, and visualize data. While this simplifies reporting for standard KPIs, it becomes a roadblock when leaders need to analyze specific, nuanced issues. For example, a company may want to examine how compensation changes impact voluntary turnover in specific regions over the past three years. If their platform only provides a broad turnover metric, they’re left with surface-level insights that don’t capture the full picture. This lack of flexibility can lead to oversimplified conclusions, which is a risk businesses can’t afford. Breaking Free with Granular Data Control One Model takes a different approach. Instead of forcing users into pre-built reports, it provides the building blocks of workforce data—think of them like Lego bricks that users can combine in any way necessary. This means companies can analyze workforce trends on their own terms. Instead of being limited to pre-set dashboards, they can explore trends like: How internal mobility connects to performance and engagement The impact of hybrid work on long-term retention Whether specific hiring channels lead to higher-quality hires By enabling teams to create custom models and visualizations, One Model helps businesses get to the real insights behind their data and not just the ones predefined by software limitations. The Freedom to Solve Real-World Problems Having full control over data isn’t just about customization. It’s about ensuring analytics can evolve alongside shifting business needs. The ability to refine and explore data dynamically allows leaders to move beyond predefined assumptions and uncover insights that drive more precise decision-making. This adaptability is essential because: Every business problem is unique: Organizations need tools that can handle their challenges, not just generic ones. New questions emerge constantly: Analytics should evolve as business needs change, without waiting for software updates. Decisions require precision: When making decisions about people, generalized reports aren’t enough. The Future of People Analytics: More Control, More Impact The best People Analytics platforms don’t dictate how organizations should think about their workforce—they empower them to explore, analyze, and act with confidence. One Model ensures that businesses aren’t just consuming analytics. Instead, they’re shaping their insights to fit their specific needs. True adaptability in data modeling and visualization gives organizations the power to own their workforce strategy, rather than relying on out-of-the-box assumptions. Analytics should work for you, not the other way around. And that’s what One Model delivers. Want to learn more?
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Featured
5 min read
The One Model Team
The Cost-Time-Quality triangle can be a helpful tool when comparing various technology options. This framework is commonly called the “Project Triangle,” but we have modified it here to break out Flexibility as a critical fourth element — creating a diamond shape. The rationale for extending the triangle to include Flexibility is that analytics in all domains is full of unknowns. A rigid design could never anticipate all the future use cases and content demands of an ever-changing world. Doing a meaningful comparison of solutions requires an understanding of the relative flexibility of the various options being considered. And so our suggested framework for comparing people analytics technology options is the Project Diamond. Comparing the three options Below you’ll find a generalised comparison of each option using the Project Diamond framework. These findings are based on our direct experiences and discussions with customers and other people analytics experts, so consider it illustrative. Cost To build a solution from scratch, you’ll still need to buy a bunch of technology (eg, BI tools, data warehouses, and hardware). And there are often many hidden costs associated with that approach. In a buy option, the cost is typically the technology license/service fee, which has a two or three year commitment, as well as any initial implementation services. In a build option, the cost represents the IT and PA resources that are needed to create the data model and metrics definitions, the warehouse and visualisation tool costs, and any required maintenance and change order costs. Opting for a platform that offers the best of both buy and build generally has the same initial entry cost as the buy option, but is less expensive overall since access to the skilled data engineers and an experienced customer success team augments your resources, supports additional requests, and reduces rework throughout your people analytics journey. Depending on the vendor you select, that type of support will cost you extra red tape, extra dollars, and potentially even extra resources towards manual work. Time Internal build projects nearly always run slower than planned, and they often fail altogether. There are countless stories and statistics on failed business intelligence projects. Buy options leverage pre-built assets to deliver a “turnkey” people analytics experience that can get you up and running relatively quickly. But for some vendors, implementation can be a long and drawn-out process. Instead, you could opt for the best of both buy and build. So you get a fast implementation experience with a proven and pre-built starting point, and you also get the ability to enhance and build upon that starting point over time — either on your own or alongside the vendor’s knowledgeable customer success team and skilled data engineers. Quality This element has more potential for overlap. There is wide variation in what may be built internally since internal IT teams have considerably less experience working with data from HR systems in an analytics context. While high quality builds can exist, they require superb internal IT resources and incredible amounts of time and money. A common downfall here is that the initial implementation team declares success and rolls off to another project, leaving a knowledge and capability gap. Buy could be better quality than a build since you get a pre-built starting point, but that depends on the vendor. Choosing a PA platform that can deliver the best of both buy and build will ensure the highest quality solution. This option allows teams to get the full value out of all their HR data — by centralising it into a single source of truth, transforming it into an integrated dataset purpose-built for people analytics, and configuring the platform and analyses to their organisation’s exact requirements. And if the vendor has a highly-skilled team of data engineers available to support, PA teams gain a partnership with talented individuals who can ensure the quality of the data assets they create. Flexibility The most significant gap is in flexibility. Internal build solutions usually involve multiple teams, and the data and analytics needs of HR must compete for resources with the business’ core product and customer data needs. Meaning the HR function often needs to wait in line for basic changes to their data warehouse and visualisations, and their simple request could be very challenging to execute. In a buy scenario, there is ongoing innovation from the provider as they need to remain relevant and competitive in the marketplace. But that vendor may not make the enhancements your team needs or allow for configuration within the tool they’re selling. If you’re looking for the best of both worlds, you’ll want to purchase a flexible PA platform that allows teams to either build their own data assets within the purchased solution, or partner with the vendor to support that build. The ideal vendor will focus on transparency, flexibility, and customisation — enabling people analytics teams to access the backend of the platform to configure their instance to fit their exact needs. Ready to learn more? As you use Project Diamond to assess your people analytics technology options, you may want to download our whitepaper The Evolution of the Buy vs. Build Conversation in People Analytics, which can help you use Project Diamond to determine if buying an out-of-the-box solution, building an in-house solution, or choosing a path that delivers the best of both worlds is right for you.
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Featured
5 min read
The One Model Team
Workforce planning and forecasting have become paramount for finance leaders to navigate market uncertainties and stay ahead of the competition. One Model's advanced People Analytics platform enables finance leaders to make smarter data-driven decisions, propelling their business toward sustainable growth and increased profitability. Centralise HR and Finance data for accurate predictions. The foundation of effective workforce planning lies in the ability to consolidate data from various sources into a single, reliable location. One Model achieves this by seamlessly integrating HR data with finance data, creating a centralized hub of valuable insights. By breaking down silos and allowing for data collaboration, finance leaders can gain a comprehensive understanding of their workforce, leading to more accurate predictions and tactical strategies. Slice and dice data more efficiently. Traditional ERP systems often struggle to handle the sheer volume and complexity of workforce data, leading to sluggish reporting and analysis. One Model, on the other hand, offers the ability to slice and dice data with ease, providing real-time insights and a granular, employee-level detail. Finance leaders can effortlessly examine the cost and productivity drivers at a departmental or individual level, empowering them to implement strategic initiatives with surgical precision. Identify high performers and which roles deliver the most value. Understanding the contribution of each role within an organization is crucial for effective workforce planning. One Model's advanced analytics capabilities offer improved visibility into productivity, revealing which roles deliver the most value to the organization. By identifying top-performing roles and focusing on their development, companies can reduce costly turnover, unleash the full potential of their workforce, and bolster overall performance. Better prepare for mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. The financial services sector often witnesses mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, which can lead to complex organizational changes and talent restructuring. With One Model, finance leaders can confidently embark on these transformations by leveraging the platform's capabilities. One Model can provide quick insight into topics such as your spans and layers that would traditionally involve high-cost and time-consuming consulting projects. From developing clear organizational structures to conducting talent audits to retain key personnel, One Model ensures a smooth transition and alignment of talent with strategic goals. Make more data-informed business decisions. Quick and informed decisions are critical for CFOs. With One Model, you can build your own metrics and definitions for headcount, FTE (full-time equivalents) updated daily, and other performance indicators to assess the return on investment from talent programs. And if Finance and HR can’t agree on how a certain metric (e.g., headcount) is calculated, One Model can support both variations. With clear insight into headcount and FTEs, you can better measure performance and plan labor needs. One Model delivers a holistic view of talent distribution and performance so Finance leaders can optimize headcount for the company’s needs, maintain cost-efficiency, and strike the perfect balance between talent and resources. Facilitate deeper conversations between HR and Finance. HR and Finance teams can have more meaningful and pointed conversations using One Model — where all the workforce data is captured, data quality is managed, and all related dimensions (e.g., hierarchies, employee attributes) are available for analysis. Bringing HR and Finance teams together can help your company accelerate your People Analytics journey and more easily identify opportunities to turn a profit. With One Model you can gain insight into more advanced metrics like Return on Human Investment Ratio (the ratio of operating profit, adding back total compensation expense, returned for every dollar invested in employee compensation and benefits) and hundreds of others to level up your HR and Finance decision making. Two examples of content specifically designed to align HR and Finance teams and empower them to make smarter data-driven decisions are: Headcount Storyboard — Setting up a storyboard which shows headcount represented in multiple ways: FTEs vs. employee counts, variations of which statuses are included/excluded, etc. This information becomes readily comparable with the metric definitions only a click away. Even better, the storyboard can be shared with the finance and HR partners in the discussion to explore on their own after the session. One Model is the best tool for counting headcount over time because it can support multiple variations. Hierarchy Storyboard — Providing views of the headcount as seen using the supervisor and cost hierarchies side-by-side will help to emphasize that both are simultaneously correct (i.e., the grand total is exactly the same). This can also provide an opportunity to investigate some of the situations where the cost and organizational hierarchy are not aligned. In many cases, these situations can be understood. Still, occasionally there are errors from previous reorganizations/transfers which resulted in costing information not being updated for a given employee (or group of employees). One Model is your partner for profitable growth One Model stands out as the ideal People Analytics partner for companies seeking to drive profitability through data-driven decision-making. If you’re ready to learn more, download our eBook 4 Ways CFOs Can Increase Profitability with One Model’s People Analytics Platform to discover even more ways our platform can enhance your profits.
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Featured
6 min read
The One Model Team
To say that HR is undergoing significant transformation is quite an understatement. But in the shadow of AI/ML, people analytics, and other massive splashes, two familiar foundations are shifting: HR team structures and what HR teams are focusing on. Here's a flyover of what's at stake. 1. Evolving HR Team Structures HR team structures are evolving to bridge traditional functions with analytics, technology, and strategic planning. It's important to know what's changing and how your business can adapt: Impact of Layoffs - Layoffs, especially in tech, force HR teams to rethink their strategies. Some companies downsize, while others use this time to attract top talent, leading to more diverse and adaptable teams. Recommended Approach: Use layoffs as an opportunity to reassess and restructure your HR team to align with new team focuses (below). Focus on bringing in diverse skills and expertise to create a more resilient and adaptable team. Optimal Team Size - There’s a growing belief that HR teams can be more effective with a smaller, well-defined team size. Bigger isn't always better; the right team size can enhance efficiency. Recommended Approach: Evaluate your organization’s specific needs to determine the optimal team size. Prioritize quality over quantity to build a lean, efficient team. Platform Approach - Modern HR platforms are reshaping team structures by automating routine tasks and streamlining workflows. This shift allows HR teams to focus more on strategic insights and less on manual processes. Recommended Approach: Invest in comprehensive HR technology platforms that offer automation and integration capabilities. This can free up your team to focus on strategic tasks and improve overall efficiency. New Emerging Roles - At the same time that some roles are becoming redundant or obsolete, new ones are forming to oversee or bridge gaps in new processes. We're seeing people analytics leaders morph into entirely new roles that span across HR functions. This cross functional people analytics position goes by many names, but we're calling it Workforce Systems Leader. Recommended Approach: Stay adaptable, proactive, and informed. Embrace emerging roles like the Workforce Systems Leader to optimize your HR processes and keep your organization at the forefront of industry trends and advancements. Joining a people analytics community can be very helpful in the midst of ongoing evolution. Stay tuned as we address the implications, functions, and ongoing shifts of roles in this industry. 2. Shifting HR Team Focuses As team structures change, so do their priorities. HR must now be focusing on three key areas: data infrastructure, productivity analytics, and skills and workforce planning. Data Infrastructure - A strong data foundation is crucial for advanced analytics and AI. Efficient data management helps HR teams create actionable insights that drive business forward. Recommended Approach: Invest in advanced data management tools and provide training for HR staff to ensure high-quality data and effective use of analytics. Productivity Analytics - The shift to remote and hybrid work has made productivity analytics essential. HR needs to measure productivity accurately and understand what influences it, especially in new work environments. Recommended Approach: Implement productivity tracking software and regularly analyze the data to refine remote work policies and improve employee performance. Skills and Workforce Planning - Integrating skills data into workforce planning is becoming vital. HR must understand the impact of specific skills on workforce dynamics and align this knowledge with company goals. Recommended Approach: Conduct a skills inventory and use advanced workforce planning tools to align skill development initiatives with the company’s strategic objectives. It's not necessarily easy, but by embracing these and other changes we've identified this year, HR departments can improve their effectiveness, foster collaboration, and drive significant business outcomes. Ready to get ahead of these shifts and redefine the impact of HR in your organization? Download this new resource today to take a deeper dive into all 6 of this year’s top emerging trends for people analytics.
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Featured
6 min read
Dennis Behrman
How does Human Resources help a business succeed? Like it or not, success in today’s organizations hinges on creating exceptional employee experiences. That means HR holds the key to achieving this critical objective. In this Hacking HR podcast episode, Enrique Rubio and Richard Rosenow, our VP of People Analytics Strategy, explored how HR data can transform workplaces into more human-centered environments. Yet, many HR professionals grapple with data anxiety for a variety of reasons. Listen in on their conversation or enjoy our “Cliff’s Notes” to learn how HR and people analytics professionals can overcome these challenges and embrace a data-driven approach to focusing on people. Why Building a Human-Centered Workplace Requires Data Enrique: We’ve been investing in conversations about empathy, kindness, compassion, feedback, mental health, wellness—all things that create a human-centered workplace. How can we implement these values in the workplace using data? How do we measure that it’s working well? Richard: Data has transformed HR’s ability to listen and engage in meaningful conversations at scale. Historically, HR professionals excelled at listening, but data now allows us to listen to larger populations effectively. For instance, in a company of four thousand employees, it’s impossible for leadership to talk to everyone personally. Data helps us understand and address the needs of employees by identifying patterns and insights that we might miss otherwise. It’s about listening at scale and making informed decisions based on those insights. Overcoming Data Anxiety Enrique: There’s a sentiment among HR professionals who feel they joined the field to work with people, not to dive into data, math, and technology. How do you address these concerns? Richard: The good news is that the technical burden on HR is decreasing. With advancements like ChatGPT, HR professionals don’t need to become data engineers. These technologies handle the heavy lifting, allowing HR to focus on strategic and consultative roles. Learning basic data literacy and understanding how to use data effectively is crucial, but the need to learn complex technical skills like SQL is diminishing. Today, the goal of successful human resource management is to leverage technology to enhance HR’s core strengths in understanding and supporting people. Real-Life Impact of Data in HR Enrique: Do you have any examples where data truly delivered value in creating a human-centered workplace? Perhaps looking into absenteeism versus engagement, or something similar? Richard: One memorable example is from my time as an HRBP for a large retail population experiencing high attrition. We collaborated with a professor researching job embeddedness, a measure of how well employees fit into their roles and communities. By running surveys before and after implementing a targeted program, we were able to decrease attrition significantly. This experience highlighted the power of using data to design effective HR programs and measure their impact, reinforcing the importance of HR success metrics. Surprising First Steps Enrique: It can be challenging to know where to start with integrating analytics into HR practices. What would be your first steps? Richard: Focus on connection and confidence. Start by making connections between HR metrics and business outcomes. Understand how HR activities impact operational results and find ways to measure these connections. Additionally, build confidence in your data. Reliable data allows HR to make informed decisions and advocate for necessary changes. At OneModel, we help HR leaders build unified data models, providing the confidence needed to understand and drive business success. Identifying HR Success Metrics Enrique: One common issue is investing time and resources into HR projects without setting up indicators of success. How can HR professionals ensure they have the right indicators? Richard: It’s crucial to set up indicators of success early on. Engage with analytics teams from other departments, if needed, to establish these indicators. While measuring complex human aspects like well-being can be challenging, finding proxy indicators and triangulating data can provide meaningful insights. For example, asking employees if they have a best friend at work can be a good proxy for workplace happiness, which can be linked to engagement and productivity. How One Model Helps Successful human resource management involves combining data insights with a deep understanding of human behavior, allowing HR professionals to develop programs that enhance employee satisfaction and business performance. One Model makes this possible by enabling listening at scale and efficiently providing deep data insights never before available. We enable HR teams to turn data into meaningful “stories” that drive action and growth. Want to focus on people not data? Learn how to tell better data stories with One Model.
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Featured
5 min read
Dennis Behrman
For employees, recognizing a bad company culture isn’t difficult. Their feelings of being overwhelmed, frustrated, unvalued, and unsupported serve as clear indicators. When employees experience these emotions, it’s a red flag that something is amiss within the organization. Leaders may see the downstream effect of a negative culture in the workplace in various ways. They might see low productivity, high employee turnover rates, and a general low return on investment (ROI) for the organization. Our VP of Sales and Solutions Architect Leader Phil Schrader discussed this topic with our friends at Culture Curated. Partners Season Chapman and Yuli Lopez shared several common ways they see leaders contributing to toxic workplace cultures. #1 You’re Fostering an Environment of Disconnection Yuli pinpointed siloes as a significant issue that impacts culture. “When there is poor work culture, you see it reflected in not enough connectivity between departments or peers. Siloes impact the way work is getting done.” The lack of connectivity not only affects internal operations but also has a tangible impact on customer satisfaction and organizations’ bottom line: A Towers Watson study found that strong internal communication strategies can lead to a 47% higher return to shareholders compared to the least communicatively effective firms. According to Forbes, siloes are often a trickle-down effect of conflicted leadership.The #1 key to solving this problem that plagues most organizations and creates a toxic workplace culture? Transparent communication. #2 - You Haven’t Defined Your Organization’s Core Identity Season notes that as an organization evolves, defining its core identity is crucial. It boils down, she says, to “being honest about what you want, what you need, and what competencies and behaviors you need your employees to display.” For example, while growth and innovation may have once defined a company, there may come a point when consistency and predictability become essential. If leaders fail to define this new season for their teams, results can be disjointed and a poor work culture results. With no clear sense of their organization’s purpose and identity, employees can struggle to connect their individual roles to the broader mission. This disconnect hampers motivation and engagement, ultimately affecting overall organizational performance. Conversely, a well-defined core identity is the compass that guides an organization toward success. It aligns teams, fuels innovation, and ensures a cohesive, purpose-driven workforce. #3 - You're Eroding Trust and Teamwork Every organization goes through seasons where employees are “in the trenches,” so to speak, when the work is challenging and collaboration is a must. Season shares that in healthy organizations, employees jump in and work together. Believing in and removing obstacles for each other has a catalyzing effect on the team and the results. However, where teams exhibit unhealthy competition, distrust, disengagement, or failure to communicate, a toxic work culture is born. Leaders can unintentionally foster these negative conditions by withholding information, showing favoritism, being disorganized, and failing to recognize and support their teams. On the other hand, when leaders model the collaborative, encouraging spirit they want to see in employees, they positively shape team dynamics, building trust and nurturing motivation. How One Model Helps Create Healthy Organizational Culture People Analytics is the answer to many culture challenges. The One Model People Analytics platform empowers HR leaders to effectively use their workforce data to understand and manage virtually every aspect of the employee experience. From Data to Decisions: What Is People Analytics?
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Featured
5 min read
Dennis Behrman
In the rapidly evolving landscape of Human Resources (HR), where technology and automation are reshaping the way businesses operate, the role of HR tech influencers has taken on paramount importance. As organizations navigate this dynamic environment, insights from trusted HR influencers have become indispensable in making informed decisions, adopting innovative tools, and embracing data-driven strategies. A testament to this influence is the recognition of Richard Rosenow with the "2024 Top HR Tech Influencer" award. The Role of HR Influencers in Technology Adoption HR departments across the globe have been in the process of transitioning for nearly 2 decades. From a subjective people operation to one of the most important analytical business assets. At the forefront of this transformation are the HR influencers whose insights and expertise have been guiding HR leaders through the emerging technology jungle and helping expand the roles inside their teams. in their HR strategies. The annual list of "Top 100 HR Tech Influencers," curated by Human Resource Executive and the HR Technology Conference & Exposition, serves as a testament to the pivotal role these influencers play in shaping the HR technology landscape. This list, now in its sixth year, comprises a diverse array of professionals, including analysts, consultants, and practitioners, who collectively represent the vanguard of HR technology thought leadership. Their contributions extend beyond their respective fields, encompassing thought-provoking perspectives, innovative solutions, and a deep understanding of the synergy between technology and HR. How do you become an HR Influencer? Becoming an HR influencer entails a journey of expertise, innovation, and consistent value delivery. Richard Rosenow's path to becoming an HR influencer exemplifies this process. With a background rooted in HR and technology, Richard leveraged his real-world experience building and leading people analytics teams to create insightful content and share actionable strategies across various platforms. Through engaging articles, speaking engagements, and thought leadership on LinkedIn, he demonstrated a deep understanding of HR technology's evolving landscape. Richard's dedication to staying updated on industry trends, sharing real-world solutions, and fostering meaningful connections established him as a trusted voice. His deep sense of caring and creating goodwill has also made him a friend to many. By consistently adding value, addressing pain points, and offering innovative perspectives, he garnered a dedicated following. One Model is honored to have Richard on our team. As a previous customer and evangelist who exemplifies our values, we could not be happier to have him on our team. More about the 2024 HR Tech Influencer Award The year 2024 marks a pivotal juncture in the realm of HR, with automation and generative artificial intelligence redefining traditional workplace dynamics. These advancements have underscored the need for HR operations to be optimized for efficiency, agility, and adaptability. HR departments are increasingly turning to technology to streamline processes, make informed decisions, and enhance overall organizational performance. The selection process for the "Top 100 HR Tech Influencers" list is rigorous and thorough, spearheaded by the editorial team at Human Resource Executive in collaboration with the HR Technology Conference organizers. The primary objective is to identify individuals who possess the transformative power to reshape how technology is leveraged within the HR industry. Rebecca McKenna, senior vice president of the HR portfolio at ETC, emphasizes the significance of this year's cohort, especially given the rapid advancements witnessed in HR technology. These influencers stand as beacons of reliable guidance, offering organizations across the globe profound insights and dependable advice. Interested in talking to Richard and the One Model team? Let us know! In conclusion, in a world where technology and HR are intricately intertwined, HR influencers have emerged as essential conduits of knowledge and innovation. Richard Rosenow's upcoming recognition underscores the significance of their contributions, reminding us that the path to HR excellence is paved by those who illuminate the way forward.
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4 min read
Richard Rosenow
The world of people analytics is at a crossroads. On one side, the potential for data-driven decision-making in HR is incredible, offering insights that can transform organizational dynamics and employee engagement. On the other, a stark reality exists: a significant gap in the talent pool, especially when it comes to finding talent ready to tackle the data engineering side of people analytics. This gap isn't just a minor inconvenience; it's a major roadblock for HR departments aiming to leverage the full power of data analytics. Let's unpack why this is a critical issue and how companies like One Model are addressing it. Talent Challenges in Building In-House Solutions Developing an effective people analytics platform is no small feat. It requires an end-to-end team with a diverse set of skills, from data engineering and data science to HR expertise and software development. But finding individuals who possess these skills is a daunting task that often requires extensive time and resources to source, recruit, and onboard. Once onboarded, the innovation gap can become quickly apparent. Data engineers and data scientists thrive on solving novel complex problems, but we’ve seen the maintenance and iterative improvement of in-house HR technology can lead to disengagement and high turnover for this group. Especially given the rare blend of skills these professionals possess and high market demand. Moreover, every hour spent by your HR or IT team on developing, troubleshooting, and maintaining an in-house analytics solution is an hour not spent on value creation or strategic initiatives. As organizations grow and change, so too do their analytics needs. Building a solution that can scale and adapt with these changes without significant additional investment is a formidable if not impossible challenge, often straining resources further. Platforms are not a one-and-done investment. The Strategic Advantage of Vendor Partnerships Partnering with a people analytics platform vendor like One Model brings a wealth of experience and a team of experts who are continuously engaged in the development and refinement of the platform. This immediate access to expertise translates into scaled reporting and sophisticated analytics capabilities that are ready to use on day one. By starting with a vendor, organizations can keep internal resources focused on strategic priorities, leveraging the headstart provided by the vendor rather than getting bogged down in technicalities. Vendors operate at scale, serving multiple clients with the same infrastructure. This allows them to offer powerful analytics capabilities at a fraction of the cost it would take to develop similar functionalities in-house. Additionally, vendors are motivated by competition and client’s needs to continuously innovate and improve their offerings, ensuring organizations benefit from these innovations without additional investment. One Model: A Case Study in Vendor Excellence When it comes to overcoming the talent challenges of building and maintaining a sophisticated people analytics platform, One Model stands out. Not only do we offer incredible careers for data engineers, working on challenging and impactful projects across the analytics space, but we also maintain an incredible retention rate for that talent. Our approach to dedicated support means that the data engineer who implements your solution often stays on to support your subscription, offering deep familiarity with your organization's specific needs and challenges. Our leadership, including our CEO who comes from a data engineering background, ensures that our solutions are not only technically advanced but also perfectly tailored to the real-world needs of people analytics. This level of expertise and commitment positions One Model as a partner who understands the intricacies of people analytics from a data engineering perspective — making us an attractive, cost-effective, and strategically sound alternative for organizations looking to leverage the full power of people analytics without the challenges of staffing. Conclusion While building a people analytics solution in-house from the ground up may seem appealing, the practical challenges and talent implications often make partnering with a vendor the safer choice. One Model offers a history of success, expert support, and an innovative platform that continues to evolve to meet your organization's needs, ensuring you remain at the forefront of HR technology revolution. Choose One Model, where data engineering talent meets HR innovation, and let us help you leverage insights to attract, retain, and develop top talent effectively. Learn how One Model can help you.
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6 min read
Richard Rosenow
In the rapidly evolving field of People Analytics, a pressing roadblock has come to the forefront: the need for remote eligibility in senior roles. This isn't just a passing trend; it's a strategic imperative shaped by market realities and the nature of People Analytics itself. Let's dive into why every organization looking to lead in People Analytics should consider making their senior roles, if not all of their People Analytics roles, remote eligible. 1. The Scarcity of Senior People Analytics Leaders The first point to consider is the tight talent market of senior People Analytics leaders. In cities big and small, from New York to San Francisco, the pool of top-tier professionals in this niche field is still small. My experience in talent intelligence and location strategy shows that expecting to find a world-class leader in your immediate vicinity is wishful thinking. Opening up the Search for Remote Talent With a remote search, organizations can open their roles to a wider, more diverse range of candidates. This approach isn't just about filling a position; it's about finding the matched people analytics leader for your organization who can bring the right perspectives and drive innovative strategies in People Analytics. 2. Talent Density and the Geographical Challenge People Analytics, a relatively nascent and specialized field, overall lacks the talent density seen in more established areas of HR like recruiting or compensation. This reality requires a more tailored approach to building and leading teams, usually involving multiple sites and sometimes sites in multiple countries. Increasingly, People Analytics teams are distributed, with components in multiple locations or even outsourced, which essentially establishes the team as a remote team. “If one person on the team is remote, the team needs to act like a remote team” - Darren Murph (Remote Work Expert) The Case for Remote Leadership In such a scenario, anchoring a leader to a single location is counterproductive. A leader's effectiveness in People Analytics hinges on their ability to manage and integrate their team. Remote work facilitates this by allowing the People Analytics leader to lead by example, demonstrating what it means to be remote at the company. 3. People Analytics Teams: Pioneers of Remote Work Research A critical aspect often overlooked is that People Analytics leaders are not only avid followers of the academic work in this area but also that they are likely to be the pioneers of remote work research. Over the past five years, these senior leaders and their teams have studied and understood the nuances of remote, hybrid, and in-person work models. The Informed Choice of PA Leaders People Analytics leaders are making informed personal choices based on their research and understanding of work models. They're increasingly opting to stay put or seek remote roles, knowing full well the impact and potential of remote work arrangements. This trend isn't just about personal preference; it's about leading by example and embracing what they've learned through their research. 4. The Wide Reach of People Analytics People Analytics is not confined to a single department, function, or stakeholder; it spans across the entire organization (even outside of HR). Senior leaders in this field need to interact with various stakeholders across different departments and locations. Remote Work: A Practical Necessity Given this broad scope, the traditional model of a leader bound to a single office location becomes impractical. Whether it's through phone, video calls, or email, much of the People Analytics leader's role already functions in a remote capacity as they interact with a variety of stakeholders globally on a daily basis. Formalizing this as a remote role eligible role acknowledges the existing operational reality. 5. The Relocation Resistance Among PA Leaders In my interactions with job seekers and executive candidates that we’ve spoken to as part of the One Model People Analytics roles page project, a clear trend emerges: top talent is increasingly reluctant to relocate. They are turning down roles that require them to move or just not engaging with those recruiters. This isn't just a preference; it's a decisive factor in job selection. The Untapped Talent Pool There is a significant talent pool waiting for remote opportunities. Organizations not offering remote options for positions like PA Leader, PA Director, or VP of People Analytics are missing out on this talent. This isn't about accommodating personal preferences; it's about accessing the best in the field. Join the conversation on Linkedin. Conversation with feedback from PA Leaders Summary: A Call to Action for the HR Community The evidence is clear: the future of successful People Analytics builds lies in remote eligibility for hiring. While there are arguments for in-person roles, maybe for junior staff (largely unproven), the need for remote eligibility in senior positions is undeniable. As an HR community, we must recognize and adapt to this reality to connect the best talent to the right teams. Embracing Remote Work It's time to rethink how we approach senior roles in People Analytics. By embracing remote work, we can tap into a broader talent pool, foster innovative leadership, and align with the forward-thinking nature of People Analytics. Post your Senior People Analytics roles as remote opportunities! People Analytics Roles. Employers: Need a secure people analytics platform that ensures you can have a remote workforce? Reach out for a demo of One Model.
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Featured
18 min read
Lauren Canada
Human resources (HR) departments play a crucial role in shaping a company's success by managing its most valuable asset — its workforce. But traditional HR practices often rely on gut feelings, intuitions, and subjective observations, which can result in bias and poor decision-making. People Analytics, also known as HR analytics, offers a data-driven approach to understanding and optimising the workforce's performance, productivity, and engagement. What Is People Analytics? People Analytics is essentially the process of collecting, analysing, and interpreting workforce data to gain insights into HR practices' effectiveness and improve decision-making. What does People Analytics involve? It involves using various data sources, such as employee surveys, performance metrics, turnover rates, and other HR-related data, to measure and analyse different HR aspects. HR professionals can leverage this data to identify patterns, trends, and relationships that are otherwise invisible, enabling them to make informed decisions that positively impact the workforce and the organisation's bottom line. While the terms "analytics," "reports," and "business intelligence" are sometimes used interchangeably, they are not synonymous. Analytics involves the systematic analysis of data to uncover meaningful patterns and insights, whereas reports refer to structured presentations of data in a summarised format. On the other hand, business intelligence encompasses a broader scope, including the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data to support strategic decision-making. So, what is People Analytics? The People Analytics definition goes beyond general analytics, reports, and business intelligence by focusing specifically on the analysis of HR-related data and the extraction of insights pertaining to the workforce. Unlike generic analytics, People Analytics centers around human-centric data, such as employee demographics, performance metrics, and engagement surveys. It delves deep into the behavioral aspects of work, uncovering correlations and patterns that provide valuable insights into talent management, employee engagement, and workforce planning. With People Analytics, you can gain a more holistic understanding of your workforce and make data-driven decisions tailored to HR needs. What Does People Analytics Involve? Data Collection What does people analytics involve? People Analytics involves the seamless collection of relevant HR-related data from a multitude of sources, including HR systems, employee surveys, performance evaluations, and other pertinent data repositories. Other data sources include employee benefits, employee turnover rates, and workforce demographics. The goal is to collect as much data as possible from various sources for a more comprehensive and accurate view of the workforce. Data Cleansing The data collected from various sources often contain errors, inconsistencies, and missing data that can lead to flawed insights and ill-informed decisions if not addressed. Once the data is collected, People Analytics software will clean, validate, and transform it into a format suitable for analysis. This process can also include consolidating data from multiple sources, standardizing data formats, and filling in missing data. Data Analysis In this step, data is analyzed using statistical methods, machine learning algorithms, and data visualization tools. This enables HR professionals to identify patterns, trends, and relationships that are critical to understanding the organization's workforce and answer important HR-related questions, such as: What factors contribute to employee turnover? What skills and attributes are required for high-performing teams? What training and development programs are most effective in improving employee performance and productivity? Through this analysis, HR professionals can identify potential issues and opportunities, allowing them to take proactive measures to address them. They can also explore different scenarios and test hypotheses to make more informed decisions about the workforce. Data Visualization Data visualization tools are crucial in this process, allowing HR professionals to communicate insights to stakeholders effectively. These tools can take many forms, from simple charts and graphs to complex dashboards that display a wide range of data. HR professionals can use visualization tools to identify patterns and trends in the data, spot anomalies, and explore correlations between different variables. They can also use them to compare data across various departments, locations, or time periods, tell compelling stories, and generate persuasive reports. Effective data visualization can be an essential factor in the success of People Analytics initiatives because it makes data digestible — enabling stakeholders to grasp complex concepts and insights quickly and easily. Get the Ultimate Download Whether you're new to People Analytics or ready to enhance your existing program, this eBook covers everything you need to know about establishing a strong foundation for a successful People Analytics function that leads to smarter HR strategy and meaningful change across your organization. Four Key People Analytics Trends 1. Revolutionizing the Role and Function of HR People Analytics is reshaping the HR function from being primarily administrative and operational to becoming a strategic partner in driving business outcomes. By leveraging advanced analytics tools and techniques, HR teams can extract valuable insights from data, enabling them to make data-driven decisions that align with organizational goals. This transformation empowers HR professionals to shift their focus from transactional tasks to strategic initiatives, such as talent acquisition, retention, and development. 2. Transforming HR Business Interactions People Analytics provides HR teams with the ability to deliver data-backed insights to business leaders, fostering more meaningful and impactful conversations. HR professionals can then effectively communicate the impact of HR initiatives on key business metrics, such as revenue, productivity, and profitability. This transformation strengthens the partnership between HR and other business functions, positioning HR as a valuable contributor to overall business strategy and success. 3. Elevating the HR-Employee Connection People Analytics is also driving a transformation in the HR-employee relationship. By analyzing employee data, organizations can gain deeper insights into employee sentiments, preferences, and needs. This data-driven approach enables HR teams to personalize employee experiences, tailor development programs, and create a more inclusive and engaging work environment. The result is a stronger bond between HR and employees, as HR professionals can better understand and meet the individual needs of employees, leading to higher levels of engagement and satisfaction. 4. Enhancing the Quality of People Analytics With the advancements in AI and machine learning, HR teams can unlock more sophisticated and accurate insights from complex data sets. Predictive analytics models can forecast future workforce trends, identify potential attrition risks, and even recommend personalized learning and development opportunities for employees. These enhanced insights enable HR professionals to be more proactive and strategic in their decision-making, optimising talent management strategies and improving overall organisational performance. Embracing these four trends empowers HR teams to become strategic partners in driving organisational success, creating a more data-driven, agile, and employee-centric HR function. Choosing the Right People Analytics Tool: 3 Key Metrics When selecting the right People Analytics tool for your organization, it's essential to consider three key metrics to make an informed decision. These metrics will enable you to evaluate the effectiveness, usability, and compatibility of the tools with your HR objectives. 1. Data Integration Capabilities Ensure the tool can seamlessly integrate with your existing HR systems, such as your HRIS, performance management software, and learning management system. The ability to aggregate data from various sources is vital to obtain a comprehensive view of your workforce and maximize the insights derived from the analytics tool. Look for a tool that offers flexible and efficient data integration capabilities to support your data-driven decision-making processes. 2. Analytical Capabilities Evaluate the tool’s capabilities in data analysis, statistical modeling, and predictive analytics. Consider the range of analytics techniques and algorithms it offers, as well as its ability to generate actionable insights. Robust analytics capabilities enable you to uncover patterns, trends, and correlations within your HR data, facilitating strategic workforce planning, talent management, and employee engagement initiatives. Look for a tool that aligns with your specific analytical requirements and provides advanced analytics features to address your organization's unique challenges. 3. User-Friendliness and Accessibility Consider the user interface, ease of use, and the availability of user-friendly dashboards and visualization features. The tool should empower you to navigate and extract meaningful insights from the data effortlessly. Accessibility is equally important. Ensure the tool is accessible across devices and provides secure data access to authorized users. Look for a tool that prioritizes user experience and provides intuitive interfaces to maximize adoption and utilization across your HR teams. One Comprehensive Solution for Data Integration One Model offers a comprehensive People Analytics platform that integrates data from multiple sources, making it easier for HR professionals to gain insights into their workforce. The highly customizable platform allows organizations to tailor their HR data needs to their specific requirements. One Model's platform can also save organizations significant amounts of money. For example, a leading provider of HR outsourcing solutions used One Model's platform to expand its People Analytics capabilities, resulting in an 800% savings over the cost of an internal build. Why Is People Analytics Important? Why should you invest in People Analytics? Why is People Analytics important? At the core, HR analytics means driving better, faster talent decisions at all levels of the organization. You need to invest resources in HR data to drive and accelerate this mission.The value of People Analytics should be judged by the quality of talent decisions that are being made across the organization and the ROI of those decisions on the business. With the right People Analytics tool, users can quantify and measure the ROI of People Analytics on an organization, including cost savings, employee retention, new hires, and more. Below are several core benefits of People Analytics: Improved HR Practices: People Analytics tools enable HR professionals to make informed decisions based on data rather than subjective observations or intuition. HR analytics means more effective HR practices that are aligned with the organization's goals and objectives. Better Workforce Management: By analyzing workforce data, HR professionals can identify skills gaps, training needs, and performance issues, allowing them to take corrective actions to improve workforce management. Increased Employee Engagement: HR analytics can help identify factors contributing to employee engagement, such as job satisfaction, work-life balance, and career growth opportunities. By addressing these factors, organizations can improve employee engagement and reduce turnover. Higher Return on Investment: By optimizing HR practices and improving workforce management, HR analytics can help organizations achieve a higher return on investment (ROI) and improve their bottom line. The Role of AI in HR According to Bersin’s research, a mere 2% of HR organizations actively utilize People Analytics. This presents a significant advantage for innovative businesses looking to tap into this field and leverage its potential. People Analytics profoundly impacts how HR functions by transforming recruitment, performance measurement, compensation planning, growth mapping, learning, and retention management. In fact, studies by Deloitte indicate that People Analytics is rapidly becoming the new currency of HR, providing benefits such as increasing job offer acceptance rates, reducing HR help tickets, and optimizing compensation. As the new currency, People Analytics brings a wealth of benefits to HR professionals, enabling them to enhance key aspects of their work. HR analytics is evolving from a one-time initiative to becoming a real-time, easily adaptable tactic that offers immense benefits for HR as processes scale with business needs. HR analytics means HR teams can make data-driven decisions that result in more successful recruitment outcomes, streamlined HR processes, and better alignment of compensation practices with employee performance and market trends. This shift towards people analytics as the new currency signifies its increasing importance and its pivotal role in shaping the future of HR practices. At the core of People Analytics is artificial intelligence (AI). AI allows HR professionals to analyze vast amounts of data quickly and accurately. AI-powered HR analytics can even inform candidate screening, performance evaluation, and workforce planning, freeing HR professionals' time to focus on higher-value activities. AI can also provide predictive insights, allowing them to anticipate workforce trends and take proactive measures to address them. How People Analytics Has Evolved People Analytics has evolved significantly over the past few years, thanks to advances in technology and data science. Although managing humans may be the most complex aspect of work, other humans have been the primary means of interpreting and managing them thus far. But this is gradually changing, with computers beginning to provide more nuanced and targeted support for managing humans. People Analytics is now becoming an expected way to enhance HR teams' decision-making, with more and more teams relying on this function daily. Initially, HR analytics primarily focused on HR reporting and compliance, such as tracking headcount, turnover, and diversity metrics. But as technology and data science advanced, it’s now more sophisticated, enabling HR professionals to gain deeper insights into the workforce's performance, productivity, and engagement. As a result, organizations that embrace HR analytics are gaining a competitive edge by making data-driven decisions that positively impact their bottom line. As more HR leaders become aware of the advantages of People Analytics and these teams learn to integrate it into their function, they will recognize its benefits and embrace it as an essential part of their work. The Stages of People Analytics Maturity To truly understand the question, “What is People Analytics?” you also need to know that People Analytics is a journey, and organizations can be at different stages of maturity. The spectrum of People Analytics maturity consists of four stages: Descriptive Analytics: Organizations at this stage use basic HR metrics to describe what has happened in the past, such as headcount, turnover, and time to fill vacancies. Diagnostic Analytics: At this stage, organizations use data to diagnose the reasons behind HR-related issues, such as high turnover or low productivity. Diagnostic analytics involves identifying patterns and relationships in data to understand the root causes of problems. Predictive Analytics: Organizations at this stage use data and AI to predict future HR trends and outcomes, such as workforce demand and supply, turnover, and performance. Predictive analytics enables organizations to take proactive measures to address potential issues before they occur. Prescriptive Analytics: Organizations at this stage use data and AI to prescribe specific actions to improve HR outcomes. Prescriptive analytics involves recommending specific HR interventions to achieve specific goals and objectives, such as training and development programs or employee engagement initiatives. Leveraging the Latest People Analytics Solutions The latest People Analytics solutions enable organizations to delve deeper into the behavioral aspects of work, better understand the cause-effect relationship between various human and non-human aspects at work, and make data-driven decisions. There are three key points to make the most of a People Analytics solution: Identify and quantify the relevant data to be analyzed. Stay updated on the latest industry trends. Create clear end goals when implementing these solutions. Additionally, HR professionals must continually update and upskill their knowledge and capabilities to ensure that the organisation can optimise the latest people analytics offers and effectively leverage the latest trends for a more productive and satisfied workforce. Why One Model Beats The Competition One Model stands out as the best-in-class People Analytics solution on the market. With its comprehensive platform, organizations gain access to a robust suite of tools and features designed to streamline data collection, analysis, and visualization. The customizable nature of One Model empowers HR teams to tailor their analytics needs to fit their unique requirements, enabling them to extract actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making. Unlock the full potential of your HR analytics capabilities with One Model. Book a demo today to discover how One Model can revolutionize your People Analytics journey, helping you uncover valuable workforce insights and propel your organization towards greater success. Request Your Time to Meet with Us.
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6 min read
Dennis Behrman
The One Model team just returned from Las Vegas after an exciting HR Tech 2023. We launched some new products, evangelized the basics of connecting data from around the organization, and partied with our new partner Lightcast. Watch our team recap and see some fun images from our time at the show or scroll down to read our takeaways. Great Minds in HR Tech Shared a Ton of Insights HR Tech 2023 offered something for everyone, across many roles. It was great to see so many HR analytics and people analytics evangelists and enthusiasts. It's an inclusive community that offered incredible diversity of thought and experience. My colleague Richard Rosenow noted that an evolution of the field was actively taking place at HR Tech, specifically toward model governance. I personally told dozens of visitors to our booth that sooner or later, regulators and auditors are going to be asking questions about how a decision was made. Leaders in that room should be prepared to show every aspect of their data-driven decision process in a trustworthy and explainable way. Our HR Tech Conversations from the Expo Hall Check out our entire event interview playlist on Youtube. We Felt the Energy of HR Tech An event in Vegas always has a high level of energy, but our feeling was that organizations are buzzing about the opportunity to build the very best workforce through productivity and well-being. Most people know that people analytics is the path to every workforce story. About 70% of the folks we spoke with said their team is interested in People Analytics and were actively looking for solutions that provide great insights. Do the Basics Right There was so much talk about skills and generative AI, but many companies haven't finished with the basics of enterprise data orchestration. Many companies still struggle organize all of their people data. The cool stuff is difficult or impossible without a data foundation of well-connected enterprise systems. Lots of Hype Around Generative AI It seemed as though most software vendors were discussing their own generative AI technologies. I felt some enthusiasm from would-be technology buyers, but most are rightfully concerned about transparency and accountability as AI regulations become more likely. Most vendors have a very common large language model implemented, but we've seen analysis that shows generative AI isn't a reliable interpreter of quantitative data. In that study, only 70% of the answers that the AI generated were correct. So Many Opportunities for Fun One Model really allows our customers to get out of the late-night data crunching and come out and have a good time. Several companies were so excited about the prospect of having a scalable people analytics solution that they even joined us and our partners at a special VIP event. So, if late-night data crunching is your current reality, it's time to explore the capabilities of One Model. Continue your People Analytics journey with One Model. Schedule a demo!
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9 min read
Stephen Haigh
As a people analytics professional, you may be tasked with explaining the business case for a people analytics solution to your coworkers and leadership. To do this, you must be prepared to address any potential objections they may have. If you're wondering how to sell your ideas up the chain of command or across departments, here are some tips to help you prepare for those conversations, navigate any obstacles, and bring the right people analytics platform into your organisation: Talking to your CFO and CIO Most HR leaders already understand the importance of people analytics. The leaders who typically create the most hurdles for investing in people analytics are CFOs and CIOs. Let’s explore each. Discussing people analytics solutions with your CFO CFOs are most concerned about budget and how the expense will impact the company’s bottom line. Suppose a budget has not been secured yet. In that case, it will be challenging to convince the CFO to invest in people analytics solutions when the company already spends a significant amount on other platforms. Therefore, you need to restructure your business case as an investment that will lower the overall people expense by giving insights into areas that deliver clear ROI such as reducing attrition, informing the talent acquisition efforts across internal and external resource, feeding a more data led workforce planning strategy and equipping people leaders with the insights they need to make their area of the business more efficient. Connecting business benefits to a return on investment is key. Discussing people analytics solutions with your CIO or CTO Generally, technology leaders of larger organisations want their tech teams to be building the company’s tech solutions. They don’t want their resources to go overlooked or underutilised. So it's understandable that CIOs or CTOs might be concerned about purchasing a product that they don't have to build themselves. They may also have reservations about the new solution’s level of security and compliance. To address these concerns, it's important to emphasise that investing in people analytics software, like One Model, doesn't mean giving up control of the data transformation process. Instead, it allows tech teams to focus on other critical tasks across the business. A few quick conversations with key members of that team will let you know which benefits to focus on when positioning to leadership. Whether you’re talking to a CFO or CIO, the best way to build an effective business case for people analytics is to understand your audience’s concerns and needs. Let’s go over strategies to make your conversations the best they can be: How to Build Your HR Analytics Business Case 1. Work on your positioning. To successfully advocate for people analytics in the workplace, practising and refining your approach is important. This means anticipating potential objections from your manager as well as your cross-functional colleagues and proactively addressing those concerns in your discussions. The best way to uncover these is to ask them some casual questions one-on-one like, “Have you heard of people analytics? What do you think about it?” As we mentioned earlier, you need to know your audience and understand what they need to hear to fully embrace your ideas. You also need to consider what they don’t need to hear. Ask yourself, what are the top three points they need to hear and structure your conversations around that key information? Need help with your positioning? We'd love to help! Connect with us today. Many HR leaders know their reputation is on the line when choosing an enterprise solution. Some go with the most popular tool, but popularity doesn’t necessarily ensure performance. 2. Use data to demonstrate potential impact The most critical aspect of creating an HR analytics business case is to demonstrate how investing in it can make an impact on business outcomes such as employee engagement and retention, customer satisfaction, and financial performance. Showcase data points that support your business case for people analytics, such as market trends or research studies conducted by reputable organisations that show the value of HR analytics solutions. For example, generally speaking, each position that turns over can cost an organisation 33% of that position’s annual salary. Do you know how to calculate the cost of turnover at your company? Is that a metric you can pull quickly? If not, it may even be worth explaining how big of a project that is as an example of why investing in a tool is worth the budget. 3. Invite your team to consider the alternatives. You always want what's best for the team and business, so it's important to encourage discussion and be open to alternative options and new ideas. Invite the team to help participate in problem-solving the company's needs by comparing people analytics with a different type of solution. This approach not only invites discussion and debate, but also ensures that everyone feels heard and valued. By working together to co-create solutions, you can achieve better outcomes and win support more easily. Plus, by involving everyone from the beginning, we can build stronger, more cohesive teams committed to the company's shared goals. Talk through the alternative options of DIY, using a pre-canned vendor, or investing in One Model. Present each option's benefits, drawbacks, and value to the team, then encourage an open discussion and friendly debate to persuade your boss and colleagues. 4. Share examples of successful implementations. Circulating case studies and success stories from other organisations is a great way to show the value that people analytics can bring to your business. Show how they overcame similar objections, used data effectively, and achieved tangible business results. 5. Gather Allies You should also identify key allies who can help champion your idea and offer support. Understanding where people will back you up can help you handle objections. Again, the best way to get this support is by having one-on-one conversations starting with open, generalised questions. Additionally, it's important to emphasise how your suggestion to adopt a people analytics solution aligns with the organisation's values and strategy and will ultimately benefit your manager and the company. By carefully considering and addressing these factors, you'll be well-positioned to gain support for your ideas. 6. Focus on benefits, not features. Paint a picture of what life would be like after successfully implementing people analytics within the business — how it could make operations more efficient, cost less time and money (through automation and AI), ensure DE&I goals are met, and improve business outcomes. This will help people visualise and rationalise how HR analytics can benefit the business and make them more likely to buy in. Establishing a framework for moving forward After holding these conversations, the process doesn't necessarily end with a simple approval or rejection. If you get the green light, congratulations are in order! It’s time for you to get to work on implementing a people analytics solution. But if your idea is rejected, don't be discouraged. Most innovators experience numerous rejections before eventually succeeding. Rejection is simply a part of the process, not the end of it. Regardless of the outcome, use this as an opportunity to understand the reasons behind the decision. This requires asking questions and seeking clear feedback from the decision-maker. For acceptances, this will give you points to come back to later down the road. For rejections, understanding their arguments and potential areas of concern will allow you to identify ways you can re-frame your solution differently. Understanding the thought process behind either decision will help you gain support from your ideas in the workplace on future projects. In some cases, this feedback may even prompt the decision-maker to reconsider their position. If nothing else, seeking feedback can create a shared vision and establish a framework for moving forward. If you remain open to collaborating with others and working to address the issues that led to the rejection, there is a greater likelihood that leaders and managers will eventually commit to your idea and get on board. For a great example of another company that had to sell internally and is now winning, read our Tabcorp case study.
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13 min read
Nicholas Garbis
At some point, every successful People Analytics team will develop a meaningful partnership with the Finance organization. Unfortunately, this partnership is usually not easily achieved and it's quite normal for initial alignment efforts to last for a couple of years (or more!). We are delighted to repost this insightful blog post authored by Nicholas Garbis on May 4, 2021. Revisiting his valuable insights will help us all foster a deeper understanding of how HR and Finance can collaborate more effectively. A new or maturing People Analytics team may fail to recognize the effort level required and not prioritize the work needed to establish this critical partnership with Finance. They do so at their own peril. The day will inevitably arrive when a great analytics product from the PA team will be dismissed by senior leaders when they see the foundational headcount numbers do not match. The PA team will be lacking in a clear explanation that is supported by the CFO and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) leaders. But why is this the case? And how can HR and People Analytics teams do a better job of establishing the partnership? Analyzing the analytics conflicts between finance and HR Lack of alignment on workforce data At the heart of the issue is a lack of alignment on the most basic workforce metric: headcount. Both Finance and HR teams are often sharing headcount data with senior leaders. In many companies, the numbers are different. This creates distrust and frustration, and I will contend that, given Finance’s influence in most organizations, the HR team is on the losing end of these collisions. End result is that the organization spends time debating the figures (at a granular level) and misses the opportunity to make talent decisions that support the various company strategies (eg, growth, innovation, cultural reinvention, cost optimization). While headcount is at the foundation, there are several other areas where such disconnects arise and create similar challenges: workforce costs, contingent workers, position management, re-organizations, workforce budgets/plans, movements, etc... Solving the basic headcount alignment is the first step in setting the partnership. Source of the Disconnect: "Headcount Dialects" and "Dialectical Thinking" The disconnect in headcount figures is nearly always one of definition. Strange as it may sound, Finance and HR do not naturally count the workforce in the same way. It's as if there is a 'headcount dialect" that each needs to learn in order to communicate with the other. Therefore, if they have not spent some intentional, focused time on aligning definitions and processes, they will continue to collide with each other (and HR will fail to gain the trust needed to build an analytics/evidence-based culture around workforce decisions). The dialectical thinking challenge is for Finance and HR to recognize that the same data can be presented in (at least) two different ways and both can be simultaneously accurate. It is for the organization to determine which definition is considered "correct" for each anticipated use case (and then stick to that plan). Primary disconnection points Two primary areas of disconnect are the definition of the term “headcount” and whether a cost or organizational hierarchy is being used. Definition of “Headcount”: There are several components of this, underscoring the need for alignment when it comes to finance headcount vs HR headcount. Using Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) or Employee Count: Employees that are working less than full-time are often in the system with FTE values of 1.0 (full-time), 0.5 (half-time), and every range of fraction in between. The Employee Count, on the other hand, will count each employee as 1 (sometimes lightly referred to as a “nose count” to distinguish it from the FTE values). In some companies, interns/co-op employees are in the system with FTE value of 0, even though they are being paid. Determining Which Status Codes are to be Included: Employees are captured in the HR system as being active or inactive, on short-term or long-term leave of absence (LOA, “garden leave”), and any number of custom values that are used to align with the HR processes. In many companies, the FTE values are updated to align with the change in status. Agreeing on which status codes are counted in "headcount" is required for setting the foundation. Organization versus Cost Hierarchy: The headcount data can be rolled up (and broken down) in at least two ways: based on the organization/supervisor hierarchy structure or based on the cost center/financial hierarchy. Each has its unique value, and neither is wrong -- they are simply two representations of the same underlying data. It’s quite common that insufficient time has been spent in aligning, reconciling, and validating these hierarchies and determining which one should be used in which situations. Organization Hierarchy: This is sometimes called the “supervisory hierarchy” and represents “who reports to whom” up the chain of command to the CEO. This hierarchy is representative of how work is being managed and how the workforce is structured. Each supervisor, regardless of who is paying for their team members, is responsible for the productivity, engagement, performance, development, and usually the compensation decisions, too. Viewing headcount through the organization hierarchy will provide headcount values (indicating the number of resources) for each business unit, each central function, etc... The organization hierarchy is appropriate for understanding how work is being done, performance is being managed, the effectiveness of leaders and teams, and all other human capital management concerns. It is also useful in some cost-related analyses such as evaluation and optimization of span-of-control and organization layers. Cost Hierarchy: This is sometimes referred to as “who is paying for whom” and is rarely in perfect alignment with the organization hierarchy. There is a good reason for this, as there are situations when a position in one part of the organization (eg, research & development) is being funded by another (eg, a product or region business unit). In these cases, one leader is paying for the work and the work is being managed by a supervisor within another leader's organization. I have seen "cross-billing" situations going as high as 20% of a given organization. When headcount is shown in a cost hierarchy, it indicates what will hit the general ledger and the financial reporting of the business units. It has a valid and proper place, but it is mostly about accounting, budgeting, and financial planning. Which business unit is right? The truth is that as long as you have all the workforce data accurately captured in the system, everything is right. This sounds trite, but it puts emphasis on the task at hand which is to determine a shared understanding and establish rules for what will be counted and how, which situations will use which variations, and what agreed-upon labeling will be in place for charts/tables shared with others. Some organizations that have a culture of compliance and governance could set this up as part of an HR data governance effort (where headcount and other workforce metrics would be defined, managed, and communicated). Going further, there is a need beyond the Finance and HR/People Analytics leader to socialize whatever is determined as these running rules across the Finance and HR organizations. These teams all need to be aligned. How does One Model help finance and HR collaborate? With a People Analytics solution like One Model in place, the conversations between HR and Finance can be had with much more clarity and speed. This becomes easier because, within One Model all of the workforce data is captured, data quality is managed, and all related dimensions (eg, hierarchies, employee attributes) are available for analysis. Two examples of content that is specifically designed to facilitate the Finance-HR alignment discussions are: Headcount Storyboard. Setting up a storyboard which shows headcount represented in multiple ways: FTEs versus employee counts, variations of which statuses are included/excluded, etc. This information becomes readily comparable with the metric definitions only a click away. Even better, the storyboard can be shared with the Finance and HR partners in the discussion to explore on their own after the session. One Model is the best tool for counting headcount over time. Hierarchy Storyboard. Providing views of the headcount as seen using the supervisor and cost hierarchies side-by-side will help to emphasize that both are simultaneously correct (ie, the grand total is exactly the same). This can also provide an opportunity to investigate some of the situations where the cost and organizational hierarchy are not aligned. In many cases, these situations can be understood. Still, occasionally there are errors from previous reorganizations/transfers which resulted in costing information not being updated for a given employee (or group of employees). With the data in front of the teams, the discussion can move from “Which one is right?” to “Which way should be used when we meet with leaders next time?” When you have One Model, you can bring HR and Finance together faster and more easily ... and that helps you to accelerate your people analytics journey. Need Help Talking to Finance? Let us know you'd like to chat.
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4 min read
Dennis Behrman
Now that many of our customers have complete control and access to their data like never before, they're exploring how to tell better data stories. A fun way to explore this topic is to look at the great examples from the past. Minyard’s example shows us how to tell a story with data Let’s take this example forward to one of history's most famous data stories, Minard’s visualization of Napoleon’s 1812 march into Russia. Edward Tufte, a renowned expert in data visualization, praised Minard's visualization of Napoleon's 1812 march. In his book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information," Tufte referred to Minard's graphic as "probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn”. Although not directly HR (other than in a dark way, a visualization of workforce attrition over time), we can still analyze how this visual fits into the framework of six effective data storytelling elements and apply those lessons to HR storytelling: Business Objective: In the context of HR, the objective was to convey a message and inspire action. Minard's visualization powerfully demonstrates the disastrous consequences of Napoleon's march, highlighting the importance of understanding the impact of decisions on people. Evidence: Minard's visualization uses data from multiple sources, such as the number of soldiers, their geographic locations, and temperature. In HR data storytelling, this would translate to gathering relevant data from various sources like employee engagement surveys, performance metrics, or attrition rates, to support the narrative. Visuals: Minard's visualization is a clear, engaging visual representation of complex data. Similarly, HR professionals should utilize data visualization tools to create visually appealing and easy-to-understand representations of workforce data. Narratives: Minard's map tells the data-informed story of the march's progression and the resulting loss of soldiers. In HR data storytelling, a compelling narrative should weave together the data and insights, making them relatable and memorable for the audience. Interactivity: While Minard's visualization is static, you could imagine leaders in the armed forces looking for cuts of this data by troop category, demographics, and nationality (pre-GDPR). Interactivity would have allowed Minard to engage quickly with the graphic to see different cuts of the data. HR professionals adapt their data stories based on the audience's questions and feedback, making the story more engaging and dynamic. Action: Minard's visualization serves as a cautionary tale, prompting leaders to consider the consequences of their decisions. In HR data storytelling, ending the story with a clear call to action can drive engagement and ensure the story leads to meaningful change within the organization. By analyzing Minard's data storytelling example in the context of the simple six-element storytelling framework, HR professionals can gain valuable insights on how to create data-informed stories that effectively communicate the human impact of organizational decisions and inspire meaningful change. Check out 8 Essential People Analytics Dashboards 1 Image Source Ready to tell better data stories with your people analytics data? Download our Data Storytelling eBook today.
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7 min read
Ryan Sauve
The financial services industry has undergone seismic shifts in recent years, from pandemic-driven changes to remote workforces and economic turmoil to increased emphasis on employee diversity. Financial services HR departments have their hands full as they navigate these unprecedented challenges while striving to ensure employees are kept up-to-date with rapidly evolving markets and technology. Financial services are also notably one of the most important drivers of economic growth and stability and employ millions of people in different roles — from front-line customer service to back-office data entry. Banks, investment banks, and insurance companies (among other financial services) are complex and require various technical and human skills for these roles. Despite this complexity, they have traditionally been managed with little understanding or insight into their workforce, relying on outdated HR systems and manual processes which do not capture the nuances of people’s performance. Until now. To successfully meet the demand for continual reskilling, many finance companies are investing in data visualization and people analytics software to navigate the skills gap, a hybrid work environment, and an ever-changing economic landscape. HR in the World of Finance With the financial industry's pivotal role in steering our economic system, it is of paramount importance to consider HR. Unlike other industries where land, capital, and enterprise are commonly found as equal players alongside labor; within the financial space, there is an outsized reliance on its workforce whether trading, consulting, or selling. This fact has made effective HR work vital in seeing these organizations thrive. By connecting with employees at all levels, from executive board members right through to senior managers (along with those “backstage” workers who ensure things run smoothly), HR ensures efficient working operations necessary for success today and into tomorrow. In general, the most successful companies will be ones that are employees-centric. This means even greater pressure on HR departments. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 64% expect more strain due to increased hybrid work environments, with 18% expecting a significant increase in their workload. As such, people analytics in finance will be a priority for many companies in 2023 and beyond. Hearing From Your Knowledge Workers at Scale A Workplace Culture 2018 report found that 71% of professionals say they would be willing to take a pay cut to work for a company that has a mission they believe in and shared values. In addition, 70% of U.S. workers would not work at a company if they had to tolerate a negative workplace culture. Financial services people analytics provides an opportunity for organizations to gain meaningful insights into their workforce. It allows them to understand how their employees work best and how they can improve engagement levels to drive business performance. People analytics in finance can provide insights into employee performance, engagement levels, and attrition rates, allowing companies to predict how best to deploy their staff to achieve desired outcomes. Identify Burnout and Avoiding Costly Attrition People analytics in the finance services industry is also helping organizations understand their workforce better, enabling them to identify potential burnout risks and intervene before it’s too late. By identifying struggling employees or those at risk of leaving, these firms can take preventative measures such as providing additional support or re-orienting tasks to help avoid costly attrition. Manage Resources and Improve Business Outcomes Financial services companies often have high revenue per employeeaverages due to the complexity of their operations and the specialized skillsets required to perform them. Financial institutions such as banks, investment bankers, and insurance companies require a wide range of technical and human skills to function properly. Financial services are also expensive for customers, meaning that these firms can charge more for their services than other industries. This allows these firms to generate higher revenues from fewer employees than other sectors. Therefore, attrition is more closely related to Business Outcomes than other industries. We’re also under pressure to ensure that our business is fair and equitable. As our industry tends to be more regulated having diversity metrics had hand and even tracking them ensures that we’re hitting the mark. That is exactly why we see so many financial services industries maturing in people analytics faster. I believe this is because they can easily see how this makes them more competitive and improve their bottom line. Nurturing Employee Knowledge and Skills People analytics can also play an important role in helping financial services organizations nurture the knowledge of their employees and ensure they are performing at their peak. By layering talent profiles, learning development metrics and employee backgrounds, firms can create and monitor targeted training programs and development plans to ensure that teams have the right skillsets to meet the ever-evolving demands of the industry. They can even compare trained employees to untrained employees and see how the segments are performing! Finding Top Performers and Improving Retention Strategies Bank HR, in particular, has a great deal to gain from financial services people analytics, as it can be used to identify potential high-performers and groom them for critical roles in the organization. Everyone should have a succession plan. Furthermore, banks can use predictive modeling to identify employees that are at risk of leaving or being poached by competitors, allowing the institution to intervene quickly with retention strategies. Analyzing Data to Understand Customer Experience People analytics can also help finance companies better understand the customer experience by allowing them to correlate employee performance with customer satisfaction. By analyzing data from customer feedback surveys, organizations can identify areas where customers may not be receiving the best service or areas where further staff training might be beneficial. Leveraging HR in the Finance Industry Overall, people analytics provides financial services organizations with a new way to gain insights into their workforce, allowing them to make more informed decisions about how best to utilize their resources and improve overall business outcomes. This helps promote a culture of collaboration and innovation within the organization, as well as providing valuable data to inform decisions about talent acquisition, promotion, and succession planning. By leveraging people analytics strategically, firms can ensure their workforce is able to meet the challenges and opportunities of their dynamic markets. Let’s Talk Finances! Connect with us today.
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5 min read
Joe Grohovsky
"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." - Sun Tzu Complex people analytics (PA) projects risk losing sight of what is profoundly important as they endeavor to fulfill all aspirational requirements. Identifying and delivering business insight is their purpose, not simply fulfilling a stakeholder’s tactical wish list of presentation-layer features. However, far too often PA initiatives are launched with requirements dominated by this tactical wish list without a true appreciation for the value of the metrics contained within each report. The funding and focus involved clearly classify these initiatives as Strategic HR projects. Instead of blindly focusing on what presentation tactics will be used, consider first a strategy for building better insights. These strategic conversations should begin with the number (metric/measure) in question. This number is critical and is the cornerstone for all other discussions. This number should be accurate and meaningful. Everything else within a PA initiative is the tactical positioning of that strategic number. Accuracy Without accurate numbers, a reporting effort is wasted. Ask yourself these questions. Is the number derived from trusted, validated source data? Is the source data modeled specifically for your organization? Does your definition of that number align with what will be provided? These questions are more than simplistic check boxes. Consider Headcount, which is the most basic HR measure. Is it based on the Start of the Period, End of the Period, or Average Daily Headcount? Are retroactive changes accommodated? What will happen when introducing additional data sources such as Engagement or Performance? Are you forced to work with templated data and a rigid data model? Interested in learning how to create a stellar People Data Platform? Read our latest whitepaper to understand the steps your team needs to take to create an analytics-ready data platform that will give your team reliable, accurate information that can help propel your people analytics projects toward success. Meaningfulness Not all numbers are equal or valuable. When considering specific metrics, consider these questions. Is this number important on its own, or does it merely provide context? Is it actionable? Considering the above, an easy analogy would be the numbers a physician uses during a patient’s annual physical examination. Those numbers include things like age, height, weight, blood pressure, etc. Age and height are uncontrollable and immune to any action. However, these numbers still provide valuable context for other numbers. Weight and blood pressure would be considered actionable and the focal point for discussion. Once actionable numbers are identified, ask yourself “So What.” Will this insight drive any internal decisions? If not, it is best to focus elsewhere. These questions will determine meaningfulness. Presentation of Numbers After accurate and meaningful numbers are established, a conversation on presentation tactics can occur. Awareness of internal culture and data consumer preferences is critical in this step. Most PA initiatives serve a broad spectrum of data consumers that may involve: HR Business Partners Analysts Center of Excellence Data Scientists Line of Business Managers Self-Service capabilities Senior Executives Each group is best served by providing varying amounts of support, flexibility, and handholding. Common differences for each group would include the decision to provide a summary or detailed data, the amount of context provided, or the amount of supporting documentation required to establish metric validity. Summary It is understandable that PA professionals become fascinated with whiz-bang features contained within presentation capabilities. Ease of data consumption is important, but please realize that it trails behind generating accurate, meaningful numbers. Storytelling your way through People Analytics without substance supporting you is risky. For examples of impactful HR projects, or information on how One Model approaches this topic, please connect with us.
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6 min read
Richard Rosenow
Once upon a time, in a bustling corporate office, there was a dedicated HR leader who was determined to improve the company's understanding of the workforce. Despite the challenges faced by the HR team, the leader was committed to improving how HR used data for decision-making and decided that getting their workforce data in order so they could make sense of it and analyze it would help the company. Upon researching the space, they decided that investing in a people data platform would best optimize HR processes and bring about positive change. Interested in learning how the HR Leader decided on a people data platform? Check out our whitepaper on the topic to learn more. Download and Read Today The HR leader knew that they needed the support of the other business functions to make this vision a reality. They approached the Data Engineering team, Information Technology team, and Enterprise Analytics team, seeking their assistance in crafting a compelling pitch for the people data platform. "Who will help me gather data and build a strong business case for the people data platform?" the HR leader asked. "Not I," replied the Data Engineering team, busy maintaining complex data pipelines for Finance. "Not I," said the Information Technology team, focused on streamlining the company's vendor landscape. "Not I," responded the Enterprise Analytics team, preoccupied with analyzing key metrics for marketing. Feeling disheartened but undeterred, the HR leader took it upon themselves to build the pitch. They researched the benefits of having a centralized, clean, and well-organized data model, highlighting how a people data platform would enable the HR team to visualize, report on, and analyze HR data effectively. The HR leader emphasized that this investment would not only help HR but would empower the leaders and managers in the company to make data-informed decisions about their workforce. After weeks of hard work, the HR leader completed the pitch but knew that securing the budget wouldn't be easy. They decided to run a pilot project to demonstrate the value of the people data platform to the senior management. "Who will help me with the pilot project to showcase the potential of a people data platform?" the HR leader asked the other business function leaders. "Not I," replied the Data Engineering team, focused on optimizing their data infrastructure. "Not I," said the Information Technology team, busy managing software updates and hardware maintenance. "Not I," responded the Enterprise Analytics team, occupied with supporting the Product team with their dashboards. Undaunted, the HR leader initiated the pilot project on their own, using limited resources and sheer determination. They collected data, created reports, and provided insights that highlighted the platform's potential to revolutionize HR processes. They learned about what was needed to secure HR data and how to best share progress with employees to communicate transparently about the systems. When the pilot project was completed, the HR leader presented the results of the pilot along with their pitch to the senior management. Impressed by the evidence and the potential impact on the company, the senior management team approved a substantial budget for the investment in HR’s very own people data platform. The news spread quickly throughout the company, and soon, the other business functions took notice. Seeing the approved budget, the Data Engineering team, Information Technology team, and Enterprise Analytics team approached the HR leader with newfound enthusiasm. "Can we use your approved budget to build an in-house solution by adding headcount to our teams and activating more licenses on our in-house systems?" they asked, their eyes gleaming with anticipation. The HR leader shook their head and replied, "No, when I asked for your help in building the pitch and running the pilot project, none of you were willing to support the project. I gathered the data, built the business case, executed the pilot, and secured the budget all by myself. This investment is dedicated to the HR team and we will determine how it will be spent on a people data platform." The other business functions couldn't help but feel a pang of regret for not having supported the HR leader earlier. They realized the importance of collaboration and the value of supporting each other's projects. From that day forward, the Data Engineering team, Information Technology team, and Enterprise Analytics team made it a priority to work closely with the HR team, ensuring that the platform launch went off without a hitch and that all departments benefited from the people data platform. The company thrived, as data-driven storytelling spread throughout the company and workforce data was securely and safely distributed to decision-makers, fostering a culture of shared success and mutual support. The moral of the story: Success comes from collaboration and supporting one another, and a company thrives when all its functions work together to support each other’s needs. A bit of a fairy tale ending? Absolutely, but it’s fun to dream. But are you ready to get some help? Reach out to our team for a demo and to learn more about how One Model makes People Analytics easy for HR leaders. You deserve good data and to work with a partner who knows how to help HR get there. We’re here to help.
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6 min read
Eliza Fury
Like many others, data is not a new concept. If you’re anything like me you’ve grown up with it. Whether it was making your first social media account or making your first online order, you’ve played a part in creating and maintaining data. That’s why it’s not surprising to know that data is leading us into the new Industrial Revolution. The difference with this revolution is that it’s taking place on our computers instead of in factories. The one lesson we can take from the old industrial revolution is the need to ensure people are safe within the work environment. Therefore, it's not surprising that HR analytics will be necessary to ensure a business has a vital human touch. Across our globe HR departments are changing to revolutionize the way they meet the growing demand for skilled workers. In a world where everything is digital, it’s essential that companies make the most of technology to stay ahead of the curve and this is no exception when hiring or upskilling current employees. In general, the most successful companies going forward will be ones that are employee-centric. This means greater pressure on HR departments, as evidenced by a recent survey which revealed that 64% expect more strain due to increased hybrid work environments, with 18% expecting a significant increase in their workload. As such, the HR revolution is a priority for many companies. Workforce Analytics vs. People Analytics: The Evolution of HRM On Gartner, workforce analytics is “an advanced set of data analysis tools and metrics for comprehensive workforce performance measurement and improvement”. HR has evolved to include HR analytics which has, in turn, assisted departments in providing organizions with clearer business insights. This means including people analytics and data analytics to get a holistic view of employees and delving deeper by not just looking into output levels but also attempting to identify longer-term trends within teams across multiple locations for better decision-making regarding workforce management. The first step you should know is the importance of individuals and how they are treated within the workplace. Much like our technology, the terminology has grown to reflect our workplace — people analytics, HR analytics, or workforce analytics — has shown the shift away from viewing employees solely through a production-oriented lens toward recognizing their human potential. This involves providing access to career development opportunities along with life support initiatives like vacation leave so that employees can grow both personally and professionally while still contributing positively in meaningful ways at work. HR in the 4th Industrial Revolution The key to unearthing what makes a successful business, is its people and how they are efficiently managed. Successful businesses give back to it’s people by Identifying top performers and rewarding those that give that sprinkle of extra effort. Focusing on people not only leads to higher rates of retention but also enables businesses to recognize potential in employees while they are still in an entry-level position. In the 21st century, companies that use HR analytics are revolutionaries as they can comprehensively evaluate performance. Workplaces are more complex than one perspective. In this employee revolution, data allows individuals to see unacknowledged high performers and use those insights to reward them — a concept that works hand-in-hand with staff retention. This engagement retains employees and saves professionals the cost of effort involved in replacing staff. How to Create a Better Work Environment One way to elevate top performers is to provide them with opportunities for promotion and recognition. A comprehensive people analytics platform can track how individuals react to certain situations, how they engage with tasks, how quickly they learn new skills, and how consistently they perform over time. HR data can catapult your work environment for the better by allowing you to access who is ready for a promotion or deserving of a bonus. In addition to tracking individual performance, people analytics software also provides valuable insights into how teams interact and processes flow within the organization. Managers can use this information to adjust how they divide tasks, form teams, and incentivize their employees. This can help maximize the value of each individual in the team and ensure that everyone feels like a contributing member. HR revolutionary companies can also potentially see methods that have unintentionally lowered effective and committed employees. By utilizing people analytics software over time, companies can look at HR data related to diversity, learning, and employee experience to give them a foundation of what it means to create a positive and cost-effective environment. Powering Your HR Engine to Make Better Decisions Ideally, all companies should be focusing on spearheading the HR evolution. There are no alternatives that are as effective as data-driven insights, whether it’s assessing employee performance or engagement levels, employers can recognize how to maintain teams that enjoy their work environments and learn from your top performers. Ultimately, your team is like an engine within your factory. A business's goal is to keep that engine running. HR analytics allows you to power that engine and make better decisions — because, without a well-oiled machine, no progress can be made.
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9 min read
Chris Butler
A major shift has occurred in Human Resources over the past five years. The world went from a handful of companies experimenting with people analytics - early adopters - to thousands of companies investing in dedicated roles and teams to take on a new way of thinking about Human Resources. What can you learn from the early adopters? Every CHRO who has moved forward with people analytics has some secrets to success. These secrets will help you provide a better, faster way to more effectively deploy HR resources and build a successful organization. Better human resources strategy means better business You need to accept and measure change There will be change. That is the only constant. Change could come from any number of places like new technology, new customers, new leadership, new products, new competition, new market and strategies. You will get maximum benefit from your HR strategy if you accept the reality that change is the only constant - the only certainty is a world of uncertainty. If you want to survive in a world of uncertainty you need to have a process to constantly take in new information to understand changing reality and use this new information to adapt. You need a way to measure to see if your organization is changing in the way that you and your leadership team expect. Change is what people analytics is for. Hire specific talent for a meaningful business advantage The problem is that most HR strategies are far too general to develop any sustainable advantages: “We will hire great people.” Great idea - you and everyone else! You cannot do everything well all the time - as the cost to attract and retain top talent just gets more expensive so you have to choose. You have to choose specifically where you want your business advantage to be and then you have to figure out how to create this advantage through People. In this way we and others may realize that the people's perspective of the business is not necessarily based in “soft stuff”, “political correctness” and administrative minutia, but profound business insights that arise in conjunction with observation and reason. Basically there are two types of insight: that which is not based on any special observable reason and that which is backed by observable reason. In the case of the second type of view, an individual is motivated to examine an insight and investigate its relevance to his or her situation, needs and requirements. Actions are applied after seeing the reason why this insight is advantageous. Change with people, new action, is motivated by new insight; that insight is powered by people analytics. Don’t get led astray by “traditional” HR metrics it is not always clear how to relate HR actions to business impact, and so we settle to monitor activities as a measure of progress which is a traditional metric for success. Measuring progress as activities that have an unknown relationship to current business objectives leads HR into waste. HR is broken into multiple functional centers of excellence (Staffing, Benefits, Compensation, Labor Relations, Talent Management, Organization Design), each with different goals and activities, we end up with hundreds of metrics that do not align with each other and do not drive towards a unified goal. This results in efforts that either have no impact or work against each other, not to mention waste in the process of analytics itself. Because we have not previously devised a single HR metric that has a direct business impact that can be applied universally across organizations and sub organizations, we substitute simplistic measures that while a good intention, may not be a universally good idea, may conflict with other objectives and may not correlate in any way with measurable business impact. This results in the wrong efforts/objectives. Investing heavily in quantitative metrics doesn’t automatically give us solutions. Metrics can usually tell us what’s going wrong, usually not why. The more you invest in quantitative metrics, with a process for qualitative input, the more you end up drowning in a sea of non-actionable data. Create a culture of success Those leaders who want to create a healthy organization or “culture of success” are motivated (or should be motivated) to attain a genuine camaraderie with all people in an organization. When a group of people have a common vision, maintain a sense that they are all in it together, and have compassion for each other then there is nothing that cannot be accomplished. At this juncture, in addition to many great spiritual teachings of varied doctrines, we also have a foundation of great insights in science and engineering and access to those examples and methods. At the heart of it: we analyze people within an organization for benefit to that organization - and that is also the people. It must be both. Useful analysis helps us all understand current reality and take the right actions now to achieve optimal outcomes: an outcome of joint benefit to managers, employees, shareholders and possibly society. A continual reduction in tenacious organizational problems and continual reinforcement of a culture of success is the ultimate result of useful analysis. Disciplined action (as opposed to frantic thrashing) is the benefit of useful analysis. Our concept of a healthy organization is not something physical. Therefore the spread of a healthy culture depends on increasing the depth of understanding of the benefit of new actions to provide strong motivation to pursue those new actions. When we are able to reduce the defects in how we think about people in an organization a healthy culture will naturally increase. Thus, effecting positive transformations in organizations through observation and feedback situation by situation, subdivision by subdivision, manager by manager, and employee by employee is the method we will employ to effect the change we desire. Unlike manufactured goods it should be fairly obvious that culture is not a tangible entity, that it cannot be sold or bought in the marketplace or physically constructed. Watch out for HR constraints (budget, credibility, time) Most of the programs HR watches over have very large budgets. Labor costs are frequently 70% or more of revenue. Benefits may represent 30% or more of labor costs. On an absolute basis these costs increase over time as the employee base grows. Things get sideways when business plan projections get off track and the cost of labor grows faster than revenue or when revenue retracts. It is critical for CHROs to be able to identify—quickly, early, and accurately— whether a project or activity is worth pursuing, rejecting, continuing or dropping so it may protect its commitments and preserve resources for those programs that drive the most value. Besides the obvious constraint of budget, the other constraint is credibility. In order to influence, HR professionals need to hold on to and build on what little credibility they start with. As CHRO you will have to justify HR’s right to have a seat at the business table by demonstrating the business impact of your programs to a CEO, management team or business line head to whom you support. At some stage, you will all be called on to demonstrate progress. Finally, we are all constrained by time. Every minute spent on an activity that is doomed to fail is wasted. HR has historically relied on two categorical measures of progress: how much stuff they are doing and how much people like what they are doing. Yet unfortunately, both of these metrics are unreliable proxies of business impact and both of these lead us down the wrong path—building something that ultimately does not matter, has no impact on the business or worse, the wrong impact. People analytics can be hard First, there is a misconception around how successful earth shattering people analytics get built. The media loves stories of “wunderkind” nerds invading HR who are so smart they helped the moribund HR function (usually at some cool tech company) figure this problem out. The reality, however, rarely plays out quite as simply. Even the unveiling of the hiring algorithms at Google, in Laszlo Bock's words, was years in the making, built on the contributions of many and several incremental innovations (and failures). Second, the classic technology-centric Reporting or “Business Intelligence” approach front-loads some downstream business partner involvement during a “requirements-gathering phase” but leaves most of the HR business partner and business customer validation until after the reporting solution is released. There is a large “middle” when the Analytics function disengages from the ultimate intended users of these reports for months, maybe even a year, while they build and test their solution. Sometimes the solution is rolled out in HR first, just to be sure it is safe for humans before inflicting it on the rest of the organization. Imagine a few wild eyed HR people hiding in the bushes outside the office preparing to jump up on an unexpecting executive on his way into work one morning. During this time, it’s quite possible for the Analytics function to either build too much or be led astray from building anything remotely useful to the organization. Third, People are complex and messy. People are not structural engineering challenges that are within the abilities of an engineer to control precisely. People and organizations are not like machines or computers. There is always a certain degree of uncertainty about the effect of our actions on people and organizations. We try things based on an entirely plausible premise and they fail. Usually we had not factored in or considered the thing or things which made it fail. There are too many variables, too many possibilities and too much change occurring within and all around us. Is this not in some sense the beauty of life? Would you rather take this away? In human systems, failure is not the problem, the problem is failure to learn from the failure. If we want to improve HR we should shift our attention to how we can learn more quickly. These Secrets are the CHRO’s Real Guide to People Analytics People analytics gives CHROs a better, faster way to more effectively deploy HR resources and build successful organizations. People analytics enable better listening, learning, strategic focus, measurable business impact, and rigorous process.
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10 min read
Joe Grohovsky
To help understand why some People Analytics professionals are more successful than others I undertook a worldwide request for insight. I have long held the opinion that 3 basic core competencies were prevalent in successful People Analytics professionals; but to generate a complete profile, I wanted accompanying information on their professional backgrounds, career aspirations, and the organizations who gave them their first People Analytics role. The core competencies referred to are: Close familiarity with the organizations needs and culture Strong people skills An open mind Ultimately my request would suggest the importance of 2 additional factors: Familiarity with data and HR (context) An identified focus (definition of success) Respondent Profile Most respondents were currently working within HR when they assumed their role, though their specific task at the time is unknown. HR was and continues to be the organizational home for most People Analytic roles. Almost half indicated their first People Analytics role emerged gradually from a previous role rather than being specifically created. It was an even split between the first role being a Team of One or not. Two thirds had no specific career path in mind and the same portion feel their careers’ next step will remain within HR. However almost 100% envision People Analytics (PA) being part of their future career, in or out of HR. The greatest self-reported strengths attributable to receiving the People Analytics role were familiarity with data and HR, with technology and math skills also being significant. Lessons Learned If we use SUCCESS and EMBRACING RESULTS separately for scoring, there are 3 areas where lessons can be learned in building our profile: Employee background Availability of People Analytics resources Identification of a specific business problem These lessons are inter-related, but they raise two new questions that are not fully answerable from these results. We can discuss these in our recommendations, but the questions are: Can core competencies overcome deficiencies in the ideal profile? Can a People Analytics role that fails to influence an organization be considered a success? Employee Background No link could be identified between a specific background attribute and success. However, there is a definite link between their background and having their results being embraced. Those respondents who did not have results embraced heavily attributed data familiarity as a strength but had no reported HR strength. Perhaps this was a contextual issue pointing to a weakness in understanding what is important to the company, the correct perspective on HR data, or poor people skills (core competencies). Availability of People Analytic Resources Resource availability seemed to have no impact on success. Slightly more than half of successful respondents were given specific tools, but 40% of successful respondents were provided no team, budget, tools, or other resources. This seems to be another area suggesting the need for core competencies. An open mind may allow the focus to remain on the problem to be solved instead of viewing it from the perspective of an available solution to be used. People skills can empower a professional to leverage resources from other areas of the organization. Identification of a Specific Business Problem Unsuccessful roles usually lacked an identified business problem to address. Stated another way, there was no stated focus. It is my sense that defining focus is the biggest improvement opportunity for both organizations new to People Analytics as well as those who have been practicing for a while. We have already drawn a link between an employee’s background and results not being embraced. Almost none of those situations had a specific business problem to address, and neither were they considered successful. In addition to pre-identifying business problems, many organizations do find value in exploring data to uncover unknown areas for improvement (focus) and following the insights provided. Predictive modeling is a common example of this in People Analytics. In these circumstances business value is found in both historic metrics such as turnover as well as predictive metrics such as attrition risk. Conclusions If we construct a candidate profile of a successful People Analytics professional whose work was embraced, they would be working within HR and have a well-rounded familiarity with HR, data, technology, and math. Their employer provides a clear definition of success by defining a problem on which to focus. Core competencies they possess allow them to overcome the dearth of any resource need as well as the ability to deftly convey their insights back to their organization in an effective, appreciable manner. It is important to note that these core competencies could possibly exist within a single individual or be spread amongst a team. In initiatives that were not embraced, there are several identifiable trouble spots to address. The most visible is the lack of focus/defined business problem. It is not uncommon to expect data to tell you where to focus, but perhaps this is a distinct skillset beyond the stated core competencies. Another concern is highlighted by unembraced initiatives involving People Analytic professionals who reported strength in data familiarity but no strength in HR. Core competencies may provide the people skills to appropriately share insights. However, the nuance of people data and the HR process seems to be lacking in this subset. This possibly points to the need for some HR functional context or guidance on conveying their message. To summarize, ingredients for a successful People Analytics professional producing results that will be embraced by the organization seem to be: 1) Presence of the stated core competencies Close familiarity with the organizations needs and culture Strong people skills An open mind 2) Familiarity with data and HR (context) 3) An identified focus (definition of success) Recommendations The lack of core competencies in an individual does not necessarily doom a People Analytics initiative, or that individual’s participation in it. This situation can be overcome by using formal or informal teams to ensure each skill set is available. It is also advisable to ensure proper context is in place. This involves more than simply examining how the defined business problem is impacting the organization. The People Analytics professional(s) involved may not have a full awareness of the nuances and breadth of the HR function itself. Perhaps an “HR 101” course could be used to explain the relevance of Recruiting, Learning, Total Rewards, Performance, etc. and why those employee processes and data are unique. An alternative to this could be ensuring an HR expert closely reviews all results before they are shared with the business. Perhaps the most significant recommendation is having a definition of success: an identified business problem was a strong component of successful initiatives. There is also a place for exploring your data to find areas of improvement. Caution should be used, and this is where strong people skills will come into play; without a defined focus, the People Analytics professional will have found a problem that was previously unidentified. Calling attention to it and providing suggestions on its resolution can be interpreted as criticizing an organizational leader and telling them how to do their job. The two questions raised but unanswerable by the provided insights were: Can core competencies overcome deficiencies in the ideal profile? Can a People Analytics role that fails to influence an organization be considered a success? Core competencies are true skills and reflect an ability to get things done. This ability powers People Analytics professionals to find resource alternatives, ideal communication techniques, and relevant focus topics. It is my opinion these competencies do a tremendous job of overcoming any inherent shortcomings in a defined role. We must not settle for simply being right but also strive to be effective. People Analytics cannot be successful when results are unembraced by the organization. The goal of any decision support role is to empower better decision making and provide our data-consumers with relevant insights in a meaningful way. Effective People Analytic professionals base their insights on trustworthy data and irrefutable metrics. This is especially relevant with the burgeoning use of artificial intelligence and predictive modeling. People Analytic professionals would do well to remain skeptical of any predictive model that is not fully transparent, cannot be explained, and is verifiably void of hidden bias. Insight Purpose & Process My insight request occurred as a survey shared among social media and industry websites so as broad an audience as possible could be captured. Participants responded from all global regions and the intent was to create a snapshot in time reflecting circumstances when they undertook their first People Analytics role. These circumstances were then compared with both their success in that role and whether their organization embraced their results. The quest was not driven by simple curiosity but a desire to help identify a replicable profile. My work In the People Analytics technology space involves helping my customers succeed in their role and build a practiced embraced by their organization. This resulting profile will be shared with my customers and used to identify areas where I can help them improve. Where are you in your People Analytics Career or Journey? One Model can provide guidance around all the above profile ingredients, and create a path for you to establish yourself as a People Analytics leader as you move forward. Step 1: One Model can help you define your organization's critical metrics and understand how to present them to various layers of decision makers. Step 2: Our team of data engineers can solve your problem of HR data portability and quickly integrate all relevant customer data sources into one platform. Step 3: Our Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence platform will equip you with a suite of easy-to-use predictive pipelines and data extensions that allow your organization to build, understand, and predict workforce behaviors. If you would like further information on this study or to learn more about One Model, please reach out to me at: Joe Grohovsky | joe.grohovsky@onemodel.co About One Model: One Model delivers a comprehensive people analytics platform to business and HR leaders that integrates data from any HR technology solution with financial and operational data to deliver metrics, storyboard visuals, and advanced analytics through a proprietary AI and machine learning model builder. People data presents unique and complex challenges which the One Model platform simplifies to enable faster, better, evidence-based workforce decisions. Learn more at www.onemodel.co.
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Featured
12 min read
Mike West
This is continued from a "Gloves Off Friday Post" by Mike West on Linkedin Pulse here: How the Best Company Award is Wrong How The Best Companies To Work For Are Ranked. Different newspapers, magazines and institutes have different methodologies to rank order companies, however the thing they have in common is that a large portion of the rating is based on an employee survey. Below is what it states on the Fortune website: "To identify the 100 Best Companies to Work For, each year Fortune partners with Great Place to Work to conduct the most extensive employee survey in corporate America. Two-thirds of a company’s survey score is based on the results of the Trust Index Employee Survey, which is sent to a random sample of employees from each company. This survey asks questions related to employees’ attitudes about management’s credibility, overall job satisfaction, and camaraderie. The other third is based on responses to the Culture Audit, which includes detailed questions about pay and benefit programs and a series of open-ended questions about hiring practices, methods of internal communication, training, recognition programs, and diversity efforts. Glass Door also bases its rating on survey questions. "To determine the best places to work, Glassdoor looks at company reviews provided by employees between November 13, 2013 and November 2, 2014, in which individuals are asked to consider and rate such factors as overall satisfaction, CEO leadership, career opportunities, compensation, and work-life balance." To the credit of the rating agencies, asking employees at different employers the same questions seems like the fairest and most scientifically valid way to compare employers to each other. How to Game it. Knowing surveys are the most substantial part of the ranking, the key to gaming Best Company to Work For Awards is to know the natural distribution of attitude by employee characteristics and use this information to increase the % of employee surveyed in segments that have higher positive attitude than average, while decreasing the sample rate in those with lower positive attitude than average. Relatively unsophisticated rating agencies, such as local newspapers, could easily be exploited in this manner. On the other hand some rating agencies, like Fortune and the "Great Company to Work For Institute" will reply to this with, "we use a random sample". Unscrupulous HR bosses do not be deterred. While using a "random sample" seems like a great way to prevent manipulation, this too can be beat. The unscrupulous HR boss could beat random sampling by proportionally manipulating the quantity of email addresses from different segments he/she provided to the rating agency (determined by an understanding of the natural response of varied segments) and/or he/she could just filter which emails allowed to pass through the email server. To be clear - I am making a point - I am not suggesting a company should cheat, however if a company wanted to do so this would be how they could do so without directly standing behind employees shoulders while they fill out the survey or offering to throw pizza parties for the groups with the highest results. By the way, you better believe that some companies and managers DO do things like that. I am not aware of a specific circumstance where a company has deliberately manipulated a survey process, however I am aware of circumstances where companies have benefited indirectly without the knowledge of the rating agency. Here is the Problem. How positively people respond to questions at their employer varies reliably by certain employee characteristics and these characteristics are not uniformly sampled across all employers. Characteristics that may statistically matter extend from natural demographic distributions (age, gender, ethnicity..), to natural job type distributions (professional, skilled labor and unskilled labor), to natural geographic distributions, to other characteristics we may not even typically record. I left out the most important. The characteristic that I have found to consistently vary between segments by substantial margin, unrelated to the actual quality of the company, is Tenure Group. Company Tenure is calculated something like this (Current Date - Start Date) and is usually grouped something like this (0-1 Year, 1.1 to 3 Years, 3.1 to 5 years, 5.1 years to 10, 10+ Years). What it Looks Like. A typical tenure group pattern looks something like this: Typical Employee Engagement Pattern by time in job It is worth mentioning that Tenure Distribution is at least partly driving geographic and industry differences. You can see this if you consider that the labor market characteristics of geographies and industries have a relationship with the proportional distribution of Company Tenures. Faster growing local economies and industries have lower overall tenure so these populations would also have proportionally more people in low tenure groups. In the graph below note the growth characteristics of our leading industries. Think about the growth characteristics of the industries to the right. See it? PWC 2015 Report PWC 2015 Report Does it Matter That Much? You might say, "Come on!, How much could this problem really matter? Actually a lot! The phenomenon can be observed in rare cases when the #1 Company Award unexplainably flips away from a company in one year and returns to them in a future year. What explains the difference is decreased hiring rate, relative to other nearby companies on the list. Statista This is a little far fetched but the other thing you could do to game the award is to hire a large number of people right before the time of year of the awards and/or right before you apply for the award the first time. I can't say anybody does that to win awards of this nature intentionally, or anyone ever would, but some benefit from a massive growth rate that ensures this will happen for them whether they try to do it or not. Should We Care? "Google has been on the list for 10 years with this being its seventh time at No. 1, thanks to sparking the imagination of its talented and highly compensated workers, and by adding perks to an already dizzying array of freebies ." The first reason we should care is that the companies that win these awards receive substantial press and as a result receive a remarkable increase in the amount of job applicants. Think something akin to a million new applications to Google. If this is coupled with an increased ability to filter job applicant pools to identify high quality candidates then these #1 picked employers have a substantial competitive advantage in ability to select the most highly qualified workers. Further, these employers have a PR gains from which to take key talent away from other companies and keep their own key talent. Another reason we should care is that many organizations try to imitate the "Best Practices" of the companies that are highly ranked on these lists. The companies that want to be like them may unfortunately be imitating characteristics that have no actual relationship to what makes a great company to work for, or the reported survey results and therefore arbitrary. Recall, correlation does not imply causality. Trying to imitate all of the practices of the purported great companies may result in investments that generate no return and simultaneously decrease margin, thus making it more difficult for the imitating company to compete in the future. This could provide substantial advantages to companies that can make the top of the list AND afford to give up a small portion of big margin to spend above average on salary and unusual employee perks. I have written extensively about how Best Practices lead us astray in a prior blog post : 7 Reasons Best Practices Are Not Best For You. What can be done about it? For starters the newspapers, magazines and rating agencies could sample survey responses in tenure groups to ensure an apples to apples comparison. Instead of a random sample this would be called a "Stratified Random Sample". If they really wanted to step up their game they could also just put all of the data into a single multiple regression model, to isolate a company effect from tenure effects and any other variables that may skew results, be they demographic, job related, geography or whatever. This sounds complicated but actually any undergraduate statistics major or any graduate behavioral level science major could run this analysis. Now, as I state repeatedly, I am not suggesting anyone should really try to game the Best Company to Work For Awards, however I can understand why you would want to up your game to truly improve employee engagement and be a truly great employer. The best way to do so is to look across data sets and use the engagement data in increasingly better ways to get better at actually moving engagement. Survey providers are good at managing the process of constructing a good survey and collecting data but provide a very limited view of the data and no survey providers work with their survey data, plus your other data sources to provide a single longitudinal view of the truth. No survey provider maintains ongoing relationship with your sources that adjust with underlying structural changes automatically and that you can query in real time. I know of some employers who can look at survey data in this way, however they cannot do so while maintaining employee confidentiality as a survey provider would. The world is now in luck - One Model can take data from a survey provider (or tool) and join it into a single view of the truth with other employee related data, allowing a longitudinal view, update automatically, and most importantly, can do this while maintain employee confidentiality just a survey provider would (by not allowing you to report data below a sample size threshold) :-) If this interests you, let us know and we would be happy to provide you with a demo so you can see for yourself what sort of new advantages this can give you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a continuation of a "Gloves Off Friday" post : How the Best Company Award is Wrong More like it: Why Josh Bersin is Wrong About Embedded Analytics? The Most Dangerous Technology in HR Today What Your HR Technology Sales Rep Doesn't Want You To Know ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Who is Mike West? Mike's passion is figuring out how to create an analysis strategy for difficult HR problems. Mike has 15 years of experience building People Analytics from the ground up as an employee at the founding of Merck HR Decision Support, PetSmart Talent Analytics, Google People Analytics, Children's Medical (Dallas) HR Analytics, and PeopleAnalyst - the first People Analytics design firm - working with Jawbone, Otsuka and several People Analytics technology startups. Mike is currently the VP of Product Strategy for One Model -the first cloud data warehouse platform designed for People Analytics. Connect with Mike West on Linkedin
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Mike West
# 1 Reason people leave google: to connect with their personal calling to change the world. Ironically, it is also the number one reason people join Google. To be fair, I'm a data guy and I don't have access to their data anymore - so consider these an educated guess. It's great that I haven't seen the data in a long time (fuzzy) because I can speculate without assertions I am sharing secrets. Most importantly you can read the things that Laszlo Bock has to say about what attracts, motivates and retains employees directly from him. I do not believe I am off message at all. Across a number of People data projects we get a big theme : you best attract, engage and retain people by connecting with their passion. The role of the company is to leverage assets to provide support to help people materialize dreams because some of those crazy bets are going to someday hit. Get out of the way Google's head of Engineering, Alan Eustace, once said, "One thing is certain about the next big idea, I probably won't have it." (I paraphrase from memory). They work hard to attract, engage and retain talented employees for this reason. They pay more than lip service to these ideas - they invest big in them. As a result of this effort they have much lower average overall turnover than most companies, and really really low key employee turnover, however even Google can't keep them all. Keeping them all might not even be the right goal (for them, the company or for the world). Here is a human story I worked with the now CEO of Omada Health, Sean Duffy, years ago in the Google People Analytics group. We were analysts. I recall the moment when was accepted to Harvard Medical. He had excitement on his face, I asked him what was going on and he showed me the letter. Looking in his eyes I could see it and said, "I'd bet a million dollars you take it". I was right and I was wrong. He went, but soon thereafter he met up with some other guys and they decided to start a company together. They have been working on it for over 5 years, they have iterated, they raised a lot of money from VCs, and I think they have something. Most importantly I believe they have a unique business model. If I understand their business correctly they don't take money for services up front. They get paid by changing population health outcomes, or if not that precisely, at least there is some kind of reconciliation based on outcomes. They can make money from interested insurance companies, large employers and now, it sounds, from Medicaid/Medicare. This might just be the future of medicine. Historically Google has hired people who were overqualified for their roles : a.) because Google is attractive enough that they can, and b.) because they were betting on the future of this person with the company, not a temporary functional skill-set. The result of that is that you end up with too many individuals in small roles who are chasing too few big roles and you get a jammed up talent funnel. If you are stuck in small thinking, there is no solution. You choose winners and losers. You acknowledge that some of your good people are going to go, and that's o.k. You wish them well and try to maintain good relations through a strong alumni network. However, Google doesn't think small. The most interesting thing for me is to watch the big business changes at Google that I believe may directly stem from people data. One word, many letters : Alphabet. What other company would do this? Crazy? No way. The beauty of Alphabet is many fold. By splintering into many parts Google reaps the following benefits: 1.) Increasing the number of available internal paths to big roles, 2.) clarification of decision making, and 3.) clarification of impact - on an entity level but on an individual level. Opportunity can expand infinitely if you think big. Opportunity + Talent + Resources = an economic engine for the future. Don't take my word, here is what Google Chief Finance Officer said himself : “This belief was the impetus for our organizational structure, which enhances focus on opportunities within Google and across Alphabet, while also pushing our leadership to extend the frontier that we are addressing,” said Alphabet’s chief finance officer, Ruth Porat, in the company’s last earnings call." This quote is taken from the The Atlantic's, "Alphabet, Jigsaw, and the Puzzle of Google's New Brand". Stop a minute and think about this. Google's Chief Finance Officer is talking about organization structure and leadership opportunities as a core component of business strategy. Yes, that just happened. No doubt about it Google's Management team is different. They are also smart, they mean business AND they get people. This is The_New_HR. Say what you will about Google, I believe they have this people growth driver thing pretty much wrapped up if other companies don't get on it fast. Alphabet will allow Google to take apart any industry they want to. Consider this fair warning.
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