The best HR & People Analytics articles of August 2020

The end of the summer in the Northern Hemisphere usually means I have a full schedule of business trips lined up until the middle of December. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 is proving to be completely different.

Like probably many of you reading this, I’ve been working exclusively remotely since the middle of March. Whilst I do envisage making the occasional foray into London in the coming weeks, with Covid-19 looking like it will be with us for the foreseeable future, it seems my Zoom calls will be exceeding my air miles for some time to come.

There are a lot of predictions about what the future could look like post-Covid. The truth is (of course) that none of us really know. We can probably say with some degree of certainty that the crisis has accelerated the shift in the way that we work and perhaps in the future that instead of working from home one or two days a week, many of us will instead be working in the office one or two days a week.

For anyone looking for some clues on what the future may look like, I recommend watching this five minute animation on the BBC website, which imagines the office and the home of the future – see: This is what Coronavirus will do to our offices and homes. Contactless technology, a shift away from the city and the return of the cubicle are all on the cards.

Whatever the future holds, it’s fair to say that our organisations are going to have to become more responsive (to customers, to shareholders, to communities and to employees). The first article I’ve highlighted this month from Stacia Garr and Priyanka Mehrotra looks at responsive organisations, provides four lenses around people practices, processes and technologies, and highlights the pivotal role of people analytics. It’s the first of a high-class selection of articles this month.

Three of the other resources below feature Dave Ulrich, Tanuj Kapilashrami and Michael Arena, who will all be speaking at Insight222’s upcoming online Global Executive Retreat on 22-23 September. Their collective wisdom, as exemplified here, is certainly whetting the appetite ahead of what promises to be a memorable couple of days.

Enjoy this month’s collection, share some data driven love with your network and above all – stay safe and healthy.

FUTURE OF WORK

STACIA GARR & PRIYANKA MEHROTRA - The “Now” of Work & People Analytics: Lessons from an Octopus

The latest study from the team at RedThread Research makes the case for organisations to become more responsive and highlights four lenses to implement people practices, processes and technology. The four lenses (see FIG 1) are: Respect, Distributed Authority, Transparency & Growth and Trust. As with the first part of the study, which I featured in June, insights from a number of CHROs and People Analytics leaders are featured including: Michael Arena, Alexis Saussinan, Dawn Klinghoffer, Nick Garbis, Patrick Coolen, Brian Fruchey, Greg Pryor, Blair Hopkins, Marilyn Becker, Thomas Rasmussen and David Burns.

Create trust and transparency in everything you do. Share with employees what you measure and be conscious about it. Employees have to trust and understand what you do, otherwise you will lose them

Patrick Coolen, Global Head of People Analytics, ABN Amro

FIG 1: A model for responsivity (Source: RedThread Research, 2020)

DAVE ULRICH - What if…The Value of an Organization Guidance System | How Well Do You Manage Your "Portfolio” of Organization Effectiveness (HR) Initiatives?

In these two articles, Dave Ulrich unveils the first fruits from 18 months of labour by his team at RBL into studying the potential of an Organizational Guidance System (OGS) designed to shift thinking and actions in companies from being descriptive to prescriptive. Both articles include tools and tables that together introduce a portfolio approach with 180 possible areas of investment to deliver results. What really captures the imagination is the premise that an OGS will help guide HR leaders on which combination of investments will deliver the most optimal results for their specific company.

An organization guidance system (OGS) shifts thinking about and actions in organizations from being descriptive to prescriptive

FIG 2: 12 Key Organisational Capabilities (Source: Dave Ulrich)

JEANNE C. MEISTER & ROBERT H. BROWN - 21 HR Jobs of the Future

With HR increasingly taking a pivotal role in guiding organisations in navigating the future, this study by The Cognizant Center for the Future of Work and Future Workplace, which brought together 100 CHROs, CLOs, and VP’s of talent and workforce transformation to envision how HR’s role might evolve over the next 10 years is worth a read. One of the main findings (see FIG 3) is a list of 21 HR jobs of the future we can expect to see in the next decade. Whilst some of them (e.g. Distraction Prevention Coach) sound decidedly implausible (in 2020 at least), others (e.g.HR Data Detective) seem more realistic. Certainly, the study brings a much needed light-hearted touch to our troubled times. Read the full report here.

FIG 3: 21 HR Jobs of the Future (Source: Cognizant Center for Future of Work)

ANDREW SPENCE - Unleashing The Decentralised Workforce

I’ve known Andy Spence for a few years and his thinking is consistently a few years ahead of the vast majority of analysts and consultants in our space (although his choice of football team leaves something to be desired). In this article, Andy turns his gaze to the decentralised workforce, advocating that as jobs unbundle into tasks, new types of organisations, markets, platforms, and work ecosystems will evolve that are better suited for our needs in the Digital Covid Age. In what is a truly enlightening read, Andy presents ideas, examples and questions for our most important challenge yet - rebuilding resilient, fair, and prosperous societies.

FIG 4: Unleashing the Decentralized Workforce (Source: Andy Spence)

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

ANDREW MARRITT - Employee Segmentation: Probabilistic vs Rules-based Approaches

It is unlikely that every employee can be allocated without any uncertainty to any single segment. When performing workforce segmentation, probabilistic segmentation helps you to understand which segment they’re most likely to be a member of. Andrew Marritt explores the approach in his latest must-read article on segmentation.

FIG 5: Probabilistic segmentations are likely to overlap (Source: Andrew Marritt)

ORGANISATIONAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

ETHAN R. BURRIS, DAWN KLINGHOFFER, ELIZABETH MCCUNE & TANNAZ SATTARI TABRIZI - Can You be Too Well Connected?

In recent research conducted with the People Analytics and Workplace Analytics teams at Microsoft, researchers from the McCombs School of Business examined collaboration patterns gleaned from passive ONA to see how they influenced employee experience. The findings uncover the benefits – and pitfalls – of being well-connected at work.

Being highly connected in an organization comes with clear benefits. Highly connected employees, however, can struggle with work life balance and may be less likely to speak up about this and other potentially sensitive and personal issues.

ADAM MCKINNON & ANDRÉ VERMEIJ - How HR can Apply Network Analysis to Open Data

A thought provoking read on Organisational Network Analysis with a twist from Adam McKinnon and André Vermeij. The twist is that they write about the insights that can be derived when ONA is applied to open source (publicly available data). Their article highlights data sources, where to find them, how to combine datasets and provides three practical uses cases for: i) recruiting through Journal Articles, ii) talent retention during a M&A using Patent Data, and iii) analysing text similarity to drive innovation (see FIG 6).

FIG 6: Text similarity network for identification of technology benefit areas (Source: Adam McKinnon and André Vermeij)

LEARNING

LUC LUTIN - Superlearning: Reskilling, upskilling and outskilling for a future-proof workforce

In a provocative read, Luc Lutin of Deloitte argues that the business value of learning is derived from two forms. The first comes from cost and value, with the second concerned with finding meaning in work, which stems from having a better understanding of the worker. Using these two tenets, Lutin then outlines how to orchestrate a successful transformation in learning including tips on how to build the ecosystem (see FIG 7).

FIG 7: Building the learning ecosystem (Source: Luc Lutin, Deloitte)

ANAND CHOPRA-MCGOWAN & SRINIVAS B. REDDY - COVID-19: How can companies offer effective reskilling for employees?

This article draws on research from the World Economic Forum and BCG, which finds that it can cost as much as six times more to hire from the outside than to build from within. It also highlights that the pandemic means companies are having to rapidly train workers with digital skills to cope with remote working. As such, the practical guidance on what ‘reskilling’ really means, how long it takes and how we can make it a reality for all is as helpful as it is timely.

It can cost as much as six times more to hire from the outside than to build from within

PEOPLE ANALYTICS

MAX BLUMBERG - Increasing People Analytics business impact: A simple core capabilities strategy

In times of great change, how should People Analytics prioritise its activities to maximise impact? The irrepressible Max Blumberg offers a number of good ideas in his article on how to ensure you align people analytics to corporate (as opposed to HR) strategy. Max uses the highly regarded Prahalad & Hamel core capabilities model to illustrate this.

FIG 8: A strategy for prioritising People Analytics investments (Source: Max Blumberg)

GARY MUNRO - The Water Principles: Setting a People Analytics Foundation

One of the articles that caught my eye in 2019 was Katarina Berg’s excellent outline of Spotify’s People Analytics Journey. Picking up the baton, just over one year later, Gary Munro writes about how at the same time as meeting demand from the business, Spotify has continued to build the foundation for people analytics using ‘The Water Principles’: Don’t drown, Don’t water the lawn with bottled water, Clean your water at source and Packaging matters. A highly illuminating read.

Data quality operates in a world of ideals where everything has to be perfect but it’s an unachievable nonsense

HOLGER HÜRTGEN, SEBASTIAN KERKHOFF, JAN LUBATSCHOWSKI & MANUEL MÖLLER - Rethinking AI Talent Strategy as Automated Machine Learning Comes of Age

Do companies still need to hire a large contingent of data scientists to build machine learning models or can Auto Machine Learning (AutoML) reduce the demand for this elusive talent? This McKinsey article examines the case for AutoML, highlights (see FIG 9) how this might impact on the mix of talent in a data science (or people analytics?) team and identifies the six broad steps in the model-development workflow starting with understanding the business challenge and translating it into a mathematical one.

FIG 9: AutoML changes the mix of talent required in a data science team (Source: McKinsey)

ADAM MCKINNON & MONICA ASHTON - A People Analytics Tutorial on Unsupervised Machine Learning - Cluster Analysis in R

A second entry this month for Adam McKinnon, this time in concert with Monica Ashton. Their article provides a practical guide on doing cluster analysis in R to better understand employee turnover – using a publicly available attrition dataset from IBM. One for those looking to improve their technical skills in people analytics.

FIG 10: Source: Adam McKinnon and Monica Ashton

TOBY CULSHAW - Leveraging Talent Intelligence to Address Broad Business Challenges

Too often talent intelligence (or labour market) data is placed into the recruiting pigeon hole, but as Toby Culshaw highlights in his article, it can be used far more broadly to address a number of business challenges. Some of the powerful examples Toby provides include using talent intelligence data to transform the physical footprint of the organisation, as an integral source for competitor analysis as well as to support business transformation and M&A strategy.

This is the time to be bold, be brave, and be a truly strategic partner to our leadership by bringing labor market data to the decision-making table like never before.

CHRISTINA ROSEN - The long, complicated history of “people analytics”

This article from the MIT Technology Review draws on a new book by Jill Lepore ‘If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future’ and tells a cautionary tale about a hitherto forgotten mid-20th Century company called the Simulmatics Corporation and how a mixture of hubris, poor data and disastrous outcomes led to their downfall. The description of Simulmatics as ‘Cold War America’s Cambridge Analytica’ provides a clue into their questionable techniques. The article is a terrific read even if I didn’t agree with the opinion it offers about Humanyze in the opening paragraph. Thanks to John Sumser for highlighting. NB: May require subscription access

ETHICS

TOMAS CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC - Can Surveillance AI Make the Workplace Safe?

Whilst it is possible to protect employees’ health and well-being by digitally monitoring their behaviour, how far should companies go? Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic recommends an ethical approach based on three key premises in his article: “First, organizations should ensure that employees know very clearly what the deal is: what data they are collecting and why. Second, once workers are informed about the process and understand the reasons behind it, they should have a chance to opt out without fear of penalty or, even better, proactively choose to opt in because they see the value of doing so. Third, the employees themselves should benefit from sharing their data and having algorithms analyze their activity.” Tomas then goes on to emphasise the importance of employees being able to trust their leaders (and people analytics teams) when it comes to data, analytics and AI.  

Even well-intended efforts to leverage AI to protect people will backfire if companies don’t have a culture of trust and employees are suspicious of those at the top.

PRODUCTIVITY

NELE VAN BUGGENHOUT, SORAYA MURAT, TOM DE SOUSA - Sustaining productivity in a virtual world

The focus on maintaining productivity levels amongst remote employees has been a huge theme since the start of the crisis and is one that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This article highlights PwC research, which finds that three-quarters of executives judge the forced experiment a success and that productivity levels have increased (see FIG 11). The five ways outlined in the article to help people and businesses thrive in the post-pandemic world of work all strike a chord, but clearly more research is required on the long-term impact of remote working and its impact not just on productivity (or should that be activity?) and other related aspects such as wellness, innovation and collaboration.  

FIG 11: Performance during lockdown (Source: Data from 2,000+ users on PwC’s Perform Plus platform)

DATA CULTURE

CAROLINE STYR - How to Build a Data-Driven Culture in HR?

How do you build a data culture in HR? In research we conducted at Insight222, 82% of respondents across 60 countries strongly agreed that people analytics drives business value, yet only 23% strongly agree that their company is building a data-driven culture in HR. Caroline Styr offers six ideas to build a stronger data culture including segmentation, advocacy, sponsorship and measurement and rounds things off by highlighting Rosa Lee's (now EVP at Bosch, China) explanation of how Bosch built a data driven culture in HR.

HR & COVID-19

SHWETA MODGIL & TANUJ KAPILASHARMI - Focus on employee experience is even more paramount now | MASTUFA AHMED & DONNA MORRIS - Companies that succeed amid COVID-19 will be those that prioritise people | BHAVNA SARIN & DAVID SHONTZ - Tackling COVID-19 with workforce analytics: Nokia's journey

I’m looking forward to speaking at the virtual People Matters TechHR Singapore event on 11th September. Many of the speakers will be addressing how HR has supported their organisations during the pandemic. Three examples are collected here from Tanuj Kapilasharmi (CHRO, Standard Chartered), Donna Morris (CHRO, Walmart) and David Shontz (Head of Workforce Analytics, Nokia). Together they provide a powerful read.  

HR TECH

IAN COOK - How to Develop Better Reskilling Programs and Employee Career Paths | ABDEL-RAHMEN KORICHI - You Don’t Have to Be Scared of People Analytics: A Data Scientist Breaks It Down | JAN REZAB - Is it an Invasion of Privacy for Your Company to Analyze Your Data? Or is it Exactly What You Want | KEN OEHLER - How Covid-19 will impact employee wellbeing in the long term | DIDIER ELZINGA - Working through it: our collective journey through crisis

In this month’s flash round-up of my articles that caught my eye from HR Tech companies, the prolific Ian Cook (Visier) kicks things off by explaining how people analytics can support efforts to reskill workers and create career pathways. Then Abdel-Rahmen Korichi (Panalyt) outlines a methodology for people analytics based on his perspective as a data scientist. Next Jan Rezab (Time is Ltd) looks at the relationship between data privacy and people analytics. Then Ken Oehler (Kincentric) looks at the potential longer-term effects of the pandemic on employee wellness. Finally, Culture Amp’s CEO Didier Elzinga shares insights from the Working Through It journey they embarked on over the course of the past five months.

PODCASTS OF THE MONTH

GORDON FULLER, PAUL ASHCROFT, SIMON BROWN & GARRICK JONES - The Curious Advantage: Curiosity, AI & The Future of Learning | DAVID D’SOUZA & BRUCE DAISLEY – Fewer Predictions, More Experiments – What’s Next With Work? | DAN CABLE & DAVID GREEN - How to help people love what they do at work | SOPHIE RWEGERA KHADHRAOUI - Building a People Analytics Function in a Humanitarian Organisation

Four podcasts for your aural listening pleasure this month. Gordon Fuller, Chief Learning Officer at IBM joins the authors of the Curious Advantage for a fascinating dive into curiosity, AI and the future of learning (see scribe below). Then David D’Souza joins Bruce Daisley for an absorbing episode of the Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat Podcast. Finally, if you’ll forgive my self-indulgence, two episodes from the Summer Special of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast. First, Dan Cable talks culture, job crafting and driving a better employee experience then Sophie Rwegera Khadhraoui provides a number of illuminating insights on how to build a successful people function even with a relatively small team.

VIDEO OF THE MONTH

MICHAEL ARENA - Adaptive Space: Shifting from Human Capital to Social Capital

Following on from his brilliant article on how the shift to virtual working is having a detrimental impact on innovation, this recent presentation by Michael Arena focuses on how social capital and network analytics can help enable creativity, innovation, and novel ideas to flow freely among teams, across departments, and throughout the company.

RESEARCH REPORT OF THE MONTH

BEN WABER | HUMANYZE - Measuring Bias: Ensuring a Continuous and Holistic Strategy for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Ben Waber and Humanyze's recent white paper looks at the impact of bias and discrimination on both those directly affected and the performance of their organisations. The study explores how companies can address bias and create a healthier, more inclusive organisation through continuous measurement of behavioural metrics and key corporate data sources.

CATCH UP ON THE DIGITAL HR LEADERS PODCAST

If you haven't listened to all of the episodes of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, you can catch up now by clicking on the links below.

• Summer Special #5: Sophie Rwegera Khadhraoui - Building a People Analytics Function in a Humanitarian Organisation
• Summer Special #4: Dan Cable - How to help people love what they do at work
• Summer Special #3: Torin Ellis - What is HR's Role in Creating Diverse and Inclusive Organisations?
• Summer Special #2: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic - What is the role of leadership in times of crisis?
• Summer Special #1: Amy Edmondson - How to create Psychological Safety at work
• EP 40: David Green - How can People Analytics drive business value?
• EP 39: Jeremy Shapiro - How People Analytics has progressed in the last ten years
• EP 38: Heather McGowan - How Covid-19 is accelerating the Future of Work
• EP 37: Thomas Rasmussen - How National Australia Bank has scaled People Analytics
• EP 36: Ravin Jesuthasan - Six imperatives for HR in the Future of Work
• BONUS EPISODE: Amit Mohindra & Dawn Klinghoffer - What is the future of People Analytics?
• EP 35: Peter Hinssen - What is the role of HR in driving and enabling innovation?
• EP 34: Bruce Daisley - What do business leaders want from HR?
• EP 33: Dirk Jonker - Why People Analytics needs to behave like a start-up
• EP 32: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic - The role of storytelling in People Analytics and Data Visualisation
• EP 31: Piyush Mathur - How Johnson & Johnson uses People Analytics to drive business outcomes
• BONUS EPISODE - Heather Whiteman, RJ Milnor & Ian Bailie (Live at PAFOW) - How to develop the HR skills of the future
• EP 30: Katy Gray - How Arup uses reward data to drive behavioural change
• EP 29: Uri Ort - What is the future of talent assessment?
• EP 28: Zara Nanu - The role of People Analytics in Gender Pay Analysis
• EP 27: Julia Shaw - How can technology reduce bias in the workplace
• EP 26: Stela Lupushor - How HR can be a Catalyst for Change
• BONUS EPISODE: Volker Jacobs - How to scale Employee Experience
• EP 25: Julie Digby - How HR Drives Transformation and Org Design at Mars
• EP 24: RJ Milnor - How McKesson uses ONA to identify what drives high performance in sales
• EP 23: Rupert Morrison - Rethinking Workforce Planning & Organisation Design
• EP 22: Dawn Klinghoffer - The Evolution of People Analytics at Microsoft
• EP 21: John Boudreau - Reinventing Jobs: The Future of Work and it's impact on HR
• EP 20: Tanuj Kapilashrami - How Standard Chartered designed an exceptional Employee Experience
• EP 19: Anna Tavis: What is Agile HR and how are companies adopting it?
• EP 18: Sarah Johnson: How to use employee surveys to create strategic value
• EP 17: Leena Nair - How HR drives business value at Unilever
• EP 16: Keith McNulty - HR 3.0: more data driven, more agile and more business focused
• EP 15: Jason Corsello - The Shift From HR Tech to Work Tech
• EP 14: Jill Larsen - How does the CHRO successfully partner with the CEO
• EP 13: Frida Polli - How AI and Behavioural Science can reduce bias in recruiting
• EP 12: Ian O'Keefe - The Workforce Analytics journey at JP Morgan Chase
• EP 11: Dave Ulrich - The role of HR in the Digital Age
• EP 10: Jordan Pettman - How Nestlé uses People Analytics to measure Gender Pay Gap and Equity
• EP 9: Catalina Schveninger - The Evolution of Corporate Learning at Vodafone
• EP 8: Richard Collins - How is Automation, AI and Analytics changing recruiting?
• EP 7: Katarina Berg - Spotify's CHRO on Leading HR in a digital world
• EP 6: Nick Holley - How HR can become more business relevant 
• EP 5: Eden Britt - How to build a People Analytics team in a global organisation | The People Analytics journey at HSBC 
• EP 4: Yvette Cameron - How Blockchain will disrupt the Future of Work and HR Technology 
• EP 3: Didier Elzinga - How to Create a Culture First Company 
• EP 2: Edward Houghton - The Head of Research at the CIPD on Driving Business Performance with People Data 
• EP 1: Sharon Doherty - How to transform HR to be more digital and building a culture of diversity

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David is a globally respected writer, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As an Executive Director at Insight222, he helps global organisations create more cultural and economic value through the wise and ethical use of people data and analytics. Prior to joining Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at TrustSphere, David was the Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM Watson Talent. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations embark upon and accelerate their people analytics journeys. David also hosts the Digital HR Leaders Podcast on myHRfuture.