Episode 12:
Strategic Enterprise Analytics - Keeping HR Relevant

As People Analytics is growing in data quality, capability and scope, so other departments are beginning to draw workforce data into their own analytics programmes.

Similarly, technology is developing and further permeating business on all levels - from internal messaging to AI-driven insight to the Internet of Things.

All of this is leading some more advanced organisations to begin combining analytics and technology across domains, blending the tools, expertise and initiatives to form a strategic Enterprise Analytics function.

As departments like Marketing, Procurement and Finance are often further ahead in terms of analytics capability and sophistication, the challenge for HR is to step up and assert the importance and usefulness of workforce data in this new, integrated analytics approach.

One of the most recognisable names in HR and Business Analytics, Bernard Marr discusses with Max Blumberg several topics around the outlook for HR and Enterprise Analytics:

• The main trends in Enterprise Analytics, such as fog computing, data minimisation and analytics democratisation
• The application of AI in day-to-day business operations
• How companies apply Enterprise Analytics in practice
• How to maximise the value of data as a strategic asset
• The four pillars of value creation as they apply to HR and the people function.

If this is what your organisation is doing now, what will you need to do in 10 years’ time? If your strategy is to be operating at 50% or 500% of your current size, how can you know what people and skills you will need, and where?

Strategic Workforce Planning is in many ways one of the most complex - and also most essential - fields of HR. Having an optimised workforce that is properly positioned and skilled to handle emerging and anticipated business challenges is of immeasurable benefit to the success of a business strategy. And of course, the converse is equally true.

It is therefore a massive opportunity to demonstrate a real, practical and commercially-beneficial use for workforce data, which delivers exactly what the CEO needs from HR.

One significan challenge in Workforce Planning is for rapid growth or downsizing, since it introduces a lot of unknowns into the equation. How do you anticipate the needs of your organisation when your whole operational structure has transformed entirely?

Clearly, one company that has experienced - and continues to experience - such change is Facebook.

 

In a relatively technical discussion, this week's episode sees Max Blumberg discuss the intricacies of Workforce Planning and its place within the wider People Analytics function of one of the world's most successful enterprises.

• Workforce Planning for high growth
• How Facebook structures its People Analytics function
• The concept of an "optimised workforce" for strategy execution
• Understanding the concept of 'critical workforce segments'
• Understanding internal/external talent supply and demand
• The role of deep statistics and optimisation in People Analytics
• Top tips for setting up advanced People Analytics

Episode 10:
Building Global Enterprise Analytics at Nestlé

This week's episode was recorded live at the People Analytics Forum 2016 in London last November.

 

Being the world's biggest food company, with operations in more countries than the United Nations, Nestlé is never going to be the easiest organisation at which to oversee a global transformation of any kind.

Jordan Pettman led a development team at company HQ to create People Analytics and Workforce Planning tools and methodologies. The success of this project led to the need for a global roll-out for over 300,000 people in 194 countries.

Recorded on camera in the media lounge at People Analytics Forum 2016, Max Blumberg got an unmissable chance to speak in person with Jordan Pettman, and hear his own personal experiences of being at the helm of a project of jaw-dropping scale:

• Creating an enterprise analytics function when you're one of the world's largest companies
• Managing data privacy across regional boundaries
• Dealing with vastly different levels of people analytics maturity and appetite around the world
• Best practices for IT and people analytics collaboration
• And much, much more.

Full video footage coming soon!

Does your organisation have a standard set of definitions for all concepts, relationships and interventions related to your workforce? Does your employee data all fit neatly into pre-defined boxes, with all interconnectivity already clearly mapped out?

No? Well, unsurprisingly, you're not alone.

The goal of standardising HR can seem mirage-like at times, and one could be forgiven for wondering if attempts to impose a framework of logic and statistics on every aspect of Human Capital Management is futile at best.

Nevertheless, most other areas of business operate in precisely this way. As we all know, dealing with humans is very different to dealing with materials and financials. But if the uncountable can be rendered countable, it would mean an immense operational - and consequently strategic - advantage. Effective real-world analytics of any kind relies on precisely this.

 

For the opening episode of the second season of the People Analytics Podcast, Max Blumberg talks with John Boudreau, one of the most recognised names in HR globally.

As Professor of Management at the University of Southern California, and Director of the Center for Effective Organizations, John's work has appeared regularly in the Harvard Business Review, among other similarly prestigious platforms, and his writing and teaching has influenced HR and Organisational Development around the world for decades.

 

In a fascinating interview, they discuss:

• What HR standards really mean for a business
  
  
• How HR practitioners and analysts can use HR standards to improve human capital effectiveness in their organisations
  
  
• Linking people activity to organisational outcomes
  
  
• How you can use supply chain concepts in the recruitment, development and retention of your people.

 

For more information on People Analytics, visit www.peopleanalyticsworld.com

This week, Max Blumberg chats with Niall Cluley, former Global HR Director of Fitness First, about the critical link between culture and employee engagement, and how this ultimately impacts on business performance. Hear his thoughts on why it’s critical to get to grips with the links between engagement and performance, along with his approach and lessons learnt whilst at Fitness First.

In this week’s podcast you’ll hear Niall and Max discuss:

• Why it is critical to get to grips with the links between behaviour and performance
• How HR teams approach this challenge
• A case study of the approach and lessons learnt at Fitness First
• HR and data – what the challenges and opportunities are
• 5 tops tips for measuring and linking engagement to business performance

What if publicly-listed companies had to report their HR metrics like talent capability and training costs in the same way that they reported profit-to-earnings and material investment?

It might sound unrealistic to some, but that view is not shared by the UK government, which has been working with the CIPD, CIMA and several other organisations on a project that aims to achieve precisely that.

The ‘Valuing your Talent’ initiative was the brainchild of Dr. Anthony Hesketh, professor at Lancaster University, and Peter Cheese, head of the CIPD. Dr. Hesketh went on to write the seminal paper that gave birth to the movement, which is slowly gaining momentum among businesses and professional associations.

Max Blumberg talks with Anthony Hesketh about this project, and also with Krysta Gough, who has been working with the CIPD, along with several others (Max included), to help design and implement this coming shake-up in how business views and measures its human capital.

Key questions they will answer:

• Why is a human capital framework important, and who benefits?
• How did ‘Valuing Your Talent’ arise as a concept?
• What has been the response from industry so far?
• What kind of challenges/obstacles/resistance are being faced?
• Will we achieve standardisation when it comes to people metrics?
• Why should companies get involved with VyT? And how can they get involved?

The challenges that HR faces in launching a sustainable People Analytics initiative, from gaining support among key partners and building influence around the organisation, to demonstrating value for them and proving the value of HR as a data-driven function of the business.

A People Analytics project – like any project – that doesn’t have external and senior support is unlikely to get off the ground. It’s essential to identify the key partners and build trust and support around the organisation.

Linda Kennedy has worked in senior HR roles in several major organisations, including SIG plc and T-Mobile. She has successfully launched several such initiatives, and is well-versed in the politics and psychology of lobbying, building influence, and convincing others of the actual and potential value of data-driven HR.

In this episode, she speaks with Max Blumberg – himself a qualified psychologist – about:

• Identifying key partners
• How to get them onside
• The art and science of lobbying
• The role of technology in driving change
• Advice on how to become a more influential player in the organisation.

People Analytics presents one of the greatest opportunities HR has ever had to become a chief driving force in business, but HR has largely not realised this potential. Despite CEOs across the world saying publicly that they need an assertive and data-driven HR department, few HR leaders claim to be making significant progress in this area.

Mark Berry has built People Analytics functions at several companies, and has been recognised as one of the world’s top influencers in HR and in People Analytics. He was recognised an HR Trendsetter by HR Magazine, as well as receiving several other accolades over the last few years.

He talks with David Green about why HR is not delivering on it’s potential in analytics, how the internal dynamics of HR can hamper progress, and what skills and attitudes are needed in the CHRO to allow HR to fully grow into the data-driven organisation the that business desperately needs it to be.

Received wisdom tells us that an engaged workforce is more productive. But how do we quantify this ‘engagement’ in order to measure its effect on performance? How does a company know what to measure, when and how often to measure it, and what value to put on various indicators, in order to be able to analyse this information about the workforce?

In order to demonstrate the ROI of Employee Engagement initiatives, it must be shown that there is a direct impact on business performance. Doing this may be easier said than done.

Peter has worked in senior, global roles at two of the world’s largest companies. Here he shares his perspective with Max Blumberg on where the concept of engagement has come from, what it means in the age of big data and analytics, and how companies can get commercially-useful insight into their workforce that justifies investment in engagement and motivation.

 

4 key questions:

 

1. If people are important to organisations, why is the media so full of stories about companies removing performance reviews (like the Big 4)? Surely it makes sense to review one’s most important assets?

2. Why do companies spend so much on engagement/opinion surveys, but so few seem to act on them? 

3. Are pulse surveys a fad, or something real that we should look forward to in the future?

4. Who really benefits more from a highly engaged workforce: the employees or the people that own the company?

 

with

Peter Wilde

Managing Director, Employee Research
Former Global Head of Employee Insight, Unilever
Former Global Head of Employee Research, UBS
Former Research Executive, Ipsos MORI

and

Max Blumberg

Research Fellow, University of London
Executive Advisor to CIPD
Founder, Blumberg Partnership