The REAL Secret of Successful People Analytics

“I just bought the most powerful food blender used by Gordon Ramsay and I am going to become a world class chef like him!”

Does it work this way? Hell no. But yet I have heard the same stories again and again. Companies told me that they have allocated a big chunk of their annual budgets to invest in the latest data mining tools and artificial intelligence to help gather better insights and run “world class” people analytics. But over time, they realised that their investments are not adding value because no one is really using those “powerful solutions” and they are forced to tear them down.

The truth is, the secret of a successful people analytics function does not lie in technology. It has to add value to others’ work and help solve tangible problems. Unless people are using it to make decisions or do meaningful work, your data models and predictive analytics is nothing but a liability — a cost to the company.

A common misconception is chasing up the analytics value chain. We are often hyped up with the latest technology and thinking that the latest technology will give us the best chance of success. More often than not, we don’t actually use them. I have seen companies build world class data warehouses, run dashboards, build predictive models, but in reality, 95% of the time they are actually just pulling raw data and handling ad hoc requests.

The thing that most companies and analytics teams miss is this — relevant analytics. Being relevant means understanding the needs, the pain points and the priorities, and from there, develop the right solutions around them. That gives analytics solutions direct impact to the underlying motivation.

For example, the company is having higher than expected attrition rates. Instead of showing historical rates and predicting how the attrition will trend for the rest of the year or predicting who will be at risk of leaving next, analytics solutions should be built to study why leavers are leaving and where they are going to. This way, it adds direct impact and the results are insightful and actionable. This is what people analytics should be.

The lesson is, instead of chasing the latest technology, chase value. Successful people analytics teams ask tons of questions, conduct multiple felicitations to find out exactly what the businesses are looking for, before even extracting data from the database. It’s all about solving their problems and adding value to what they do. It’s the recommendations and the insights that are most valuable, not fanciful box plots or colourful pie charts.

Ask lots of questions, most of the time stakeholders are telling you the things they need and not their teething problems. Deep questions, finding out what pains them and what’s really bothering them. Because if we are able to understand their problems and eventually solve them, we add real value and we build better work relationships.

Remember, the trick is adding value, not better technology. Relevant Analytics.

See you soon :)

Richmond