10 Key Learnings from the Wharton People Analytics Conference 2023

Since the first edition of the Wharton People Analytics Conference in 2014, the field of people analytics has advanced significantly. The event has undoubtedly played an important role in influencing the field over these ten years and has supported the learning and curiosity of people analytics professionals.

As such, it was a pleasure to be in Philadelphia with some of my Insight222 colleagues for the tenth edition of the Wharton People Analytics Conference at the end of March. Here are my takeaways from an inspirational day of learning, networking, and collaborating.

1. IN-PERSON TRUMPS VIRTUAL

It was the first in-person Wharton PAC since 2019, which made this year’s event even more special. While there are clearly some advantages to virtual conferences - convenience, content, and cost to name but three, nothing quite beats the enriching experience of being in-person. Old friendships were renewed, new acquaintances were made, and the excellent program compiled by Laura Zarrow and her team of Wharton students inspired plenty of discussion and learning.

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2. PEOPLE ANALYTICS HAS COME A LONG WAY IN A DECADE…

The opening session of the event provided an opportunity to look back at the exponential progress the field has made since the first Wharton People Analytics Conference ten years ago. Wharton professor Matthew Bidwell facilitated a discussion with two people who have done more than most to shape the discipline of people analytics: Dawn Klinghoffer , Global Head of People Analytics at Microsoft, and Prasad Setty , formerly Global Head of People Analytics at Google. Reflecting on the last ten years, Dawn surmised that people analytics was not just for HR anymore and that there has been a sea change in the ability of HR organisations to use data, interpret insights and make more informed decisions. Prasad highlighted the importance of context and how reporting directly to the head of HR (as he did in his role at Google) enables the head of people analytics to get the right level of context and access to shape the work and align it to solving actual business problems rather than just performing sophisticated data analysis. Interestingly, our research at Insight222 highlights that since 2020, the percentage of people analytics leaders reporting directly to the chief human resources officer has increased from 13% to 21%.

3. …BUT PEOPLE ANALYTICS STILL HAS SIGNIFICANT ROOM TO SCALE

While people analytics has undoubtedly come a long way, both Dawn and Prasad see the field has significant room to scale. Four Ps were discussed: partnering, productisation, personalisation and privacy. Dawn stressed the importance of partnering with other analytics teams in the business through combining data sets and work, and how this binds the business and HR together empowering people analytics teams to support all employees. Both Dawn and Prasad highlighted that productisation and personalisation are key components in scaling people analytics across the enterprise to support decisions, drive behaviour change and inform career development. Prasad spoke about the importance of privacy as the power of analytics, AI and machine learning becomes more evident, which means people analytics professionals need to ensure fairness through equity based analysis, be mindful of increased regulation, provide transparency, and audit outcomes and processes.

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4. THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS IN PEOPLE ANALYTICS ARE EVOLVING

I particularly enjoyed Prasad’s dissection of the most important skills in people analytics, which he believes with the growth of people analytics have increased from three to four. The first three were: i) Behavioural science, ii) Data science, and iii) Business Analysis / Management consulting, which interestingly were the same three skills we identified in Insight222’s recent People Analytics Trends research that Leading Companies invest in. The fourth skill, Prasad highlighted was product management, which he explained enables people analytics to scale through adopting a product mindset to the development of tools that can be put in the hands of HR, managers and employees. One other important skill, not just for people analytics teams but also HR professionals too is visualisation, and the session led by Amanda Cox, the Head of Special Data Projects at USAFacts , where she highlighted the importance of labelling and the power of coupling words and images together, certainly resonated with the audience. ?

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5. THE ART OF LEADERSHIP

One ingredient that makes Wharton PAC so special is the outside-in element. Yes, it features some of the most innovative, interesting, and impactful examples of people analytics, but crucially, it also showcases examples of work from other fields of analytics, including sports and medicine. As such, Wharton PAC provides an important insight into where people analytics can further develop. This year’s conference featured two compelling sessions from the former CEOs of IBM and Vanguard. In the first session, Ginni Rometty outlined to Adam Grant the five principles of ‘Good Power’ that shaped her tenure as IBM’s CEO during the biggest transformation in its history: be in service of others; build belief (Rometty cited a powerful example of how 100,000 IBMers were equipped with design thinking training in 12 months); know what must change and what must endure; steward good tech; and be resilient. Rometty and Grant also discussed the OneTen initiative to connect black talent to well-paying job opportunities and eliminate the barrier of a college degree. Rometty spoke powerfully of how this changes HR: “Instead of buying talent, you build it.” In their session that followed, on how to cultivate and enact Good Power, professors Ned Wellman and Samir Nurmohamed focused on two of the five principles: what should endure; and resilience. Equally as impressive as Rometty was former Vanguard CEO, Bill McNabb, who in conversation with Annie Duke , walked through the four key people focused metrics he set Vanguard to carve a ten-year path out of the Global Financial Crisis including an employee engagement ratio of 17. McNabb also offered helpful guidance to leaders when the data required to make decisions was either not clear or counterintuitive. He explained that he would gather as many people around him as possible so he could hear many inputs and opinions as this invariably produced clarity, helping to point the path forward. The third example of leadership was provided by Kwesi Adofo-Mensah , General Manager of the Minnesota Vikings who, in discussion with Wharton’s Cade Massey , encapsulated the overlap between analytics and leadership as being the need to be thoughtful and intentional about decisions plus with leadership, the need to add the emotional context. ?

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6. IS GENERATIVE AI THE NEW SEARCH?

Ethan Mollick , Associate Professor of Management at Wharton and Co-Founder of Wharton Interactive, gave a devastatingly powerful demonstration of how GPT-4 and Bing AI can automate tasks, generate insights, enhance creativity, improve communication, and potentially revolutionise work. Indeed, GPT and Generative AI was the perhaps the hottest topic of discussion at the conference. While Generative AI shouldn’t be confused with people analytics, what they share is that both require good questions to thrive. Dawn Klinghoffer and Prasad Setty were both excited about the potential of GPT/GAI. When prompted by Matthew Bidwell, Dawn said that people analytics teams have the opportunity to shape how AI is used for our people while Prasad (formerly of Google, remember!) commented that he hadn’t been so excited about an innovation since the early days of search, and that as well as personalisation GPT/GAI could support how to go from insight to action. Both emphasised the importance of human augmentation and also how it heightens the importance of auditing for bias. The debate between Ginni Rometty and Adam Grant on AI was also fascinating with Rometty emphasising that AI should be a “co-pilot” and the importance of building “trust in the technology”. For more on this topic, I recommend watching this podcast with Ethan Mollick, Allie K. Miller and Adam Grant…

7. AUDITING ALGORITHMS FOR EQUITY AND FAIRNESS

The session before lunch with Cathy O’Neill, CEO of ORCAA and author of the brilliant Weapons of Math Destruction, and Lyle Ungar , Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, on the topic of algorithmic bias was sobering. Cathy reeled off a number of examples of algorithmic bias in hiring, policing sentencing and social media and the repercussions they wreak. Cathy provided some helpful guidance on auditing algorithms for fairness and equity, identifying any short- and long-term impacts, understanding who the algorithm fails (e.g. certain groups), and then taking corrective action. ?Cathy’s call for regulation around algorithms and her recommendation of a few years ago of creating a Hippocratic Oath for data scientists seemed all the more inarguable based on her discussion with Lyle.

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8. IMPROVING CULTURE, WORK, EXPERIENCE, AND WELLBEING

There were several sessions at Wharton PAC highlighting how people analytics can be used to understand and subsequently improve culture, work, experience, and wellbeing. These included:

• Liz Fosslien , who featured on a 2022 episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast (How to Help Your Teams Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay), provided insights from Humu, a Perceptyx Company on what top managers do differently (see FIG 1) and the impact behavioural nudges can have on employee wellbeing, retention, and performance.
• Christina Janzer shared insights from Slack ’s global survey of over 10,000 knowledge workers, and explained to Wharton’s Martine Haas what the results tell us about making hybrid work effective, building for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and measuring success in a digital-first world, calling for experimentation to build trust and connection.
• Lamar Pierce highlighted the link between health and productivity as well as how organisations that prioritise mental health are better able to attract and retain employees. The clear message here is that prioritising mental health in the workplace as a win-win for both organisations and employees.
• In their discussion on employee activism, Sara Steffens and Peter Cappelli reflected on how the pandemic and high-profile examples of social injustice has made many people re-evaluate the role of work, and subsequently heightened employer-employee conflict.

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9. USING DATA TO DRIVE DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION

Examples of how people analytics can have a positive impact on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have long featured at Wharton PAC. Indeed, our research at Insight222 in the last two years, found that DEI is the area where people analytics is adding most value in organisations. Several examples featured at this year’s conference including:

• Lise Vesterlund , co-author of The No Club presented powerful insights highlighting that women volunteer almost 50% more than men to undertake Non-Promotable Tasks, and spend on average 200 hours a year more than men on NPTs. This situation is compounded by (male and female) managers asking women more than men 44% of the time. This can lead to lack of advancement, burnout, and exacerbates pay inequity.
• Nzinga “Zing” Shaw , Chief DEI Officer at The Recording Academy, opened her session with a powerful participative exercise that highlighted that not all levels of diversity are visible. Zing then provided a series of case studies from her own experience of how organisations including Starbucks, Atlanta Hawks, and the NFL have proactively addressed public DEI challenges.

10. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE COMPETITION WINNERS

Another popular feature is the competitions at Wharton PAC as they shine a light on innovation in the field as well as showcasing new talent. For the first time face to face for four years, the number of categories was limited to two:

• White Paper Competition – having had the honour of being one of the judges of the White Paper Competition, I knew the standard was high. The winning entry by Heather Whiteman, Ph.D. and Alex Furman titled The Future of Org1: In Invitae or Out? outlined how Invitae used collaboration networks to determine who should evaluate each employee’s performance. You can access the case study here. Thanks too to Wharton’s Yasaswini Dandu for her immaculate organisation and facilitation.
• Case Competition – the Case Competition saw student teams compete to submit analyses and recommendations for a business challenge posed by Teach For America , long-term partners of Wharton PAC. Indeed, Sean Waldheim explained how previous competition winners had helped Teach for America improve a number of factors related to teacher recruitment and retention. Having seen this year’s winning entry from DASARA (University of Southern California) and the presentation by Seonyeong Park , Kevin T. , Pooja Gotur Sathyanarayana , and Prerna Kothari , I am confident that first Teach for America will reap the benefits once again, and that second the four students have a bright future in people analytics in front of them.

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THANK YOU

Finally, let me finish where I started – conferences are better in-person. The best conferences put networking at the front and centre of proceedings, and this is something at which Wharton PAC excels. Thank you to old friends and new for making it an enriching experience including: Ying Li , Dawn Klinghoffer , Prasad Setty , Laura Zarrow , Matthew Bidwell , Sandy Zou , Marrein Agwaro, MS. MBA. , Sheri Feinzig , Julian Kwok , Tanu Dixit , Alaiddin Nurullah BOYBEY? , Anthony Giusti , Caitlin Satterfield , Christine Winiarz Schmidt , Christine O'Hara , Dat Lai , Heather Whiteman, Ph.D. , Alex Furman , Jessica Smith , Karyn Marciniak, Ph.D. , Lisa Donchak , Liz Fosslien , Matthew Malter Cohen , Nabil Dewsi , Reb Rebele , Vincent Greco, Ph.D , Luke Shaw , Cade Massey , Tyrone Smith Jr. as well as my Insight222 colleagues: Liz Schuller , Dirk Petersen , Jay Dorio and Stefan Kesi? .

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FOR MORE ON WHARTON PAC

The conference always inspires a number of blogs and articles and I’ll add these as they appear in the list below:

• Keep an eye on the?Wharton People Analytics Conference YouTube channel?for videos of some of the speeches from the conference
• Look out for a special Wharton PAC influenced edition of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast in the coming weeks.

BUY EXCELLENCE IN PEOPLE ANALYTICS

It was a humbling experience to see Excellence in People Analytics, the book I co-authored with Jonathan Ferrar on sale at the Penn Bookstore at Wharton PAC (see pic below). If you'd like to order a copy of the book, you should be able to get it from Amazon, Kogan Page Publishing (the publishers - here) and other book stores and sellers.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Green ?????is a globally respected author, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work.?As Managing Partner and Executive Director at?Insight222, he has overall responsibility for the delivery of the Insight222 People Analytics Program, which supports the advancement of people analytics in over 90 global organisations.?Prior to co-founding Insight222, David accumulated over 20 years experience in the human resources and people analytics fields, including as Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations increase value, impact and focus from the wise and ethical use of people analytics.?David also hosts the?Digital HR Leaders Podcast?and is an instructor for Insight222's?myHRfuture Academy. His book, co-authored with Jonathan Ferrar,?Excellence in People Analytics: How to use Workforce Data to Create Business Value?was published in the summer of 2021.

MEET ME AT THESE EVENTS

I'll be speaking about people analytics, the future of work, and data driven HR at a number of upcoming events in 2023:

• 19-20 April -?People Analytics World?(London)
• 11 May -?HR Tech 2023?(Oslo)
• 7 June -?SKILLS by TechWolf?(London)
• 20-21 June?HR4Results?(Sao Paulo)
• 7 September?People Analytics World?(Amsterdam)
• 26-28 September - Insight222 Global Executive Retreat (Colorado, US) - exclusively for member organisations of the?Insight222 People Analytics Program
• 17-18 October -?UNLEASH World?(Paris)

More events will be added at a later date.