The best HR & People Analytics articles of July 2020

2020 continues to be dominated by the worst global pandemic in a century. With early evidence of a second wave in Europe as well as a surge in cases in India and the Americas, the post-Covid world seems as far away as ever.

Pretty much everyone I talk to who is fortunate to still have a job, tells me that they have never been so busy. That means that it is so important that people try and take some time off work. I’ve just returned from a two-week break with the family in the lovely Aude region of France, and can certainly recommend both the region and the rejuvenating benefit of taking a holiday.

As with June’s collection, the crises of 2020 continue to produce a slew of high-quality writing with a data driven theme, so once again July’s collection has been extended from the usual 12 to 20 articles.

Enjoy, share some data driven love with your network and above all – stay safe and healthy.

HOW HR DRIVES VALUE

BRYAN HANCOCK & BILL SCHANINGER - HR says talent is crucial for performance—and the pandemic proves it

According to McKinsey, the crisis has witnessed ‘HR’s finest hour’ as the function has successfully managed the radical shifts facing workforces in the pandemic. The article outlines five practices for HR to help steer organisations through new ways of working and into the eventual post-Covid era including reskilling, tailoring the employee experience (see FIG 1) and optimising workforce planning.

FIG 1: Communicating change in a remote workplace (Source: McKinsey)

REMOTE WORKING

ETHAN BERNSTEIN, HAYLEY BLUNDEN, ANDREW BRODSKY, WONBIN SOHN & BEN WABER – The implications of working without an office

“What impact has working from home had on productivity and creativity?” That was the question, Ethan Bernstein and his team sought to understand in their study for Harvard Business Review. Findings include that whilst most white-collar workers made the transition to virtual work well: work days are 10-20% longer, communication went up 40% with strong ties but down 10% with weak ties, and underlying concerns remain on areas like onboarding new employees and fostering relationships. The article concludes by examining what work will look like after the pandemic and highlights what organisations that are shifting towards hybrid models are doing including helping employees to “build both work-from-home and work-from-office muscles” and “share the realities — the advantages and disadvantages — of each.” A fascinating and absorbing read.

Since all-virtual work began, employee stress, negative emotions, and task-related conflict have all been steadily falling; each is down at least 10%

MICHAEL ARENA - Innovation Erosion in a Virtual Working Environment

With a number of studies finding that productivity levels have increased as a result of the shift to virtual working, it would be easy to leap to the conclusion that we are ushering in a new work-from-home model. However, according to network science, as Michael Arena highlights in his excellent article, this could be a mistake. Creativity and innovation are stymied with virtual working as bridge connections are rapidly eroded (see FIG 2 for the impact on the network where 30 bridge connections are removed). This is especially so when it comes to generating new ideas and then scaling these innovations across organisations to gain broader support. As Michael concludes: “As HR professionals, we have a responsibility to help our organizations see the whole picture. We need to help them resist the temptation to leap into a new normal of working-from-home without first considering the downside risks to long-term innovations.”

FIG 2: Example of how removing 30 bridge connections causes a healthy network to decay and become fragmented (Source: Michael Arena)

NATALIE SINGER-VELUSH, KEVIN SHERMAN & ERIK ANDERSON – Microsoft analysed data on its newly remote workforce

As the title suggests, this article presents the findings of the analysis Microsoft conducted on its newly remote workforce and what they discovered about meetings, culture, workdays, and engagement. The findings around culture (e.g. the impact of manager check-ins on working hours – see FIG 3), patterns of work (e.g. screen time at lunch and evenings) and meeting frequency and length are all particularly interesting. Unlike other tech companies, Microsoft hasn’t made any big announcements about shifting permanently to virtual working (indeed CEO Satya Nadella has suggested the contrary), so it would be fascinating to understand the differences in what the data is telling the likes of Facebook and Twitter. 

FIG 3: Source: Microsoft Workplace Analytics

THE ROLE OF PEOPLE ANALYTICS IN M&A

SERENA HUANG - Why You Need People Analytics to Achieve Success in M&A and Restructuring Efforts

As Serena Huang highlights, the success of organisational change as a result of a restructure or M&A depends heavily on the speed of integration as well as talent. Organisations are increasingly relying on People Analytics teams to support initiatives in this critical area and Serena’s article outlines several ways in which People Analytics can help drive success. This includes by identifying and then subsequently focusing on critical roles, which Serena uses a model from McKinsey (see FIG 4) to highlight.

 FIG 4: Linking Talent to Value (Source: McKinsey)

SANJA LICINA - How people analytics can contribute to successfully aligning company culture during M&As

In line with Serena Huang’s article, Sanja Licina provides a real-life example of how her company Globant managed the cultural immersion of three different acquisitions leveraging the insights of its own StarMeUp OS digital culture platform to support the journey. The network images (see example for the integration of Globant India in FIG 5 below) are particularly powerful.

FIG 5: Building relationships with Globers (employees) – Globant India (formerly Clarice) is in blue, the rest of Globant is green (Source: Globant / StarMeUp OS)

LEADERSHIP & CULTURE

DAVE ULRICH – Crises are opportunities to lead

Dave Ulrich has always been prolific with regards to the quantity and (more importantly) the quality of content he delivers. Incredibly both the frequency and excellence of Dave’s writing have risen during the crisis. In this article, Dave revisits the Leadership Code he first created together with Norm Smallwood and Kate Sweetman in 2009, revised in 2017 and now updates again to reflect the new leadership insights revealed in the crises. This Leadership Code 3.0, which is shown below in FIG 6 and described in detail in his article, captures ten requirements for discovering and maximising opportunities in crises.

FIG 6: Leadership Code 3.0 (Source: Dave Ulrich)

DONALD SULL, STEFANO TURCONI & CHARLES SULL - When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk?

Fascinating research from Donald Sull and his team at MIT Sloan School of Management on company culture, which provides analysis on the corporate values espoused by 689 large companies (73% list between three and seven corporate values, with the top five being: integrity, collaboration, customer, respect and innovation), how these values vary across industries and whether they live up to these values (through analysis from the 2019 Culture 500). The data shows no correlation between official values and corporate culture (see FIG 7), which raises the question of how leaders can close that gap. The article then goes on to highlight the importance of communicating corporate values effectively as a first step and then provides guidance and examples from the likes of Amazon, Nvidia, McKinsey, HubSpot and Netflix on how to do this well.

FIG 7: Data Shows No Correlation Between Official Values and Corporate Culture (Source: MIT Sloan School of Management)

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

TOMAS CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC - Science explains why unconscious bias training won’t reduce workplace racism. Here’s what will

Similar to Dave Ulrich, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic’s writing during the crisis has been as prolific as it has been brilliant. In this article, Tomas analyses the science behind whether unconscious bias training can eradicate prejudice and discrimination from the workplace, and highlights alternatives that will likely provide better outcomes. To hear more from Tomas, tune in to his recent discussion with me on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast where amongst other themes we talked about the role of leadership in times of crisis.

The hardest thing to influence through any D&I initiative is how people feel about concepts such as gender or race

JOAN WILLIAMS & JAMES WHITE – Update your Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Playbook

As Joan Williams and James White write in this article: “To dismantle structural racism in our organizations, we must change our cultures.” This goes beyond Chief Diversity Officers (CDO), bias training and Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and instead changing the structures that reinforce racism. In the article, Williams and White propose a fresh four-component Diversity, Equity and Inclusion model to do just that including debiasing HR systems and empowering the CDO to make systemic change.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives either need to be led by the CEO, or companies need to empower their Chief Diversity Officer with substantial authority

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

JONATHAN EMMETT, GUNNAR SCHRAH, MATT SCHRIMPER & ALEXANDRA WOOD - COVID-19 and the employee experience: How leaders can seize the moment

A powerful piece by McKinsey proffering that the return phase of the crisis is the perfect time to build on the trust generated through a focus on employee safety in earlier phases by stepping up efforts to tailor and personalise the employee experience (see FIG 8). McKinsey’s research finds that employees who say their organisations have responded particularly well to the crisis are four times more likely to be engaged and six times more likely to report a positive state of well-being.

FIG 8: Four key actions for organisations to build on trust (Source: McKinsey)

JENNIFER FISHER, LEIGH THOMPSON & DAVID SCHONTHAL – How to do Design Thinking better

One of the most popular articles since we started myHRfuture is Ian Bailie’s ‘How to use design thinking in HR’, which provides a strong indication of how HR has shifted towards designing programs together with employees. For those interested in this topic, the practical advice offered here by Thompson and Schonthal on how to apply the four principles of design thinking will likely resonate: i) observe and understand what is happening, ii) frame and reframe, iii) imagine and design, and; iv) build and test solutions.

With any really well-thought-out product, chances are the designers started by asking a different question or solving a different problem than all of their competitors

LEARNING

ANDREW DYER, SUSANNE DYRCHS, ALLISON BAILEY, HANS-PAUL BüRKNER & J.PUCKETT - Why It’s Time to Bring Learning to the C-Suite

A radical report from BCG that recommends company leaders to take two urgent actions. First, to rethink the purpose of corporate learning by giving it a new raison d’être—namely, to improve the business’s performance in a way that enlarges its overall contribution to society. Then second to reinvent the organisation of learning within their business by taking five crucial steps. These include making learning a c-suite priority by taking responsibility out of HR and giving the Chief Learning Officer a seat on the executive board, and a new expanded role (see FIG 9).

The new model of corporate learning will depend on highly digitized AI- and machine-learning-based technology platforms

FIG 9: The new role of the Chief Learning Officer (Source: BCG Henderson Institute)

TALENT MARKETPLACES

CAROLINE STYR - How Companies are using Talent Marketplaces to Promote Internal Mobility

Careers are changing. The era of linear career paths as the #1 form of professional growth is coming to an end. Slowly but surely, “career switches” are becoming less of a surprise (or even concern) as the global workforce acknowledges the rapidly changing job market. What’s more, the spotlight is on lifelong learning to keep employee skillsets – and employees – agile throughout their careers. In this article for myHRfuture, Caroline Styr highlights the importance of internal mobility (see FIG 10) and examines the role of the Talent Marketplace in attracting and retaining top talent, alongside the three components of a culture that supports internal mobility and talent marketplace adoption.

FIG 10: Why internal recruiting matters (Source: LinkedIn Global Talent Trends 2020)

DAVID KIRON, JEFF SCHWARTZ, ROBIN JONES & NATASHA BUCKLEY - Create a Crisis Growth Plan: Start With Opportunity Marketplaces

This article summarises recent research by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, which 2020 highlights the growing use of opportunity marketplaces — systems and platforms that enable talent to access strategically valuable opportunities while building skills and capabilities for themselves. The authors highlight three keys to developing an opportunity marketplace: i) Commit to digital platforms that support opportunity marketplaces, ii) Clear communication and reinforcement of expected behaviour change and; iii) Recognise that opportunity marketplaces are a strategically valuable source of data about your workforce. FIG 11 provides a 2x2 framework to show how organisations and leaders might describe their own opportunity marketplace cultures.

FIG 11: The Worker Agency-Organizational Opportunity Model (Source: MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte)

ANDREW SAIDY & BRUCE ANDERSON - 6 Tactics Schneider Electric Used to Amp Up Internal Mobility

A powerful case study outlining the tactics Schneider Electric employed to develop its internal mobility program, Open Talent Market (see video), which gives employees access to job postings, mentors, training, and part-time projects, creating what the company calls “an internal gig economy.” With the onset of the crisis, the platform allows the company to optimise its workforce by matching managers who don’t have enough manpower with employees who had the capacity and bandwidth to help.  

FUTURE OF ANALYTICS

JEFFREY CAMM, MELISSA BOWERS & TOM DAVENPORT - The Recession’s Impact on Analytics and Data Science

This article looks at whether the Covid-19 crisis and the likely recession that will ensue will have an impact on the huge demand for data scientists and growth of analytics we have seen in the last decade. The authors identify four influences that will impact on analytics investment in the next year with demonstrated ROI, or a lack thereof, likely to be the biggest determining factor in whether organisations will strengthen or contract their data science and analytics efforts.

A centralized group with strong leadership, proven ROI, and C-level support could, in fact, experience an increase in demand

HR TECH

JOHN SUMSER - We Don’t Know If We Can Eliminate Bias From Tech

John Sumser, who has done extensive research on this topic, looks at both sides of the ‘can technology solve bias’ debate: “The tech group assumes that things work better when humans are not involved. The human group assumes that people should be the decision makers when lives and careers are affected.”

STACIA GARR - Why Is SAP Selling Qualtrics? | JOSH BERSIN - SAP To Spin-Off Qualtrics. Yes, The Experience Market Is That Hot

SAP’s $8 billion acquisition of Qualtrics two years ago, which surprised many sages at the time, now looks like a smart piece of business as the Employee Experience market continues to thrive. In July, SAP announced that it plans to take Qualtrics public at some point in the future. Here, two of the leading industry analysts Stacia Garr and Josh Bersin provide their respective takes on what would appear to be another wise move by SAP.

JOSEPH FREED - Why Cognitive Load Could Be The Most Important Employee Experience Metric In The Next 10 Years | BRETT WELLS - As Employees Become More Productive Working From Home, They Are Less Likely To Want To Return To The Physical Workplace After COVID-19 | ROHAN SINHA - The definitive guide to text analysis | RACHEL BOLSU - How to effectively leverage pulse surveys during a crisis | CARLA WILLIAMS - How to Avoid Talent Gaps with Data-Driven Succession Planning | MEREDITH METSKER - How Location Strategy Helps Companies with Expansion and Consolidation

In this month’s round-up of the best articles from HR Tech companies, Joe Freed (Cultivate) kicks off proceedings by outlining why cognitive load is emerging as a key measure of EX. Then Brett Wells (Perceptyx) presents research that finds the percentage of employees who want to return to the physical workplace after COVID-19 dropped from 33% in early April to just 4% at the end of June (see FIG 12). Next Rohan Sinha (Qualtrics) provides an extensive guide on how text analysis software works before Rachel Bolsu (Culture Amp) provides guidance on leveraging pulse surveys during a crisis. Then Carla Williams (Visier) looks at how people analytics can improve succession planning before Meredith Metsker (Emsi) rounds things off by providing a handy guide on location strategy.

 FIG 12: Source: Perceptyx

PODCASTS OF THE MONTH

FRANCES FREI & JACOB MORGAN – How leaders can empower everyone around them | AMY EDMONDSON & DAVID GREEN – How to create psychological safety at work | TORIN ELLIS & DAVID GREEN - What is HR's Role in Creating Diverse and Inclusive Organisations?

Three podcasts for your aural pleasure this month. First up Frances Frei, whose excellent article on trust I featured in the April round-up, talks to Jacob Morgan about why leadership should be about making people better. If you’ll forgive my self-indulgence, the other podcasts are two of the Summer Special episodes of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast. First, Amy Edmondson talks to me about why and how to create psychological safety in the workplace. Then diversity strategist Torin Ellis talks to me about why creating more inclusive and equitable organisations starts with a focus on people.

VIDEO OF THE MONTH

DAWN KLINGHOFFER – How Microsoft uses People Analytics to add value to employees and managers

Dipping into the archive of over 100 videos on the myHRfuture YouTube channel. Here Dawn Klinghoffer, Head of People Analytics at Microsoft, shares a project that she's working on where people analytics is used to add value to employees and managers at Microsoft.

CURATION OF THE MONTH

LITTAL SHEMER HAIM - Ethics In People Analytics And AI At Work – Best Resources

Ethics is perhaps the most important aspect of People Analytics. All of us in the field have a shared responsibility in ensuring that people data is used for good. As such, Littal Shemer Haim’s regular new curation of the best resources on this topic is a must-read. Littal plans to update this link with new content on a monthly basis, so this is a resource to come back to time and time again.

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 #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.