The "employee-employer data-relationship":: Who owns it?

The increased excitement around People Analytics has not only accelerated the adoption of People analytics to mainstream, but the related glamour too. The discipline has started gaining an identity for itself as a ‘function’, far beyond the identity crisis it suffered even a couple of years back. The age of People Analytics leaders is here and their characteristics are far more defined than ever (see here - a very relevant conversation between David Green and Arun Chidambaram, two veterans in this space, on the role of a People Analytics leader) 

Business history has taught us that as a discipline gains identity and ground, its responsibilities too shape-up. The level of responsibility commensurate with the sensitivity and the implication of what the function deals with and the impact – both positive and negative it can create. Given that lens, People Analytics as a function is reaching the cusp of not just opportunity, but of sensitivity and responsibility. However, the champions of the discipline are vociferously focused on the importance and the impact of the function, not as much on the evolving responsibilities it entails.

A simplified perspective of People Analytics involves two fundament aspects – data and approach to data ('approach to data' could be anything as simple as pivot charts, consulting frameworks, technology etc as the tool to uncover insights from this data). Without employee data, there is no people analytics, so it’s the fuel. With PA getting mainstream the focus on the extraction of this fuel is going to explode. We all know who generates this data, but who owns this data? This is a topic which is yet to garner the mind-share it deserves (Gareth Jones provides an interesting perspective here)

I have witnessed both extremes to this question – organizations which explicitly state that the employee data which the employee generates in the context of business or using the organization’s infrastructure or identity is “owned” by the organization. On the other end of the spectrum are employees who believe that anything that is personally identifiable to the individual cannot be subject to any analysis, no matter what it is for. Somewhere in the middle is a perspective that the insights from employee data need to be democratized but all that follows taking employee consent after explaining ‘what data’ and ‘where exactly it is going to be used’, and the use is limited only to that instance. All sides to this debate are emerging fast.

 As the debate evolves I do not think any of these perspectives are stronger than the other to have a sustainable universal stance. If so, can it reach a universal equilibrium? 

An employee’s relationship with an organization has multiple components or facets. These include professional development, aligned values, community impact, value systems etc. As the demand for the fuel (employee data) increases it adds impetus to another vector into this relationship – the ‘employee-employer data relationship’. From this lens, the precise question we are tackling is what that ‘data relationship’ looks like. The nature of that relationship sets the expectations and boundaries.

An analogy that can help us understand this evolution would be the ‘professional development’ facet of the employee-employer relationship. For example, there are organizations which own and take responsibility of the professional development of its people. More often than not it is related to the culture of the land. For example, most traditional organizations in countries like Japan and India (where the community culture is very strong) believe that the responsibility, growth and professional development of an employee is purely its responsibility. The presumption here is that the organizations has ‘adopted’ the employee, it continuously learns about and hence knows what drives the employee and what he is good at. The expectation is that the employee also submits to this approach. The other end of the spectrum has organizations which believe that the employee should charter their own professional growth and the organization will support it if its in lines with its direction. The tenet here is that the employee has a symbiotic relationship of mutual value and the expectations are well understood on both sides (meaning you are fired if your current capability doesn’t help us). Most organizations fall in b/w these two extremes and its decision and description has been parked under the broad arena of ‘Culture’. What culture an organization should embrace is broadly a matter of its own choosing.

So, when a prospective employee asks the question, ‘what is the culture of the organization’, one of the aspects to the question reads ‘how much responsibility will the organization take for my professional development’. Depending on what she expects and what the culture offers, the culture fit gets decided. I believe the evolution of ‘data-relationship’ that employees have with the employer would also take a similar direction. It will be nuanced but will not have a universal equilibrium, and will be specific to every organization. It will get stated, described and deliberated at the start of every ‘employee-employer’ relationship.

As 'employee-employer data-relationship' becomes part of the fabric of an organizations identify (just the way culture did) it needs to be owned and managed (again, the way culture is). As the evolution proceeds, I believe the function or discipline best poised and most responsible for managing this relationship would be the HR analytics/People analytics function.

With data comes knowledge, knowledge gives power, and power comes responsibility. Interesting times! 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arun is a respected influencer, writer, TEDx speaker and a business leader. Arun is the Chief Strategy Officer at TrustSphere, the fast-growing Pioneers of Relationship Analytics. Arun is the Chairman of the Asia Analytics Alliance (A special interest group of Asia Cloud Computing Association), a Board Member with Asia Cloud Computing Association, an ExCo of Singapore IT Federation, a Charter Member of TiE (the world’s largest network of Entrepreneurs and Venture Capitalists) and advisor/board member to multiple technology ventures. Arun is also the founder of the Social Capital Institute (www.thesocialcapitalinstitute.org), a not-for-profit movement built with the mission of evangelizing the concept of ‘Social Capital’ and ‘KarmaSocial Capital’.

Recent relevant media coverage:

Keywords: #PeopleAnalytics #SocialCapital #Analytics #Privacy #BigData #Diversity #Inclusion #WorkplaceCulture #ONA