How does behavioural science help to improve the workplace?

We’ve just wrapped up Series 20 of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast at Insight222, which was kindly sponsored by iPsychTec . While the conversation with each of the five guests explored different topics, the one common question for each episode was: How does behavioural science help to improve the workplace?

A summary of each episode together with associated links is provided below – and please feel free to add your own thoughts on the question for the series in the comments section below: How does behavioural science help to improve the workplace?

EP1: DR. NANCY DOYLE - Addressing the Needs of Neurodiverse Individuals in the Workplace

In EP1 of the series, I was joined by Dr. Nancy Doyle, Chief Research Officer at Genius Within and Co-Director at the Centre for Neurodiversity at Work at Birkbeck School of Business.

In our conversation, Nancy and I break down how organisations can understand the needs of neurodiverse individuals, take action and truly benefit from diversity, covering:

• How to build organisations that are inclusive to the needs of neurodivergent people, including the most important touch points in the employee journey that should be addressed
• The business benefits of hiring neurodiverse individuals, including examples from organisations such as Microsoft
• The research that Nancy is currently heading up at the Centre for Neurodiversity at Work, including the intersection of exclusion of autistic people across the globe and autistic people's experience of bringing their authentic selves to work
• How practitioners can stay up to date with research on neurodiversity in the academic sphere

Listen to my conversation with Nancy on Apple, Spotify or your podcast app of choice, by visiting the Digital HR Leaders podcast homepage and clicking the corresponding image.

Connect with Nancy on LinkedIn and Twitter @NancyDoylePsych .

EP2: NIGEL GUENOLE - Why is Organisational Behaviour Important in the Workplace?

In the second episode of series 19, I was joined by Nigel Guenole, director of research and ethics at the Institute of Management at Goldsmiths, University of London – and co-author of The Power of People (along with Jonathan Ferrar and Sheri Feinzig).

Nigel and I discussed:

• How the field of organisational behaviour has evolved, what the value of the field is to the organisation and what some of the new opportunities are
• The capabilities that organisations should build around behavioural science and people analytics and how to do this
• Some of Nigel’s recent research, looking into emerging analytical methods for skills identification and building a skills ontology
• How effective use of behavioural science can help make work more meaningful

Listen to my conversation with Nigel on Apple, Spotify or your podcast app of choice, by visiting the Digital HR Leaders podcast homepage and clicking the corresponding image.

Connect with Nigel on LinkedIn and on Twitter @guenolen .

EP3: HANI NABEEL - How to Measure Culture and Organisational Behaviour

Hani Nabeel, Chief Behavioural Scientist at iPsychTec and architect of behavioural analytics platform CultureScope, joined me for the middle episode of the series.

Hani and I discuss:

• The use of neural thinking, neural technology, and predictive analytics to measure culture
• How to connect culture to business outcomes and demonstrate the value of culture transformation
• Why ‘Culture by Design’ starts with measurement
• How behavioural science brings the people element into the equation
• Case studies from companies who are using CultureScope to tackle culture transformation and measure success including Lloyds Banking Group, EDF Energy and HSBC

Listen to my conversation with Hani on Apple, Spotify or your podcast app of choice, by visiting the Digital HR Leaders podcast homepage and clicking the corresponding image.

Connect with Hani on LinkedIn and Twitter @Nabeel_Hani , and find out more about iPsychTec .

EP4: PLACID JOVER - How Unilever is Creating New Ways of Working for Its Employees

In the penultimate episode of series 20, my guest was Placid Jover. He was one of the first people analytics leaders I met when I first entered the field in 2013. At the time, Placid was VP for HR Organisation Design and People Analytics at Unilever. Today, he is the VP of HR for Latin America at Unilever and continues to be one of the smartest thinkers in our field.

Throughout the episode, Placid and I discuss:

• His perspective on how the people analytics field has evolved over the last decade
• How Unilever is tackling inclusivity, in particular with regards to age and changing workforce demographics
• The innovative new model that Unilever has launched: U-Work - that helps its workforce to work, earn, learn and live differently
• The impact of the pandemic on the advancement of new working models for the future of work

Listen to my conversation with Placid on Apple, Spotify or your podcast app of choice, by visiting the Digital HR Leaders podcast homepage and clicking the corresponding image.

Connect with Placid on LinkedIn, and on Twitter @PlacidOriol . You can also learn more about U-Work here .

EP5: RAVIN JESUTHASAN AND JOHN BOUDREAU - Does the Future of Work Mean Work Without Jobs?

In the final episode of the series, my guests were Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau, authors of a terrific new book: Work Without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work Operating System , which will be published on March 29,2022. In our discussion we explore the key theme of the book - how job deconstruction can help bend the demand side of the work equation through the creation of an agile, flexible, inclusive and resilient new work operating system.

Throughout this episode, Ravin and John explain:

• How they see the future of work and jobs evolving, including the four core principles behind their new ‘work operating system’: i) Start with the work (current and future tasks) and not the existing jobs, ii) Combine humans and automation, iii) Consider the full array of human work engagements, iv) Allow talent to “flow to work” versus being dedicated to fixed, permanent jobs.
• Examples of organisations like Unilever, Providence Health, Genentech and DHL who have already started to move towards this future system
• The impact on leadership of moving to a new work operating system, and what that means for existing leadership behaviours
• What this means for HR, people analytics and society in general
• How you can get started with adopting this new way of working

Listen to my conversation with Ravin and John on Apple, Spotify or your podcast app of choice, by visiting the Digital HR Leaders podcast homepage and clicking the corresponding image.

Connect with Ravin on LinkedIn and Twitter @RavinJesuthasan , with John on LinkedIn and Twitter @JohnWBoudreau , and find out more about Work Without Jobs here .

WATCH THE VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS OF SERIES 20

As well as the full podcast recording of each episode, there are two videos per episode available on the?myHRfuture YouTube channel .?A playlist collating these videos together can be viewed below – with each guest tackling the common question for the series: How does behavioural science help to improve the workplace?

THANK YOU

Thanks to all our guests as well as Bharat Shah and the iPsychTec team for sponsoring Series 20. Additional thanks to Ian Bailie, Manpreet Randhawa and the team at myHRfuture and Insight222 for bringing the podcast to life.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David 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 70 global organisations.?Prior to co-founding Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at?TrustSphere , 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.

SEE ME SPEAK AT THESE EVENTS

I'll be speaking about people analytics, the future of work at a number of upcoming events:

• 25-29 April 2022 -?People Analytics World ?(Online, 25-29Apr; London, 26 Apr)