Key takeaways from Wharton People Analytics conference 2017

Last week I attended the fourth edition of the Wharton People Analytics Conference, hosted by Adam Grant and Cade Massey, in Philadelphia. Here are my key takeaways from a fabulous two days.

#1 Does #WhartonPAC deserve the hype?

I was motivated to attend the conference because of the many superlatives I’d received from practitioners that I respect. #WhartonPAC 2017 didn’t disappoint. The content at times was inspirational, the forum it provided for networking, sharing ideas and learning was superb and I met a number of practitioners who told me that this was the only conference they attend on people analytics. So, yes, the Wharton People Analytics conference is worthy of the hype and that has to be the first key takeaway.

Wharton PAC hosts Adam Grant and Cade Massey discuss the surge of interest in people analytics

#2 Does people analytics help or hinder diversity?

Diversity was a central theme throughout the conference. Maxine Williams, Facebook’s Global Head of Diversity, contested, in a powerful speech sans slides, that people analytics was failing to address the needs of underrepresented (in this case, black and Latino) groups in tech. The problem Williams documented concerned people analysts advising her that the n sizes (number or sample size) are too small for the science to kick in or as Williams put it “if there was more of you, we could tell you why there was so few of you”. The irony, of course, is that means practitioners like Williams have to rely solely on experience and instinct – the very skills that people analytics is supposed to augment and greatly enhance. Whilst qualitative data can help complement the quantitative data that is available, the impact of institutional marginalisation also needs to be weighted. Williams’ call for a “Moneyball for diversity”, at least when it applies to underrepresented groups certainly lay down the gauntlet to delegates, although many I spoke afterwards felt that Williams could have said more about the initiatives, experiments and to a degree successes that have been conducted in the field.

Maxine Williams of Facebook delivers her conference keynote

#3 Inclusiveness, cognitive diversity, salience and a focus on teams

As Arun Sundar writes in this excellent article, which was inspired by the conference, diversity must not simply be regarded as a ‘number’. Indeed as Adam Grant urged in his closing address, it’s not enough to reduce bias. Instead, we need to create experiences that make people empathise. Refreshingly, the conference provided several examples of diversity, and more to the point inclusiveness, in the context of analytics in action:

• Elisa Villanueva, CEO of Teach for America described how diversity, equity and inclusiveness were central to their strategy of hiring, training and supporting teachers for America’s most challenging schools
• Kieran Snyder outlined how her company Textio is helping to change the way people write job descriptions and that if you write gender neutral job posts your time-to-fill drops by two weeks
• Joelle Emerson advocated the need to gather qualitative data when the ‘n’ is too small and how focus groups/interviews can help identify the underlying factors that can bring quantitative data to life, and as Derek Avery added give us a starting point for analytics projects.
• Linda van Leeuwen of Shell’s people analytics team presented her winning entry in the Research Paper Competition on ‘Capturing the salience of diversity attributes from a broader social context’. The failure of previous studies to capture salience, said van Leeuwen, is the reason why diversity research this far has been inconclusive. Certainly, the methodology presented on diversity mapping and fault lines was fascinating and I look forward to reading the final research paper when it is published. For more on the people analytics journey at Shell see here.
• Maxine Williams described how Facebook is working towards cognitive diversity – different ways of thinking based on people having different backgrounds, experiences and information – across all teams in the tech giant. For more on cognitive diversity in teams, see this HBR article.
• Finally, Anita Woolley described her research on team performance and how Collective Intelligence (CI, not to be confused with IQ) is a good predictor of success, with interestingly women tending to score higher on CI then men. Read more on Woolley’s research on CI here.

#4 Do managers matter?

This was the question posed for the project presented at the conference by Dawn Klinghoffer, who leads Microsoft’s people analytics team and Ryan Fuller. For the managers out there – at least those at Microsoft, you can rest easy as the research demonstrated that managers do matter. The findings were fascinating in that it was factors such as managers with large networks, who provide consistent access and one-to-one time whilst promoting collaboration and work-life balance that fostered higher engagement, better performance and a stronger sense of belonging in their employees. Managers who work less hours and who send fewer emails out of work correlated with happier, more productive employees who are better able to manage their work-life balance. For more on Microsoft’s people analytics journey please see my interview with Dawn.

Highlights from Microsoft's Case Study presentation of 'Do managers matter' with top-left Dawn Klinghoffer and Ryan Fuller from Microsoft plus interviewer Martine Haas from Wharton Business School

#5 The importance of trust in people analytics

The majority of the data Microsoft used to investigate if managers matter came from email meta data. For some, this is regarded as ‘creepy’ and the subject of employee trust and privacy was a constant theme throughout the two days. Whenever I speak to practitioners about the challenges they face, trust and privacy is always in the top three. Kieran Snyder summarised it perfectly: “the next decade will define the appetite for privacy versus benefit” and certainly employee trust needs to be placed at the front and centre of any people analytics strategy. Dawn Klinghoffer explained how Microsoft communicated what they were doing and why, as well as laying out the benefits to employees (see this blog by Microsoft CHRO Kathleen Hogan for more on this).

"The next decade will define the appetite for privacy versus benefit"

Kieran Snyder

#6 Outside in – people analytics has a lot to learn

Being the last function of the business to adopt a data-driven approach may be embarrassing but it does mean that providing HR is prepared to put its head above the parapet it can draw plenty of experience and learning from outside the function. Marketing for example, as remarked by Peter Fader, has been fighting the same battle for 30 years. The conference offered plenty of inspiration from elsewhere including from sport and medicine. In his entertaining interview with Dan Pink, Adam Silver (NBA Commissioner) conveyed how analytics has revolutionised basketball across a multitude of areas from the uptake in three-point shots to informing strategies around resting players. Silver revealed that NBA players are equipped with wearables and sleep monitors and that this is accepted as normal - a precursor to the future workplace? Perhaps even more powerfully, Rosalind Picard from MIT spoke to an enthralled audience on how analytics has helped autism and epilepsy patients live more fulfilling and safer lives. The Empatica device that predicts seizures was designed as a result of exploring unexpected data – a prompt as Picard said to dig a little deeper when the data is strange. In a similar vein, a session on applying gaming to people analytics led by Ethan Mollick, revealed how a paediatric oncology game had enabled patients to adopt a more positive mindset - resulting in huge shifts in white blood cell count and other positive immune response indicators (thanks Kieran Snyder for capturing this point).

"Dig a little deeper when the data is strange"

Rosalind Picard | MIT

#7 People analytics is awash with exciting technology

Much of the innovation in the people analytics space is being provided through the vendor community, and many of these firms were present at the conference. The companies that caught my eye (in no particular order) were: TrustSphere, CultureScope, Concentra Analytics, Humanyze, hiQ Labs, Twine, Peakon, Glint and Textio.

#8 Data alone is not enough

Malcolm Gladwell opened the conference with the cautionary tale of the ‘neurotic tortoise’ (see more in this excellent article by Tom Marsden) and the danger of assessment and selection methodology that doesn’t correlate to performance. In his interview with Adam Grant afterwards, Gladwell adopted a pessimistic approach to analytics remarking he is “more worried about becoming too dependent on analytics rather than not being dependent enough” and adding chillingly that he was “not optimistic about how analytics will go in the future”. 24 hours later, in closing the conference, Grant warned of the dangers of having “too much of a good thing” when it comes to analytics and urged the importance for people analytics to be focused on eradicating bias, increasing empathy and reducing defensiveness. As Grant commented, there is a danger that we like the data until it disagrees with what we believe. Instead, we need to get to the point where we express joy when the data shows we are wrong and couple it with judgement to make better decisions. Data alone is not enough. Data augmented with human judgement is the key to better decision-making for the benefit of the business – and for employees.   

I'm more worried about becoming too dependent on analytics rather than not being dependent enough

Malcolm Gladwell

#9 What is the future for People Analytics?

The conference confirmed my thinking beforehand that people analytics is moving towards a second phase of evolution – even if many organisations are yet to even embark on their analytics journey in HR. As well as the focus on teams (see #4) and productivity data (see #5), speakers talked about the use of physiological data to measure health and wellness (Anita Woolley), providing employees with the means to give and receive feedback (Steven Huang), using network analytics to measure employee interaction and collaboration (Kieran Snyder) and measuring the link between organisational loneliness and attrition (Keith McNulty). Several speakers described our increased ability to analyse unstructured data or as Cade Massey put it  “text analysis now is as easy to run as regression”. Finally, Adam Grant spoke of how analytics is being used to improve collaboration and culture from the bottom up. All in all, if people analytics can overcome some of the challenges it faces such as privacy concerns (see #5), HR capability and fear, and institutionalising the practice then the future looks rosy.

"Text analysis now is as easy to run as regression"

Cade Massey

Adam Grant closes the Wharton People Analytics Conference 2017

#10 Congratulations

Finally, I’d like to highlight the competition winners and give thanks to the organisers. Eleven firms participated in the hotly contested Start-up Competition, with the People’s Award going to CultureScope – congratulations to Tom Price-Daniel and Hani Nabeel - the recognition is well deserved. The judges also gave awards to Stellar Employ (two awards for Most Impactful and Best User Experience) and Fama (Most Innovative Use of Data). Congratulations also to Linda van Leeuwen of Shell’s People Analytics team for taking away the spoils in the Research Paper Competition, as well as Andrew Ewbank, Ben Hodges and Justin Jones from Vanderbilt University for their triumph in the Student Case Competition (see more here). Last but not least, congratulations must go to the Wharton School for organising such a great conference – not just to Adam, Cade and Laura Zarrow from the Wharton People Analytics team, but also to the students who did much of the work. Adam highlighted Talia Stein, Gabrielle Levine and Jonathan Tugman. A bright future, hopefully in the people analytics space, awaits.

For more on the Wharton People Analytics Conference:

The conference has already inspired a number of blogs and articles:

• Read Arun Sundar’s blog: "Diversity isn’t a number, it is a state of mind" - thoughts from Wharton People Analytics Conference 2017
• Tom Marsden was inspired by Malcolm Gladwell to write about neurotic tortoises: "Neurotic tortoises" and what they tell us about assessment
• Kieran Snyder provides an excellent overview of the conference and its implications for the future of people analytics: Measuring the immeasurable
• More on the winning entry to the Student Case Competition from students at Vanderbilt University: Vanderbilt MBA Team Wins Wharton PAC Case Competition
• Listen to Cade Massey’s interviews, recorded on the conference floor, with Keith McNulty, Joelle Emerson, Trisha Williams, Matthew Salganik, Sean Waldheim and Kara Chambers & Lee Burbage – Live from the Wharton People Analytics Conference
• Keep an eye on the Wharton People Analytics Conference YouTube channel for videos of some of the speeches from the conference

Finally, the best conferences put networking at the front and centre of proceedings and this is something the Wharton People Analytics conference excelled at. I can’t possibly remember all the people I enjoyed speaking to, but other than some of the names already mentioned I’d like to give a shout out to: Shekar Nalle Pilli Venkateswara, Keith McNulty, Arun Chidambaram, Geetanjali Gamel, Antony Ebelle, Davis Carlin, Bennet Voorhoes, Manish Goel, Bharat Deore, Paul Edelman, Arun Sundar, Ramesh Karpagavinayagam, Ben Waber, Tom Marsden, Carla Arellano, Hani Nabeel, Russ Clarke, Linda van Leeuwen, Rupert Morrison, Dawn Klinghoffer, Tom Price-Daniel, Ben Teusch, Karyn Marciniak, Han Hu, Julian Holmes, Anu D’Souza, Nikhil Srivastava, Ryan Fuller, Jim Bell and Amelia Barker – you all helped make the conference an even more enriching experience for me. See you at #WhartonPAC 5!

Want more #WhartonPAC? - Click on the image above to listen to Cade Massey's interviews from the conference floor

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David is a respected influencer, writer and speaker on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. He was recognised as Best Writer at the 2015 HR Tech Writers’ Awards, and was awarded one of ten LinkedIn Power Profiles for HR in 2016. David’s role as Global Director, People Analytics Solutions at IBM enables him to help clients apply an analytical, insight led and business outcome focused approach to their talent strategies and people decisions.

 David is chairing, speaking and/or attending the following conferences between now and June. If you are going to one of these conferences and would like to meet up with David, please feel free to contact him via LinkedIn:

• hiQ Elevate (Silicon Valley, April 18th 2017)
• People Analytics World (London, April 25-26 2017) - Co-Chair
• HR Norge - HR Analytics 2017 (Oslo, May 31 2017) - Speaker
• HR Tech World San Francisco (San Francisco, June 14-15 2017)

Connect with David on LinkedIn, follow him on Twitter and read his blogs here on LinkedIn and also on HR Tech World and ERE.

Keywords: HR, Human Resources, HR Analytics, People Analytics, Talent, Recruiting, Hiring, Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, HR Metrics, Cost Per Hire, Workforce Analytics, Talent Analytics, Data Driven HR, Employee Engagement, Performance Management, Future of Work, Quality of Hire, Evidence based HR, HR Open Source, #HROS, Cognitive HR, Cognitive Computing, IBM, HR Technology, Flight Risk, Predictive Analytics,