In Wanda Wallace’s book “You Can’t Know It All” she quotes a mentor telling an aspiring executive “I can’t help you if you don’t come to me with a … Read more
What Differentiates Good From Great HR Departments – Hypothesis Testing
Adapting the title from the famous book, I pose this question to HR leaders: “What differentiates Good from Great HR departments?” In my view, … Read more
Stuck On An Analytics Problem? Search the Research
One of the challenges of people analytics is that we usually don’t have the time, sample size, or expertise to do high-quality studies. For example, we … Read more
When It’s Political, the Data Counts Less (Or Not at All)
An unfortunate weakness of analytics is that data doesn’t resolve arguments. This is disappointing because, often, that’s exactly what we are hoping … Read more
Don’t Ignore What People Say Just Because It’s What People Say
Qualitative data can be tough for evidence-based professionals because the whole idea of evidence-based management is to get away from opinion and focus on … Read more
Use HR Data to Enhance the Employee Experience
Many companies are turning to data to better understand employee interactions, improve collaboration, and optimize engagement efforts all while trying to … Read more
Your Headcount Doesn’t Match Finance’s, So What!
Here’s a question: If a project is likely to have a hugely negative ROI, should we proceed? The answer seems to be yes, if the project is determining why … Read more
10 Reasons Why We Get People Management Wrong
The goal of a people analytics team should be to promote decisions informed by facts. Too often the goal seems to be to do sophisticated analytics for … Read more
Analytics Can Help You Optimize Your Comp Plan In Ways No Survey Can
No field in HR is more numbers driven than compensation, yet it seems to be an area the people analytics team usually overlooks. There is an opportunity … Read more
Analytics Automation Improves HR’s Impact
A couple of decades ago, few business departments had regular access to analytics. However, over time, most business functions have significantly evolved. … Read more
Analytics Can Make Your Branding Campaign More Effective
It’s evident that emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics are driving digital transformation within … Read more
When They Say ‘Just Give Me Everything,’ Don’t
One overlooked part of analytics that I’ve had to introduce to organizations is the idea that leaders need to be good consumers of data. What it takes to … Read more
Do You Know the Difference Between Analyzing and Reporting?
What are analytics and how are they different from reports? Simply summed up: “Reports provide data; analytics provide insight,” which is true, but not … Read more
How L&D Can Have a Bigger Business Impact
Leadership development can produce some surprising behavior. I encountered this phenomenon several years ago when I was VP of learning for a growing SaaS … Read more
In Big Data, Small Findings Can Have a Big Impact. Or Not
In HR analytics we are often so eager to discover something significant in the data that we hesitate to think about the impact of the finding. For example, … Read more
Don’t Be Afraid of Poor Analytics
If you’ve taken any analytics or statistics courses, you’ll have been bombarded with cautions about how analytics can go wrong. For example: Random … Read more
Data Has a Powerful Role In Promoting C-Level Collaboration
“What can you do to increase collaboration between HR and other leaders?” That question was asked of Peter Navin, SVP of employee experience at Grand … Read more
Are You Overlooking the HR Research That’s Already Out There?
Most of the useful data crunching in HR occurred long before the term analytics graced the booths of every darned vendor in the trade shows. That work was … Read more
Data Journalism for HR: A Beginner’s Guide
For the average person, data without a narrative is like a trip into the wilderness without a compass: overwhelming and disorienting. But when the facts … Read more
What Do You Do When You Have Too Many Hypotheses?
The most useful analytics begin with a clear question that is relevant to the business. For example, does it pay to continue to recruit at small … Read more