Leveraging Analytics for Human Capital

Management
Aug14

Shyamsundar Anandhan

Defining Analytics

Analytics is the discovery and communication of

meaningful patterns in data. - Definiton

Source: Wikipedia

What is Business Analytics (BA)?

Business analytics (BA) refers to the skills,

technologies, practices for continuous iterative
exploration and investigation of past business
performance to gain insight and drive business
planning

Source: Wikipedia

The Analytics lifecycle culminates with

capabilities that enables business growth
Business Analytics Enablers

Source: Deloitte

The importance of Talent Analytics, a

key cog in the BA wheel
HR is evolving into a data-driven function, with the focus shifting
from simply reporting data to enabling the business to make

informed talent decisions

predict employee performance and
conduct advanced workforce planning
Companies that successfully leverage analytics and big data will be
positioned to outperform their peers in executing their talent strategies.

Value proposition of Talent Analytics

Analytics
provides
insights

Improved
plans

Evidenced
actions

Feedback, measurement and continuous improvement

Analytics
provides
insights

The main firewalls that one has to cross to

implement Talent Analytics

Source: Oracle report on TA

Talent Analytics is an immediate need

but needs organisational readiness
Global trends mapped against urgency (horizontal) and company
readiness (vertical)

Implementation
of talent
analytics is of
high urgency
but low in
readiness

Source: Deloitte

How can organisations employ

Talent Analytics (1/2)
Look for skilled analysts to lead the team
Add profiles like econometricians,
demographers, computer/applied scientists, and
business intelligence specialists.
Create a community of practice where
professionals can share experiences and best
practices.
Equip analysts with HR technology, performance
consulting, visualization, and project
management skills

How can organisations employ

Talent Analytics (2/2)
Identify specific business challenges to be
addressed
Build capabilities by experimenting
Make analytics user-friendly for the entire
organization
Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good

Implications of End-to-end HR analytics

Talent Analytics transforms organisations

by creating high value solutions
Understanding the impact of pay increases to make scientific
decisions on areas to maximize performance
Creating models that understand and predict turnover so managers
can more rapidly change work conditions to prevent attrition
Understanding the characteristics of high-performing sales people
to better select and attract leading candidates
Setting up an internal platform for employees to find new
positions by matching skills with jobs
Enabling managers to dramatically reduce loss by focusing on wellknown patterns
Identifying work-related factors that correlate to
fraud and accidents

Analytics will enable alignment of

talent and business strategies
What this will establish

Business strategy

Human capital strategy

Talent

Analytics
Culture

Organisation

Business results

Leadership

HR Strategy
Source: Accenture

A clear line of sight between the human

capital priorities and the business goals
A clear definition of the capabilities and
interdependencies of leadership, talent,
culture and organisation to enable the
business strategy
A tangible, multi-year human capital
journey plan for how the organisation
will get there
A forum to facilitate boundary-less
collaboration across functions and
locations
A foundation for all down-stream HR
planning and execution (at the corporate,
business, function and geographic levels)
Greater agility and proactive preparation
for organisational and economic changes

Case study

Project Oxygen: Googles success story on

People Analytics
Situation

Googles reputation was its highly analytical culture and practices

Complication

Google had to identify leading people-management practices and

confirm them with data and analysis.

Methodology
employed

To achieve it, Google created a people analytics function with its

own director and a staff of 30 researchers, analysts, and
consultants who study employee- related decisions and issues.
The People and Innovation Lab (PiLab) conducts focused
investigations for internal clients
Google has analyzed a variety of HR topics and has often moved in
new directions as a result.

Results
achieved

Backgrounds and capabilities associated with high performance

Factors are likely to lead to attrition
Ideal number of recruiting interviews
The eight behaviors that characterized good managers and five
behaviors that all managers should avoid.
Source: HBR

Quote from Google VP on Talent

Analytics
Its not the company-provided lunch that keeps people
here. Googlers tell us that there are three reasons they
stay:
- The mission,
- The quality of the people, and
- The chance to build the skill set of a better leader or
entrepreneur.
And all our analytics are built around these reasons.
Laszlo Bock, VP- People Operations,

Source: HBR

Finally

Thank You

Bibliography
Accenture: The-Relevance-of-Human-Capital-Strategy
HBR: Competing on TalentAnalytics
KPMG: HR-Analytics-Taking-the-guesswork-out-of-decision
making
Deloitte: Leveraging Analytics for Human Capital Management
PWC: Trends in workforce analytics
IBM: Getting smart about your workforce