A new edition of Introduction to People Analytics hits the bookshelves on July 3rd and its importance in managing the effectiveness of your workforce cannot be understated.
For whom is it written?
The book is written for those with little or no experience of analytics so they can feel confident in their ability to find, analyse and use workforce data. Better workforce data means better business decisions.
Is analysis of workforce data important?
Finance is driven by figures, sales performance too, but in HR with its complex dependency on effective interpersonal relationships, decisions have always fallen back on human judgement. That can fail us as Kahneman shows so clearly in his book “Noise” and in his earlier book Thinking Fast and Slow. Past performance of an employee, for example, is not always the best indicator of future performance. We need to know what works and doesn’t work in our organisations, where our employment costs arise, where low performance may indicate dysfunction, who are the guys (and gals) who interview poorly but perform exceptionally.
How does people analytics facilitate better business decisions?
People analytics can be used to improve culture and create employee engagement, increase performance and reduce costs. The book demonstrates how. Understanding this will be invaluable in managing people in the 21st century.
I wish I had had the book when I entered HR in the 20th century. But big data was not around at that point. Now it is possible to embed big data into HR decisions, such as shortlisting and performance appraisal and much, much more. The recent social research by Kahneman and others shows how judgement by algorithms, using data, beats human judgement time and again. We think we can detect a lie when we hear one. But that is often not true, as anyone who has watched the TV programme, “Would I lie to you” must concur.
Data from People Analytics pairs well into artificial intelligence. But the two are not the same. Garbage in, garbage out, as the Americans would say. Artificial intelligence will only work if the right data is fed in in the first place (though it might detect some renegades) and if we ask the right questions.
What is in the new edition of this book?
The authors provide new material on applying data to respond to external disruption such as COVID-19, on recruiting people analytics specialists and on embedding new data-driven operating models within HR.
In summary
We may have moved on from Frederick Taylor and his scientific management but, in my view, measurement of people factors, now coupled with facilities to analyse them, will always give competitive advantage to those who have a willingness to embrace the concepts. The Introduction to People Analytics is part of the journey.
Malcolm Martin FCIPD
Author Human Resource Practice
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