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Being unable to close the talent gap at your organization is a serious issue, leading to missed opportunities and lost business now and in the future. But how can you figure out what skills you need to bridge the talent gap? Companies that embrace people analytics to uncover and bridge these gaps within their organizations…
Data is an invaluable tool when it comes to the hiring process, and more organizations are using data to drive their recruitment activities than ever before. But unless that data is accurate and easy to understand, it becomes redundant. That’s where a recruitment dashboard can help. Wouldn’t it be great to have all your recruitment…
Here we go again. We’re nearing the end of 2020, so it’s time for a bit of reflection. 2020 has been an extraordinary year in the world of work. Amid layoffs, hiring freezes, but also hiring sprees, we’ve had to get used to wearing face masks, working from home, no business or holiday traveling, having…
Who would have thought that 2020 would bring us a ‘new normal’? In the Netherlands, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Dutch Railways has been all over the news. Train traveling as we knew it will probably never return, which has big financial consequences. It has also had an impact on our People Analytics…
One of the key themes for many organizations in the next 10 years will be digital transformation. Digital adoption and transformation is a key development for most organizations in their strategic goals. This finding will only be accelerated during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with this trend, HR departments are undergoing an impact…
HR analytics is about using data for informed decision making. The majority of variables of interest regard the H – human – in HR. They focus on abstract phenomena and one cannot measure them directly (e.g. job engagement). Assessments are the most used method for data collection of soft variables. We need them to provide…
I recently read an interview with a business leader about how people analytics drives business outcomes. The interviewee said that “Insight without outcome is simply overhead.” While this is absolutely true, the comment leaves out another key component of effective people analytics: “Analytics without action is simply overhead.” At Visier, we recognize there is a…
Being able to conduct a training needs analysis is a key tool for any L&D professional. In this article, we will explain what a training needs analysis is, provide a template for conducting this analysis, and give a training needs analysis example. This guide will be useful for L&D professionals, trainers, and consultants alike. ContentsWhat…
An idea that I often hear is that “People Analytics should be used for strategic purposes” (or something along those lines). While I agree with the statement in general, I also think it tends to be subjected to tunnel vision. The explanation that I regularly hear is about how one should find analytics cases worth…
The outbreak of Covid-19 has dealt a blow to the global economy, forcing companies to cut costs and lay off people. From the ones still in employment, many experience guilt for surviving the lay-offs, are forced to rethink the way they work and feel stressed, anxious, and helpless. This situation puts HR in a difficult…
Job analysis is a common technique aimed at providing detailed information on a worker’s job. A job analysis can help draft a better job description, lead to a safer work environment, help in workforce planning, and is key in performance management. Because it touches so many key HR functions, this article will provide a practitioner’s…
The last 6 months have, more than ever, emphasized the importance of knowing what is coming. In this article, we take a closer look at forecasting. Forecasting can be applied to a range of HR-related topics. We will specifically examine how forecasting models can be deployed in R and end with an example analysis on…
We live in an exciting time of technological progress. Not only does computing power continue to double about every two years (known as Moore’s law), more data is generated exponentially as more devices are connected to the internet every day. These developments have a huge impact on our daily lives and the way we work.…
Creativity and data are often regarded as conflicting concepts. This means that embracing one would imply the abandonment of the other. However, few people see the possibility of embracing both at the front lines of business. Creativity is the process of generating novel and useful ideas. It helps companies to compete in an uncertain, fast-changing,…
Job classification forms the basis of many HR policies and personnel decisions. In this article, we provide a practitioner’s guide to job classification. Specifically, we will explain what job classification is, introduce a job classification system, and give some job classification examples. ContentsWhat is job classification? A definitionJob classification systemJob classification examplesJob classification methodJob classification…
On the 25th of May 2018, the world of People Analytics changed. On that date, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was applied by the European Union. The GDPR sets out requirements for organizations on how to collect, store, and manage personal data. In this article, I will examine the impact of GDPR on People…
The 9 box grid is a well-known tool for talent management and succession planning. In this practitioner’s guide, we will explain each box in the 9 box grid, talent management action steps per category, and how this framework can be used in Excel for advanced reporting. ContentsWhat is the 9 box grid? A definitionCreating a…
Time to hire is one of the best-known recruiting metrics. In this article, we will explain what time to hire is and how it differs from time to fill. We will also list time to hire benchmarks, explain how it can be measured, and end with the five most effective ways to reduce time to…
We recently published an article titled “A Beginner’s Guide to Machine Learning for HR Practitioners” where we touched on the three broad types of Machine Learning (ML); reinforcement, supervised, and unsupervised learning. In this follow-up article, we will explore unsupervised ML in more depth. We will demonstrate, how we use cluster analysis, a subset of…
Absenteeism is a frequently mentioned theme when it comes to people analytics cases. In this article, I will take you through an in-depth absenteeism case we worked on. What makes this case unique is that also mid-sized, low-profit organizations can benefit from the business impact of people analytics. The organization we worked with was a…
Organizational design is as much an art as it is a science. The process of creating a system in which people can work together to achieve common goals is highly complex and there is no one way to do it right. In this article, we will explain what organizational design is, what drives organizational design,…
In this article, we will look beyond the scope of traditional HR KPIs. We will show that financial KPIs are not the end-goal – rather HR should step up its game and report on the leading indicators of organizational effectiveness. We will end the article with a list of recommended KPIs to focus on. Are…
Most organizations, small and large, have a defined vision, mission, and strategy. It communicates what an organization of people believes in (vision), its goal (mission), and how they want to achieve this goal in the coming years (strategy). In order to execute this strategy successfully, the organization needs the right number of people with the…
When you hear Artificial Intelligence (AI) the first thing that comes to mind are robots; in particular, the Steven Spielberg movie titled A.I. where a robot child is built that can love and behave just like a real human. This idea appears to be closer to a dream than reality. Truth is, AI is more…
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.– Immanuel Kant. HR analytics has been defined as the systematic identification and quantification of the people drivers…
Employee Experience (EX) is getting more and more attention. For example, it’s ranked as the #1 topic in LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2020 research. I am a great believer in the added value good EX can provide organizations. This belief is based on, among other things, research conducted by Starbucks in 2011, which AnalitiQs repeated…
The number of articles on People Analytics is increasing. Taking a quick look at LinkedIn is enough to get you settled for a day of reading easily. Which is not bad in times of working from home during these strange COVID times (please all stay safe!). Most articles are theoretical: they discuss how People Analytics…
National differences between countries’ responses to Coronavirus are fascinating. A global experiment that no-one would have wished for is happening right now, testing how our social & economic systems adapt. National differences affect government policies, organizations, and how employees are treated. These will have impacts on how well people, organizations, and economies recover afterward. National…
The HR business partner plays a crucial role in the service delivery of the Human Resource department. In this article, we will explain what the HR business partner is and show the HR business partner model. We will also create an HR business partner job description, list relevant competencies, and show the differences between a…
With the rise of remote work and increased employee mobility thanks to the gig economy, knowledge sharing is becoming increasingly important for organizations. However, it is not enough to simply facilitate knowledge sharing. In order to be effective, HR should actively combat knowledge hiding. Knowledge hiding can be defined as “an intentional attempt by an…
The Netherlands is ranked the sixth in the world in terms of the quality of railroad infrastructure. However, in order to prepare for the future, the currently existing infrastructure needs a 30% increase in capacity. This requires tremendous changes in the current workforce. In this case study, strategic workforce planning is applied to solve this…
In the last couple of years, employee experience has become very popular. A Google search for employee experience results in more than 4.5 million hits. Many claim that it is currently one of the biggest HR trends. And firms that invest in employee experience seem to perform better than firms that don’t. So employee experience…
How can you plan for the Coronavirus affecting your business and its workforce? Airlines, holiday companies, and hoteliers are facing major challenges. As March unfolds, international travel has dropped dramatically. On 10th March, news channels announced a travel ban across the whole of Italy. At Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, there were no queues for parking and the…
The HR to employee ratio is a useful tool for assessing the optimum capacity of HR in an organization. In this article, we will look at what the HR to employee ratio is, list factors that will influence this ratio, and give a benchmark of the HR to staff ratio. Contents What is the HR…
A question we commonly hear is “what are data sources that can be used for analytics?” In this article, we will list a number of common data sources in HR and the broader business that will be helpful in your people analytics efforts. HR data sources can be categorized into three groups. HRIS data. Data…
According to corporate leaders in a recent report by IED and Stanford Business School, succession planning is vitally important. Knowing who is next in line to fill senior positions and being able to groom these people to become your company’s next generation of successful leaders is crucial to stay competitive. In this in-depth guide, we…
Dutch Railways (NS) has about 1,000 managers. What makes these managers effective? To answer that question Hanneke Beelen (Leadership) and Jean-Paul Lucassen (People Analytics) of NS worked together with the University of Amsterdam to study the effectivity of leaders in operations. Read on to learn about their findings. The impact of good leadership Leadership is…
Recruitment analytics, also known as recruiting analytics, plays an increasingly important role for recruiters and recruitment managers. Recruitment analytics can help to make better, data-driven choices when it comes to sourcing, selection, and hiring. In this article, we will explain what recruiting analytics is, and how to get to value-adding analytics in three steps. What…
Together with eRecruiter, we have recently asked over 500 employers how they measure the efficiency of the undertaken recruitment activities. Here are the 5 most popular recruitment efficiency metrics. What do they tell us about how recruitment is handled? I will explain everything in the post below. All of the data quoted is from the…
The HRIS analyst is a specialized role that touches on both IT and HR. In this guide, we will explain what an HRIS analyst is and what their main responsibilities and job description entails. Content What is an HRIS analyst? HRIS analyst job description HRIS analyst qualification HRIS analyst salary HRIS analyst certificationFAQ What is…
The absenteeism rate is a key measure of organizational health and well-being. Whether you measure it for the entire organization or an individual, knowing the exact absence rate will help shape interventions. In this article, we will explain the absence rate, how to calculate this rate according to ISO norms, and give some benchmarks on…
Employee performance is one of the key outcomes that we try to predict in HR analytics. In this article, we will explain why comparing average performance does not always give us the full picture. We will also present several methods that can be used to examine and understand changes in employees’ performance and show how…
In HR, one of the challenges we face is to gain an understanding of what goes on in the hearts and minds of our people. There is typically one overlooked source of data that may provide the most direct reflection of that: text. Through text, we can gain insights as to what people are discussing,…
As we are approaching the festive season, I wanted to take a moment to wish you happy holidays, an amazing New Year, and to thank you for being a loyal member of our audience! Without you, and our other subscribers, customers, partners, and colleagues, AIHR would not exist. Our promise to you is that we…
Together with AIHR, I worked on a digital HR diagnostic. With this diagnostic tool, it is possible to get an overview of the current state of Digital HR at your organization by completing a 30-minute questionnaire. In this article, I will go through some of these data to give you an overview of the state…
The HR scorecard, or Human Resource Scorecard, is a well-known HR tool. In this article, we will explain what the HR scorecard is, the difference between the HR scorecard and the balanced scorecard, modern-day critique, and show an example template of the HR scorecard. What is the HR scorecard? One of the key problems that…
An HRIS, also known as a Human Resources Information System, or Human Resource Management System (HRMS), is the ultimate combination of Information Technology (IT) and Human Resources (HR). This article will explain how an HRIS works, how they relate to HR analytics, and how they can be successfully selected and implemented. Traditional HRIS systems and…
I must confess that I have a guilty pleasure: I truly enjoy building PowerPoint slide decks… It’s likely that Building PowerPoint slide decks is something that most of us did either back in college or as a professional, in a typical office job. It’s one of today’s most frequently used, and yet, most hated media.…
“…whenever we are faced with a new people issue at Google now, we don’t ask ourselves, what does successful organization X do with this topic? Instead, we ask ourselves, what does the literature say? And if I have one piece of advice to give all the businesses that are in the audience out here, it…
How can you make the business case for change and engage the team in delivering it? Introduction You’re a change agent – in HR or as an advisor. You know that change is needed, but the organization hesitates. Why? And what can you do about it? This article deals with two aspects – the rational…
Dave Ulrich recently spoke in front of 2,500 HR practitioners in Denmark on the role of HR. He argued that HR is not about HR; it is about creating value for others. According to Ulrich, this value is all about how to win the market because without a win by the company, there are no…
It goes without saying that the role of data in the HR function has grown substantially in the last decade, and will continue to do so for decades to come. In an ideal world, an HR professional should be able to access data that are: Fresh (recently updated) Clean (consistent application of definitions) Explorable (able…
Out of the many themes in HR, diversity frequently gets the spotlight. Yet seeing advanced analytics or AI solutions applied to diversity is rare, especially when compared to themes like turnover and absenteeism. Of course, putting numbers on gender, ethnicity, etc. is tricky: the very insights to counter discrimination might also be used to discriminate.…
HR data sets are rare finds. In this article, I will list the 7 best HR data sets available online. In addition to the data set, I will also list the challenges in the data. This can be a potential analysis or something to look out for in the data. We strongly advocate using data…
At one point in my career, I was working as an HR-manager for a subsidiary of Belden, a company which, at that time, was making cables and wires for electronic equipment, like shavers, TVs, and computers. During this time the company had a relatively large proportion of “blue collar employees”. Supervisors were struggling with a…
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. – Rene Descartes. Conducting research to demonstrate the effectiveness of HR practices is important and valuable. Traditionally, researchers generated such evidence by collecting data using surveys, interviews, or…
A growing body of experts is of opinion that the future of talent and career management is moving towards customization. Some call it ‘consumerization of HR’. Accenture calls this ‘Workforce of One’. Workforce of One is a logical next step in the evolution of HR, where business-driven HR goes hand in hand with people-centric HR. In essence,…
People analytics delivers value to organizations. I can point to countless surveys that show that organizations that adopt people analytics outperform those that don’t. Bersin says so. Corporate Leadership Council says so. The Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey says so. The Visier Age of People Analytics Survey says so. I can also show countless case studies…
Recruiting metrics are an essential part of data-driven hiring and recruitment. However, if you would keep track of every recruiting metric you could find on the web, you’d have no time left to do actual recruiting! In this article, we’ll list the 19 most important ones for you. But first, let’s answer the question: What…
This article lists the nine most-used HR analytics tools. Adopting HR analytics is a big step for many people and organizations. Indeed, I often get asked: “What are the best HR analytics tools to use?” This article will give you the answer to this question. Here’s a list of the nine best HR analytics tools…
This article lists the eleven best HR analytics courses in the world today. Getting started with HR analytics – also called People Analytics – is a big step for a lot of people and organizations. Common questions are: Where should I start? What tools do I need? What are common traps I should avoid? An…
We know that an effective HR strategy can increase company performance. With the rise of HR analytics, companies can better measure whether HR strategies actually pay off. Proving the added value of HR is a very useful first step. However, doing so proves hard to do. In this article, I will focus on the HR…
I attended an HR analytics conference in 2014, and was very impressed by the HR analytics work done in excel by Elouise Leonard-Cross, then of Home Group, in the North-East of England. The Home Group HR team did a great job by keeping things simple. They did the basics of HR right, they ran a…
A Human Resources Information System, or HRIS, is the most used software in HR. In this article, we will give an overview of what an HRIS is, its main functionalities, and everything more you need to know to have a basic understanding of the HRIS. Contents What is an HRIS?HRIS functionalitiesDifferent kinds of HRIS systems…
In a previous article, I have explained and advocated the use utility analysis for estimating the financial return of learning interventions. As highlighted in this previous article, utility analysis refers to a specific tool designed to estimate the institutional gain or loss anticipated to a company from various HR interventions designed to enhance the value…
In the community of our AIHR Academy, we’ve had a few discussions about how to calculate employee turnover. In the people analytics space, employee turnover is arguably the most-discussed metric. However, calculating turnover is much trickier than it seems. In this article, we will propose a best practice for measuring employee turnover. Calculating employee turnover:…
If only we could know things in advance, especially those things that bother us the most today. Machine learning and predictive analytics are often touted as the ultimate solution – and they can be. However, certain misconceptions limit effectiveness of predictive models or even hinder their development to begin with. In this article, I will…
It is time that HR analytics starts to show the value it delivers to the business. This is hard to do as people analytics is still an emerging field. For this article, I have collected 15 of the best HR analytics case studies I’ve come across in the past two years. Each of these case…
As HR professionals and executives are trying to move the workforce analytics agenda forward, we are still facing challenges. Although the urgency for data-driven decision making in HR is increasing, the maturity of workforce analytics is still quite low in most organizations. Why is this? The primary reasons I’ve found working with HR leaders are:…
As a founder of AIHR, today marks an important day for me. For the first time, we are growing our business with an acquisition instead of through hard work and a ton of content. To be honest with you, I could never have imagined that less than 3 years after founding AIHR in June 2016,…
The way we work is changing. According to a popular estimation reported by the World Economic Forum, around “65% of children entering school will eventually work at jobs that don’t exist today”. The main cause of this is rapidly changing technology. In this article, we will explore the impact of automation. More specifically, how it…
This week I had the pleasure of discussing topics such as assessments, gamification and candidate experience with Ryne Sherman, Chief Science Officer at Hogan Assessment Systems. Enjoy! Erik: Welcome, everyone, to a new episode of AIHR Live. I’m here with Ryne Sherman. Ryne, how are you doing? Ryne: Hey, I’m great, Erik, good to see…
‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’ Even the legendary Chinese general Sun Tzu was a sucker for benchmarking. But honestly, aren’t we all? One of the most common human traits is our strong desire to always compare with others. ‘Did you see the…
Who wouldn’t want all the competencies in the world? We keep hearing that companies have a desperate need for talent. Some competencies are so important it is worth seeking them out and treasuring them. A top computer programmer works 10x faster and better than a second rate programmer; a great primary school teacher can transform…
Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is a commonly used term for a multitude of approaches to achieve a singular goal: having enough employees of sufficient quality in the future. In other words, it is about having the right person for the right job at the right time, across the entire organization. In this article, I will…
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting the Digital HR Summit in Amsterdam. It was an excellent event with some of the best speakers I’ve listened to. Don’t worry if you missed the Amsterdam edition – on 19 and 20 November 2019 the next edition is happening in Nice. Advertized as the…
I started my research into HR analytics over a year ago. After a careful review of the growing – but limited – existing literature on HR analytics, I bumped into a substantial lack of clarity across HR and management scholarship, and by so-called HR analytics experts in the industry. There was – and there is…
Workforce planning is often mentioned – but rarely explained. What is workforce planning, and how do you do it? When used well, strategic workforce planning enables HR to plan for the capabilities they need in the future. In this article, we will dive into what workforce planning is, the process, give a number of examples,…
At UNLEASH Amsterdam I was lucky to run into Littal Shemer Haim, an independent people analytics consultant based in Israel. Littal has 25 years of experience doing analytics, starting long before the field was even called people analytics. You can read the full transcript below the video. Alternatively, you can also turn on subtitles! Erik:…
In previous articles, I have given multiple examples of how employees can benefit from data analytics. In this article, I would like to explore a set of different, advanced data analysis techniques to see how they can be used to analyze people data for improved organization success. Data science is increasingly incorporated in businesses, products,…
If you read this article, chances are you work in HR and you have a more than average interest in data. If so, you are probably familiar with the ‘Wall of Boudreau’. For those of you who are not: the wall famously describes the struggle that organizations face in the transition from descriptive analytics to…
In this interview, I talk with Tako Zoutman. Tako is an experienced HR professional who has always focused on HR systems, data, and transformation. This is exactly the topic of this new episode of AIHR live. Erik van Vulpen: Hello everyone, and welcome to AIHR Live. I’m here with Tako Zoutman. Tako, welcome! Can you…
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion”, is arguably Edward Deming’s best-known quote. It is impossible to improve at managing people if you do not measure the results of your work. If you do not define what ‘good performance’ looks like and how you can measure it, how will you find out if…
At UNLEASH Amsterdam I had the pleasure of interviewing Amit Mohindra. Amit has a background in engineering and economics before becoming People Analytics lead at Apple. In this interview, we speak about people analytics nirvana, the importance of education, and the future of analytics. Enjoy! Erik van Vulpen: Hello everyone. I’m here with Amit Mohindra.…
We are one month into the new year and as a reader of AIHR I am sure you have stumbled on many lists showcasing what the latest HR trends are. These lists consist of themes that come and go – from year to year. Nothing strange about this, because while the world is changing, HR…
Social Network Analysis (SNA) is among the most trending topics in People Analytics. HR analytics professionals are now starting to conduct SNAs to unearth collaboration, detect silos, and identify potential leavers. Even though SNA is only now starting to become a standard tool in People Analytics, advanced network and graph theory can already provide various…
In early January 2019, a headline on the McKinsey Leadership and Organization blog caught my eye – “The critical importance of the HR business partner.” A key point made in the piece is that HR continues to struggle to deliver effective talent strategy. The disconnect centers on the lack of capability of HR business partners…
At UNLEASH Amsterdam, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rainer Schlienkamp and Jasmin Wölke from the People Analytics team at Bosch. In the interview, we spoke about how to establish a data-driven mindset, skill management, and various other initiatives at Bosch. Erik: Welcome, everyone. We’re sitting here at UNLEASH and I’m here with Rainier and…
The question “what is HR analytics?” is asked by a lot of HR professionals who want to get started with people analytics. In this post, we will explain what HR analytics is and how it will shape businesses in the future. Table of content:IntroductionWhat is HR analytics?HR analytics in literatureHow HR analytics helps Human Resources…
In this short interview, Erik discusses the most important HR and HR analytics topics with the one and only “HR Curator”. Find out about the digital future of HR from the expert, Dave Millner! Transcription: Erik van Vulpen: Hello, and welcome to AIHR Live. I’m Erik van Vulpen, and with me is Dave Millner. Hi…
A lot of people analytics professionals are looking into the drivers of performance in their respective companies. Not too long ago, we undertook a study to establish the drivers of performance for a financial institution. The question was which Human Resources factors in staff influenced the performance of different branches and professionals in the organization.…
Christmas and the holidays are always a good time to look back and reflect on what has happened over the past year – and what a year it has been! In this article, I briefly want to look back at 2018 and take a glimpse ahead at 2019. I remember reading a hypothesis on why…
Data quality is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome in creating meaningful people analytics. In this article, I will go over 5 tips to get better data quality through smarter system design. Unreliable, incorrect and untrustworthy data keeps companies from realizing the benefits of their HRIS systems and often results in HR departments executing…
In most of our articles, we assume that our readers are working at large enterprises. However, we’re getting the question more and more whether people analytics also applies to small and medium enterprises. In this article, we will answer this question. Is People Analytics relevant for SMEs? To answer this question we should first take…
In our previous article “Workforce Data: Is Legislation Enough?” we discussed the implications of the recent European Union’s privacy legislation: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We compared it to various pieces of similar legislation and discussed whether simply complying with legislation is enough when undertaking people analytics projects. In this paper, we extend our previous…
On Monday, 543 possible errors were found. Tuesday: an additional 79. Wednesday: 378 more. Just three average days. Imagine what would happen if these possible errors would not be handled on a daily basis. No matter what your organization looks like, what systems you use or how talented your administrative team is: there are always…
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Vlad Sterngold, director people analytics & research at Booking.com, an online booking travel platform with over 17,000 employees. Vlad and I spoke about the milestones of his people analytics journey at Booking.com. According to Vlad: “there are just many small steps and as long as…
What is the secret of a good HR dashboard? The right metrics? Clean data? An ability to drill down? By now we should know that those are not the secret because we’ve been trying them for years with uninspiring results. The true secret of a good dashboard is that it is composed of questions. I…
At a recent conference I sat with a friend who is the managing director of the pharmaceutical division of one of the largest marketing research conglomerates in the world. His daily routine could not be more different from mine, the independent consultant. My friend spends a great deal of time on the phone managing global…
HR analytics influencers Luk Smeyers, Melissa Kantor and David Green discuss the ethical considerations of People Analytics at the Unleash conference.
At one point in my career, I was working as an HR-manager for Belden, a company which, at that time, was making cables and wires for shavers, TVs and other electronic equipment. I envied some of my colleagues in the management team who “battled” for their share of the annual budget. Especially the marketing manager…
Find out what the leading experts think is the reason for People Analytics results lagging behind their potential. This AIHR video on the UNLEASH conference features Luk Smeyers and David Green.
Organizations are more than a list of people. Agile Organization Design is much more than redrawing the org chart. Analytics are central to understanding the organization and designing its future. But organizations often end up with the wrong data and ineffective analysis in preparation for organization design. As a consequence they pay the costs of…
Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) is making waves in the HR space. What makes analytics experts excited about ONA? So Organizational Network Analysis or ONA is a subject that a lot of people in analytics teams are investigating at the moment. When I go to conferences and that question is asked, what are you looking at, ONA always comes…
Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hannah Spell, co-author of Predicting Business Success, about the value of people analytics, different case studies, the use of advanced statistical analytics techniques, and tips for getting started with people analytics. Watch the full interview below!
One of the most interesting challenges in the field of people analytics at the moment is to create a data-driven culture in HR. If you already have a great people analytics ‘machine’ in place, with all the governance, processes, and tech, you still need HR professionals to make this machine actually work and add business…
The labor market is globalizing at high speed. Students are doing foreign exchanges and internships to boost their CVs, young professionals are eagerly applying for international assignments, virtual teams and frequent, long-distance commuting have become mainstream, and intercultural management experiences are these days a requisite to get ahead in corporate life. In sum, people are…
Diversity & Inclusion initiatives are more than only counting demographic or gender headcounts and reporting these metrics in bite-size “diversity” scorecards or dashboards. These types of metrics are quota-based metrics and will tell you how many women hold a leadership role or how many people from black, Asian, and other minority backgrounds are part of…
At AIHR we get a lot of requests for case studies to make the analytics process more tangible. In their new book, Predicting Business Success, Scott Mondore and co-authors provided one of the most interesting studies we’ve come across. In this article, they will show how smart people analytics helped to counter a downward trend…
Last UNLEASH in London, our good colleague Neelie Verlinden, founder of the Digital HR Tech blog, recorded a few interviews for us with three thought leaders: David Green, Melissa Kantor, and Luk Smeyers. The first clip is about the benefits of analytics for employees. We published about this two weeks ago in an article titled…
Measuring employee engagement the right way is something companies often struggle with. This article answers the questions whether you want to measure it yourself or work with a survey provider. In addition, we dive into the two most common employee engagement scales and discuss their characteristics. After reading this article, you will measure employee engagement…
When hearing about People Analytics, we usually think of how the use of analytics can have a positive impact on the company and its HR department. In other words, how can the employers use data to gain new insights on people topics and affect their organization? But what if the employees could also use and…
According to McKinsey, People Analytics is going mainstream. Where we used to talk about what People Analytics is and how we could get started, the conversation is now shifting to how we can speed it up, implement it faster, and deliver a decent return on People Analytics investment. This is an important conversation to have…
There’s a lot of confusion about the difference between HR metrics and analytics. In this article, we will explain both concepts, how they relate, and how both can add value to the practice of Human Resource Management. Definitions of HR metrics and Analytics HR metrics are measurements used to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of…
A couple of years ago I was working as a HR controller for a large organization. We decided it was time to start working on strategic personnel planning, so I built a model. The model turned out to be terrible. In this article, I’ll explain why it failed and how we should have fixed it.…
The HR analyst plays a crucial role in collecting, structuring, analyzing, and reporting on HR processes and data. In this article, we will discuss the key competencies for an HR analyst’s job, how to become one, career paths, and salary levels. Topics in this article 1) HR analyst tasks and competencies2) How to become an…
Workforce planning tools are an essential part of the HR professional’s toolkit. In this article, we’ll go over 5 strategic workforce planning tools, explain their use and give examples and excel templates on how to use them. What are workforce planning tools? Workforce planning tools are instruments that help analyze current capabilities and future needs…
Workforce analytics is developing and maturing. In this article, we will first explain what workforce analytics is and then jump into the 10 major trends in this area. What is workforce analytics? Workforce analytics is the approach of measuring behaviors of people (candidates, employees) and analyzing them to improve people and business performance. This is…
The question “What value does HR add to an organization?” has always been difficult to answer. In this article, I will discuss the HR value chain. Not only helps this tool to show the added value of HR, it also constitutes an excellent framework for people analytics. In fact, it helps analyze how HR contributes…
GDPR. The four-letter initialism that’s looming over every business scrambling to ensure compliance come the deadline. GDPR will affect companies across the globe who hold, or will hold, any data on EU and UK persons. Knowledge of GDPR, therefore, is vital for an effective global people data management strategy. On May 25th 2018, GDPR will…
“How satisfied are you with your job?” We have all come across this, or a slightly different version of this question about how satisfied we are with our job. In People Analytics, job satisfaction is among the most important constructs. Employee surveys often use this item to come to a verdict about how happy the…
Most large organization use personality testing in one form or another. This can be to select the best candidates or to help in improving performance of individuals and teams. Examples include the Myers-Briggs personality inventory and the Five Factor Model. How useful are these assessments really? Personality assessments have long proven to be better predictors…
Each year, we survey hundreds of HR and business professionals and publish an HR Trends Report. In the survey, we ask questions about the state of metrics and analytics within HR departments. As a professional that focuses on this area, it is disappointing to see the yearly results. In 2018, HR metrics & analytics was…
Alec Levenson is a senior research scientist at the Center of Effective Organizations and a highly regarded academic thinker in the field of people analytics and writer of multiple books in the people analytics field. His action research and consulting work with companies optimize job and organization performance and HR systems through the application of…
Here’s the interview we did with David Green at HR Tech World in Amsterdam (now UNLEASH). This is the transcript of the interview above. David Green: So my name’s David Green. I’ve got quite a lucky job really, I travel the world and write and speak about people analytics and its role in the future…
What’s the difference between people analytics and HR analytics? When we started our Analytics in HR blog, we had to pick a name. Because everybody was talking about HR analytics, Analytics in HR made sense. It was simple, recognizable, worked well for traffic from Google and everybody would understand the website would be about HR…
Today, data science touches every aspect of business functions. It enables greater speed, accuracy, and quality of business decision making. As an inherent part of core business operations, “people functions” hasn’t been immune to this development. The best data science practices are known to combine management tools with statistical- and machine learning insights. These combinations…
At HR Tech World in Amsterdam (now UNLEASH), I asked four leading people analytics expert what HR analytics will look like in 5 years. The answers provide a window into the trends that they are seeing on how analytics is developing. In the video, Laura Stevens, Tom Haak, David Green, and Luk Smeyers see a…
Imagine you’re about to engage on your first HR analytics project. You want the project to be a success – obviously. How do you make sure you have the right people and the right skills to start quickly and finish the job successfully? The skills matrix, or competency matrix, is your best friend. What is…
Brian: You’re all different! The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different! Monty Python’s Life of Brian Can you segment employees as we do with customers, so that activities like talent development improve and correspond to each employee’s profile? In this post, I show you in a very practical example how we’ve brought a classic marketing…
Welcome to the second edition of our ‘Most Trending Articles’ of 2018! Here at Analytics in HR, we hope you’ve had a great start of 2018 and are ready to continue on your HR Analytics journey. Here are the top 5 articles we enjoyed reading the most last month. #5 The role of the People…
Last HR Tech World (now UNLEASH), we interviewed some of the leading experts in the field of people analytics. One of the questions we asked was: How will data capturing evolve in people analytics? This is the first piece of a four-part video series. In this series, we spoke to different experts, including David Green,…
Today’s world is more interconnected than ever before, across continents, companies, institutions, generations and cultures. But how do we handle the increased speed and pressure that accompanies this interconnectedness? In this article I will review the topic of culture and launch the concept of cultural analytics using multiple examples. When leveraged correctly, cultural analytics can…
Is gender equality real? Many studies point in the opposite direction. Women receive lower salaries, are promoted less frequently, and are heavily underrepresented in C-level positions. Does it have to do with job performance or gender biases? There’s a very limited amount of data about why career prospects are worse for women. Available data collection…
Turnover analytics is an often mentioned topic in HR. However, there’s not much written about how to do it. In this article we will explain one of the most commonly used analyses for turnover, the survival analysis, using a real dataset. Note: for this article a minimum knowledge about survival analysis is required. We therefor…
“People analytics should be used to build insight rather than simply removing the human aspect from building strategy. After all, you can make data alone prove any fact!” My 2018 wish for you is that you become more of a troublemaker in your business. Yes, you read right. With the increasing demands coming in from…
Last HR Tech World (now Unleash), we interviewed some of the leading experts in the field of people analytics. One of the questions we asked was: what are you most excited about in HR analytics? This is the first piece of a four-part video series. In this series, we spoke to different experts, including David…
Over the past year, you have visited our website quite regularly – we are thrilled that you chose Analytics in HR (AIHR) as your source of information for the exciting and rapidly developing field of HR/ People Analytics. As we are approaching the festive season, I want to thank you for being a loyal reader…
Measuring Human Resource costs (HR costs, also called Human Resource costing), is a key component of HR accounting. In this article, we’ll explain what Human Resource costing is, why you should measure costs, how to do it and why just measuring Human Resource costs is not enough. Traditionally, the human resource department has been regarded…
Imagine you gain key insights into your people by measuring and analyzing what matters to your organization. Imagine that these insights are actually used by your people in their day-to-day business and operations. And, imagine that these key insights on your people then have a profound impact on the success of your organization. Utopia, or…
Human resource practitioners are continuously developing tools and technology to help maximize employee performance to achieve organizational goals more efficiently. One of the most commonly used HR tools today is the Bradford Factor. In this article, I will explain what the Bradford Factor is and why you should use it to manage employee absence. What is…
While a company’s value has always been closely tied to its talent, the qualities that make up this “talent” are often considered intangible assets. Because everything in our digital world is connected to data, HR executives can now draw meaningful insights and build strategies around measurable criteria instead of “soft” or qualitative data. This is…
“To understand God’s thoughts one must study statistics for they are measure of his purpose in the Universe” – Florence Nightingale As a statistics instructor in the early part of my career, I know how boring statistics can be (to most of us). However, grasping the fundamentals of statistics is critical for your success as…
Privacy is hot. 81% of people analytics projects are jeopardized by ethics and privacy concerns. This number will only increase if companies do not comply to the new European privacy regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will be enforceable from 25 May 2018 onward. This article will look at the formation and developments…
Every analytics story contains two little white lies. If you can see them, they do no harm; but the unwary will be led astray. The First Little Lie: “It was amazing” If you are giving a presentation in front of hundreds of people you want your analytics project to sound a little bit amazing. You…
Lyndon Sundmark has been very active in the HR analytics space for the last few years. He has shared his passion for analytics in multiple articles and participated as an instructor in one of our online courses. Earlier this month, he has written a book titled ‘Doing HR Analytics – A Practitioner’s Handbook With R…
Big data, business intelligence, and HR analytics are three buzzwords that are frequently talked about. Do you really know what they mean? And what added value does big data and business intelligence bring to the field of HR? This article will explain everything you need to know to answer these questions using different examples. Big…
We all know that engaged employees work harder and make fewer mistakes. Employee engagement is, therefore, one of HR’s best-known metrics. Because it is so important, many HR policies focus on improving this key performance indicator. However, the big question is: is it worth it? This article will explain how you can find out whether…
When the financial crisis started in 2008, a lot of accountancy firms either stopped or slowed-down hiring new accountancy student. These students normally started working at these firms while doing their university studies. The reason was simple: “we have too many people on our payroll, so why would we invest in the development of new…
Why organizational network analysis and people analytics are the ingredients for successful change initiatives You are responsible for making a success out of a change initiative at your organization. The books and articles you have read in the past make you a bit frightened with this responsibility, because the literature is more about the failure…
Candidate experience is an increasingly hot topic in data-driven HR. If you care about conducting an effective recruitment process, you surely care about the experiences of the candidates during the recruitment process. In this post, I’ll tell you what candidate experience is and how you can survey it. What is candidate experience? Candidate experience is…
It’s easy to say that your company is diversified and inclusive. With the recent news of numerous employee diversity and inclusion issues in a lot of industries, including Serena Williams joining a Silicon Valley boardroom to help companies diversify their workforce, companies are becoming increasingly aware of their activities when it comes to hiring. This…
Analytics in HR is quickly emerging as a trend in the corporate world due to its in-depth processes which provide the framework in formulating solutions for various issues. According to a report from Modern Distribution Management, company leaders are relying on analytics to gain more “actionable information and insights.” If you’re looking for ways on…
HR analytics is used in many businesses worldwide. The use and integration of HR analytics into a business structure offers significant benefits, with more and more businesses seeing a better return on their investments. So how can HR analytics help with improving your bottom line? This article will give you five examples. How Your Bottom…
This article provides some unique people analytics insights into the best practices in onboarding and managing high performing employees. One of the key tasks of HR is to hire high-performing employees. This task is in particular crucial in a world of shifting demographics and globalizing workforces. These high-performing employees are expected to increase the organizational…
The Human Resource dashboard and HR report are an important part of managing Human Resources. Both tools are part of HR reporting and for the basics of informed decision making. Why? Because it is hard to make informed decisions when HR business partners and other stakeholders lack insight into their own organization. Never fear, HR…
It’s very difficult to kick-start HR analytics within an organization, especially when this organization is not used to fact-based thinking in HR. When you begin, it’s important to follow a step-by-step approach. The question I’ll answer in this article is: What are the most important topics for you when you start to implement HR analytics…
Training effectiveness evaluation is an important practice in data-driven HR, but often does not get the attention it deserves. This post outlines where many training effectiveness evaluations fall short, as well has how they can be improved, using unconscious bias training programs as an example. Over the last few years, many organizations have recognized unconscious…
Employee engagement is a hotly debated topic. Let’s take a look at an example in sports. Tennis legend Rafael Nadal writes in his autobiography: “I put the two bottles down at my feet, in front of my chair to my left, one neatly behind the other, diagonally aimed at the court. Some call it superstition,…
The attention to people analytics has increased enormously over the last few years. Many organizations have established people analytics teams, and several promising start-ups have developed software that can help HR with people analytics. The assumption is that if we have access to the right data, if we have the right analysis tools and clever…
Natural language processing is an ever-growing interest area in the analytics application spectrum and is relevant to HR. In fact, it can revolutionize the quality of insights. In this article, we will explain you how. Natural language processing has a significant relevance to HR Did you know that text analysis has been the most prevalent…
Data scientists get the glamour, but the success of your people analytics program depends on your HR business partners. The core analytics team can never handle all the questions that get sent their way; and so if you are serious about analytics you’ll train your HR business partners to do their part. “Wait! Wait!” Those…
Data cleaning is a key element in HR analytics. Before you can analyze your data, it needs to be ‘clean’. In this data cleaning guide, we will explain why data cleaning is important and how you can do it. At the bottom of the article we included a helpful data cleaning infographic. A common saying…
There is a lot of talk about HR analytics these days. However, companies often still struggle to start with analytics. This article is about having the right foundation for analytics. Before we begin, it is important to understand the different maturity levels of Analytics. These levels do not only provide the opportunity to create a…
Customer service performance is a key business objective that boils down to making customers happy. But what makes customers happy? In this article, we will present the scientific research on the factors that influence customer service performance. This will help both HR and managers make better decisions that are proven to increase revenue. We also…
Employee performance metrics are key to tracking how well employees are performing. Implementing them the right way is tricky. However, when done right, employee performance metrics benefit both the organization and the employee. We listed the most important ones below and included some practical examples of each metric. There are various kinds of employee performance…
HR analytics is exciting and offers great opportunities. Unfortunately, not all projects are successful, and a common reason for this is a lack of a structured approach towards analytics. The people analytics process cycle solves this. The people analytics process can be divided in five sequential steps. Every organization should take these steps in order…
Have you always wanted to measure collaboration within your company and improve your decision-making accordingly? Network analytics can guide you on your way. This post includes 3 case studies and a fully interactive visualization to get you started. Internal and external communication and collaboration within and between organisations have traditionally been hard to measure. Interestingly,…
The challenge We were recently contracted by a major player in Zimbabwe. The company wanted to know if it was paying unnecessary labour costs as a result of overstaffing. The exercise required us to go into each department and establish if the department was overstaffed in its individual roles and job families and was an…
There are several great videos about different applications of HR analytics. We have collected the best clips to answer 5 common questions about how to build analytical capabilities, how HR analytics can add to bottom line performance and how Google’s people analytics team recruited and promoted better managers. What does HR analytics have to do…
Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a quick way to measure employee engagement, health of the organization and is a great alternative to traditional lengthy employment surveys. In this post, I explore the (dis)advantages of eNPS and look into the ways leading to its successful implementation. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is widely known as the…
Over the past years I have written some articles that have been generating a fair amount of interest. (And I’m honored by that). Some of that interest has resulted in requests for informal mentoring as well along with questions of ‘how do I get started’ in the field of People/HR Analytics? And how do I prepare…
There is an uncontested belief that HR should produce dashboards. Often the ability to produce dashboards is one of the justifications for spending a lot of money on HR software. Given this belief, HR had better produce those dashboards. If you’re not doing it, well someone will be wondering what’s wrong. The problem is that…
On September 14th, I interviewed Patrick Coolen. Patrick is a recognizable face in the HR analytics field and I was very curious to learn about his experiences in applying people analytics at ABN AMRO. We talked among other things about better decision making, business cases, most important lessons learned and his vision on the future…
Not all HR analytics projects succeed. Some never really get off the ground, others don’t produce tangible results and some even lead to internal conflict. We compiled a list of the 5 most important reasons why HR analytics projects fail. This list will help you succeed in yours. The HR analytics project is too ambitious…
Do you know all the terms that your data scientist uses? A lot of people were interested in learning about the technical terms involved in statistics and machine learning in part 1. What do words like multivariate analysis, random forests and algorithm boosting actually mean? In this post we will tell – and show – you…
The regression analysis is one of the most used models to analyze data. In this blog, I will explain how a regression analysis works by using some practical examples and a real-life business case. The least squares How does a regression analysis work? To understand this, you need to understand the concept of least squares.…
In this post, we present the results from a research study on using psychometric tests to predict road traffic accidents (RTA) at a local company in Zimbabwe. The impact of accidents is grave: it impacts the drivers, client property, insurance rates and the vehicles they operate. We tested 54 drivers using different psychometric tests to…
Blind hiring solves a lot of problems. It not only leads to more diversity but it also leads to higher revenue. In this blog, I‘ll describe what blind hiring is and how it shows a clear and tangible Return on Investment. Research finds that every 1% increase in workplace racial diversity correlates with a 9%…
When I talk with people working in HR about the metrics they utilise to measure recruitment-related actions, various metrics are mentioned. I believe they can be divided into two categories: good and bad recruitment metrics. Only the former enable the analysis of the effectiveness of recruitment-related actions and their optimisation. Let me explain you why…
This is the last article in a series of three articles on employee churn published on AIHR Analytics. In this article I will demonstrate how to build, evaluate and deploy your predictive turnover model, using R. To start I will first briefly introduce my vision on employee churn and summarize the data science process. You…
People analytics is developing fast. Other lines of business have been using business intelligence for decades already. HR-professionals as well as suppliers of HR-systems & tools did not anticipate people analytics until recently. An important driver for people analytics is the development of agile organisations. Many boards struggle with the question how to adapt to…
In a previous blog I wrote about how we started a project to see if we could analyze and predict absenteeism. In this blog I will update you on our project. We were approached by a company with over 10,000 employees. The company’s HR manager was concerned about the increasing rates of absenteeism. He wanted to…
Analytics has been too much in the HR and systems news in recent months for me to wish to ignore. It is something of a buzzword and yet it remains decidedly difficult to get to grips with what analytics is all about in practice and for real. In my work meeting with HR leaders to…
Analytics is meant to improve decision-making, but it can also do harm. One of the most common harms is “analysis paralysis” where the organization is so busy analyzing the options that it doesn’t make a timely decision. Business leaders need to act to mitigate this risk, especially if they are investing a lot of money…
In our previous blog on turnover, part 1, we showed a business case for employee turnover. In this blog, we will take a closer look at the science behind turnover and ask ourselves the question: “Why do people quit?” In 2000, three scientists combined all existing literature on employee turnover. This resulted in a meta-analysis…
A few weeks ago, I spoke with Jake, managing partner in an accounting firm. His most important problem is attracting the right employees. His second most important problem is retaining these people. It turned out that every year over 20% of the employees left his organization. I asked Jake (somewhat surprised) how expensive he thought…
We approached a major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company operating in Zimbabwe with the intention to help management understand why some of their retail outlets performed above expectation while other outlets performed below expectations. The aim was to identify controllable and non-controllable factors that influence the performance of each outlet. The identification of controllable factors…
This blog lists 11 key HR metrics. Metrics are a fundamental part of HR Analytics and offer valuable input for strategic decision-making. These key HR metrics provide a quick overview of HR’s effectiveness and can be used as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). In our previous blog on HR Metrics, we wrote about 14 HR metrics…
You probably hate it when you feel sick – and so does your boss. Absenteeism is a real problem. The U.S. spends $84 billion per annum on absenteeism. This boils down to $560 per employee. The UK spends on average $890 per employee. In the Netherlands, this number is $1,545. I specifically mention the Netherlands…
Did you know that most (HR) predictions are inaccurate? And do you know why you should never guarantee anonymity when you are dealing with HR analytics? There are many misconceptions about HR analytics. In this blog I will address four of the most common ones. The first two are misconceptions about analytics in general and…
Before starting with analytics, it is important to know where you are now. Research by Bersin (2016) found that 92% of companies believe they are not optimally organized for success. It’s likely that your organization is part of this majority. Despite (or maybe because of) this, organizations are showing tremendous growth in their people analytics…
When we talk about HR data analytics, we use words such as machine learning, algorithms and data mining. However, do we actually know the meaning of these terms? To be honest, the first time I heard them, I didn’t… This blog goes into some commonly used HR analytics terms. 1. Data mining Data mining is…
Predictive analytics is an upcoming trend in Human Resources (HR). Recruitment tools predict high performers, and increasingly companies are able to predict which employee is likely to leave. In this article, we will explain what HR predictive analytics are and how they can be a real game-changer for HR departments. We will also discuss seven…
This blog explores the first important step towards finding the real value in Human Resources data: starting with a question that is important to your business. A pile of gold Smaug the dragon is a fearsome creature that plays a major role in the film series The Hobbit. For centuries, Smaug slept atop a pile…
This blog provides 14 important HR metrics examples. HR metrics are indicators that enable HR to track and measure performance on different aspects and ultimately predict the future. However, not all HR metrics are created equal. In this blog, we will provide some of the most valuable HR metrics examples. Even though this list provides…
