Executives in Australia are increasingly turning to talent analytics to derive insights on outcomes such as employee attrition, performance and sentiment to influence talent and business decisions. While many leaders value the availability of this data, few feel confident their organisation is maximising its potential.

According to Gartner research, 78 per cent of HR leaders say their organisation relies more heavily on talent data to make decisions compared to four years ago. However, 71 per cent agree that current team structures and capabilities limit their ability to use these insights effectively.

To be successful, HR leaders need to focus on developing the skills of their HR team members to help them become:

1. Analytics experts who manage and prepare the data to produce insights 
2. Decision enablers who interpret the information and apply learnings
3. Strategic consultants who influence broader business priorities as tactical communicators.

Doing so will enable talent analytics to influence HR’s biggest functional decisions and act as a central driver of innovation throughout the organisation by providing objective and timely advice.

Building a culture of analytical learning

Skilled talent analytics experts play a crucial role within any organisation. They are responsible for maintaining data, effectively analysing it and supporting an integrated approach to workforce planning and risk management, among other strategic activities. 

To develop analytics experts, HR leaders must build a culture of technical learning within their team. This can be achieved by fostering collaboration between those responsible for talent analytics and the learning and development (L&D) team. 

This will help HR leaders identify technical skills gaps within the team and create learning pathways that ensure employees stay ahead of new methods and technologies. 

Rotational programs with IT or data and analytics functions can also be introduced to bolster technical skills and knowledge. 

“Traditional earning mechanisms won’t be enough. A core competency that drives effective decision enablement is the business acumen that can only be gained through experience.”

Using data-driven HR to develop strong decision makers

Gartner research reveals only nine per cent of HR leaders feel their department has been truly successful at arming their team with data to enable them to support workforce-related business decisions. 

Given that talent processes can be disrupted by external changes and technology, HR decision-makers need uninterrupted access to relevant data to gain a deep understanding of HR’s priorities and activities. 

The L&D function can also be an invaluable partner here by facilitating regular knowledge exchanges on priorities, emerging trends and insights between talent analytics experts and HR leaders. 

However, traditional learning mechanisms won’t be enough. A core competency that drives effective decision enablement is the business acumen that can only be gained through experience.

Developing true business acumen and the underlying competencies of industry, organisational and financial knowledge is best achieved through a combination of classic development activities combined with high-impact, hands-on learning moments.

For example, providing HR team members with the opportunity to work in cross-functional teams to lead change initiatives, build and execute business cases or play a significant role in delivering a solution can transform by-the-book thinkers into strategic problem solvers and innovators.

From tactical directives that respond to changing business conditions to supporting the entire employee life cycle, this approach ensures leaders can make data-driven talent decisions with confidence.  

Becoming a strategic partner

Executives and business leaders often face many competing priorities, particularly when managing the interests of shareholders, internal stakeholders and customers. As a result, HR leaders can struggle to effectively influence their decision making, even when equipped with data or insights.

According to a Gartner survey, 81 per cent of talent analytics leaders state that it’s important for their team to be proficient in strategic consulting. However, less than half (47 per cent) are currently satisfied with their team’s proficiency.

Rather than focusing on relationship management approaches designed to drive stakeholder satisfaction, strategic consultants should build and hone skills such as persuasion and storytelling with data, which can empower HR to be more effective in their dealings with stakeholders. 

To do this, consultants need to develop a deeper understanding of their business stakeholders’ needs and drivers, along with demonstrating the impact of their interactions. 

Feedback from business stakeholders and measures of consultants’ performance should go beyond the basics of capturing face-to-face time to collect real evidence of when HR insights have resulted in action.

Similarly to decision enablers, strategic consultants benefit from connecting with other department leads or C-suite members, fostering partnerships between talent analytics and other functions. Creating these relationships allows for the sharing of best practices and can help inform talent analytics teams about which HR technologies (e.g., data visualisation tools) are the most effective for sharing insights with stakeholders.

HR leaders who can implement these steps will be well-placed to grow their talent analytics function, increase their credibility, influence innovation and drive critical business decisions. 

Robin Boomer is a Senior Director, Advisory in Gartner’s HR Practice. He provides strategic advice and insights to support HR leaders and strategic workforce planning teams.

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The last decade has seen diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) rise to prominence as foundational elements of the modern workplace. 

Once a relative rarity, diversity leadership roles are becoming increasingly commonplace. According to global LinkedIn data, the number of people globally with the ‘head of diversity’ title more than doubled (107 per cent growth) between 2015-2020. Since then, conversations about the importance of workplace DEI initiatives have only grown louder.

However, even with the best of intentions, research indicates that some employers are lagging behind when it comes to measuring their efforts with diversity data collection and analysis. 

In an AHRI report published earlier this year, it was revealed that fewer than half (45 per cent) of HR professionals actively measure the diversity profile of their organisations. Forty-three per cent of respondents reported that they had no diversity data collection practices in place, and 12 per cent were uncertain about how or if their organisation was collecting data. 

“Everyone is [using] beautiful words, such as intercultural understanding, harmony and anti-discrimination, and these words resonate with everyone,” says Rezza Moieni, Chief Technology Officer and Project Director at Diversity Atlas. “But, from my lens of engineering and data science, I [think] this area is analytically neglected. The main challenge is that – even though everyone is talking about it – until you can measure it, you can’t achieve it.

“This area needs a robust understanding around the definition of diversity, how you disaggregate culture into different elements, measure them separately, and have a total understanding of the intersectionality of your organisation through a data-driven approach.”

3 tips to improve your data collection processes

Whether your organisation is looking to kick-start a diversity data collection process or improve an existing one, Moieni offers a number of tips for HR to ensure their practices are thorough, effective and equitable.

1. Create an inclusive data set

Building an inclusive data set is the first step in improving diversity data collection, says Moieni. 

Ensuring that your data collection practices recognise the wide array of diversity demographics – such as age, socioeconomic background, religious beliefs, the presence of an invisible disability, etc. – is key to making sure that all your people feel seen and heard.

“As soon as there are two people in the room, there’s definitely diversity there.” – Rezza Moieni, Chief Technology Officer and Project Director at Diversity Atlas

To illustrate the repercussions of employing non-inclusive data sets, he cites a controversy surrounding the 2021 Australian census, where certain groups found themselves ‘statistically invisible’. 

Shortly after the census, a woman from Myanmar – a country home to 135 Indigenous ethnic groups – spoke out about the fact that, due to the limitations of the Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups, her ethnicity was lumped into the broad category of “Mainland Southeast Asian”. 

“It makes me feel like we [do] not exist, and it just makes me feel like we are disappeared,” she said.

By gathering a wider array of data points, employers can better understand the intersectional diversity within their workforces. Inclusive data sets allow leaders to examine data from a multidimensional perspective, recognising the unique circumstances of individuals who identify with multiple diversity factors simultaneously. 

Moieni says HR should think of their diversity data set as a picture of their organisation – and, the clearer the picture, the more informed our DEI approach will be.

“In the early 2000s, TVs started becoming bigger and bigger – 28-inch, then 55, then 60. But, in the last 10 years, screens haven’t gotten bigger. Instead, the manufacturers focus on putting more data and more clarification on each pixel to provide you with a sharper, higher-resolution, brighter picture,” he says.

“This is what [should] happen in your team. If we use higher-resolution data, we can see the pain points, and we can more easily address them – we can put more resources there and look for solutions.”

2. Don’t make assumptions

Moieni emphasises that data has a narrative, and it’s crucial to pay attention to the nuance beyond the numbers. In particular, HR should keep in mind that not every two data points that correlate are directly connected or indicative of causation.

“For example, [think about] the fact that in summer more people buy ice cream, because it’s hot,” he says. “Also in summer, more people are bitten by sharks. Does that mean that eating ice cream means you have more chance of being bitten by sharks?”

If employers take a surface-level view of their diversity data, they are likely to overlook underlying issues around fairness and inclusion, he says. 

For instance, an organisation might see it has a fifty-fifty gender balance in its workforce and conclude that their work in the gender equity space is complete. 

However, Moieni has observed a number of cases of gender-balanced organisations where the average age of male and female employees differed significantly. This nuance indicated challenges for older female employees in securing certain professional positions, despite the apparent gender balance.

“Until you can measure it, you can’t achieve it.” – Rezza Moieni, Chief Technology Officer and Project Director at Diversity Atlas

Assumptions about a lack of diversity based on superficial similarities can also be misleading, he says. 

“From a visible perspective, you may look similar, but you may come from 10 different countries of birth, have different religions, different education levels and different languages.

“As soon as there are two people in the room, there’s definitely diversity there.”

3. Act on your findings

Collecting diversity data is only part of the journey toward a more inclusive workplace. Moieni emphasises that organisations must take meaningful actions based on their data findings and celebrate diversity continuously.

“A lot of the time, they don’t share the responses and findings with their team,” he says.

“People are disengaged from surveys because they never see any action, [even though] they have just been asked about their most sensitive information – their sexuality, their disability, their religion. Even if something happens behind the scenes, they don’t see it and they don’t feel it.”

In order to create a truly inclusive workplace culture, he says it’s crucial that the diversity of the organisation is not only recognised, but celebrated.

“Diversity is all about celebrations. And as soon as you celebrate, you see the actual value of diversity.

“To me, diversity means no matter your ethno-linguistic or religious background, disability or sexuality, you have equal opportunity to grow in the team. It’s all a matter of how we can grow together, how we can celebrate it together, and how we can be representative of the community we’re doing business in.”

Acquire a sound foundation in people analytics and learn more about using people data to improve decision making with this short course from AHRI.

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As a project officer, volunteer program coordinator and, now, People and Culture Business Partner for the same organisation, Suzanne Larsson CPHR became all too familiar with juggling multiple spreadsheets. These were what the HR department at Stroke Foundation used to store most of their personnel data.

“By the time I started in the role as P&C Business Partner in August 2021, every other area of the organisation had implemented technological solutions,” she says. “But we had multiple different sources of spreadsheets for everything from exit interviews to contracts to personal details.”

This outdated process was “cumbersome and disjointed”, she says. 

“It introduced the possibility for more errors, and resulted in lots of time wasted.” 

Not only that, but there wasn’t a single source of truth where the four-member HR team could access personnel data or complete a task with ease.

“When recruiting, for example, we would have to contact every member of the panel individually to discuss the applications. Now they can access a secure central portal. Our pre-screen and onboarding functions were also burdensome. 

“We had multiple sources of information on different spreadsheets because our workforce is a combination of paid employees [about 100] and volunteers [about 220]. 

“HR metrics were manually calculated and there were bits of information everywhere.”

So when an HRIS (Human Resources Information System) was finally green-lighted after being in the pipeline for two years, Larsson couldn’t wait to get stuck into it.

Being the subject matter expert and leader of the project formed the basis of a great capstone project to achieve HR certification via the AHRI Practising Certification Program, she says.   

“The foundation needed someone to take the lead, although the implementation was a real team effort with the P&C team and also members of the working group who tested the new system.

“It was amazing to go through this experience and build on my skills as a strong influencer and negotiator, as well as develop my conflict resolution skills, which are valuable for certification.

“It also opened up my networks to other not-for-profits with similar workforce configurations.”

Implementing a new HRIS for enhanced personnel data collection

Replacing the outdated personnel data collection system was an investment that aligned with the foundation’s ‘Empowering, Supporting, Connecting strategy 2024′. 

“A new HRIS would provide instant information and increased oversight of organisational structure and planning, talent management, performance management, learning and development, recruitment, onboarding, offboarding, HR metrics and employee data,” says Larsson.      

“No more guesswork. Just data-driven human capital decisions.”

An early challenge was choosing a software system that would not only deliver on those broader base promises, but also assist with specific needs, such as including the volunteer workforce. 

Also, the HR team wanted to be able to generate data on diversity metrics; something that is useful when volunteers or staff are communicating the foundation’s messages to different communities.

Keen to be inclusive, Larsson conducted pre-choice surveys of what employees liked in an HR system, while management mulled over six options. 

“Talking to as many people as you can, and getting advice on how to implement and streamline processes, is crucial,” – Suzanne Larsson CPHR

“Talking to other non-profits about what software had fulfilled their requirements was also really helpful. But in the end, it came down not only to what the system could deliver and how user-friendly it was, but to our budget.”     

An HRIS that seamlessly integrates with Office 365 and SharePoint, and provides instant HR metrics and Power BI reports, was chosen.     

That’s when Larsson’s work really ramped up and she had to bring her persuasive powers into play. 

“I had to tap into the side of me that brings people on board in a positive way by making sure all levels of staff understood why we were making changes, and using all of my negotiating skills.” 

She organised for the software provider to demonstrate the HRIS to the executive directors and conducted her own sessions explaining what the foundation would gain from the system. 

Larsson also addressed employee concerns about cybersecurity, and how personnel data would be collected and stored.

“Being able to deal with these challenges increased my ability as a culture and change leader and, in turn, as a trusted P&C business partner,” she says.

Key takeaway lessons 

When it came to training the foundation’s staff in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Hobart on the new HRIS, Larsson made a decision that she would take the show on the road. 

“It really helps to know the personalities of your people,” she says. “Ours are energetic, fun and creative, but they also include those who are talented with technology and those who have only a baseline understanding. I knew in-person training, backed up with training manuals they could refer back to later, was the way to go.”

Just as crucial to implementing the new system was choosing a working group of six employees based on role, location, IT acumen and management of employees or volunteers to user-test the HRIS and provide feedback. 

But no plan is perfect, and even with extensive user experience testing from the working group and P&C team, issues were discovered.

“These included incorrect email addresses, incorrect organisational structure and [the platform provider] making changes to the system while training was being conducted, which meant the training guides looked slightly different to what was currently being trained. All these required problem-solving both in-house and by [the provider’s] experts.”

Other unpredictable obstacles included additional costs for IT-related items that needed to be added into the system, and team members taking personal leave which impacted the project timeline.      

Larsson says a key lesson was ensuring that all parties involved understood their role and what was required of them, as well as when they would be needed for their expertise and how much time would be required.

How to get employee buy-in 

Another key takeaway was the value of consultation. 

“Talking to as many people as you can, and getting advice on how to implement and streamline processes, is crucial,” says Larsson. 

“It’s also important to think about how your workforce best responds to change.”

In the early stages of the implementation, employee engagement was lower than Larsson had anticipated, with only 15 per cent of paid employees engaging in the initial communications relating to the project. 

“This did concern me, but it also made me determined to find a solution. I decided to offer ‘sneak peeks’ of how the HRIS was going, including videos, project timeframes, information about training and the team behind the project. 

“We also ran an employee competition to name the HRIS that attracted a lot of interest. It finally resulted in the name ‘Connexa’, which means bringing information and people together, and at this point employee engagement had increased to 81 per cent.

The goal was to bring people along on the journey and get them excited about the end result. And it worked.” 

This article was originally published in the August-September 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.

Learn how to take a systematic, data-driven approach to organisational design that will help achieve role clarity, effective collaboration and a positive culture with AHRI’s short course.

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When it comes to creating more efficient, engaged workplaces, digital data holds much promise.

In fact, recent research from Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia showed that, among computer-based workers, a metric as simple as the quantity of clicks they made in their workday could be correlated with their level of engagement.

And there is strong hope that better data will enable managers to do much more than simply measure engagement, including fostering conditions for greater flourishing and creativity. But while many people seem to have little objection to sharing their data with the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, sharing it with their employers is often another story.

This means it is imperative that employers build trust with their workforce about why they are collecting data and how they will be using it.

Read HRM’s article about what you need to know about storing employees’ data.

Rethink employee data collection

The increasing digitisation of workplaces means that there is a wealth of potential data points for employers to collect. James Healy, a Principal in Deloitte’s Human Capital Consulting practice, says the significant challenge for organisations becomes collecting the right data to make informed decisions.

“Most humans are not aware of what’s called the ‘intention-action gap,’” he says.  “That is, we have every intention of doing something, but we don’t always go through with it. In most organisations, the gap presents itself in the form of an employee engagement survey to measure happiness and preferences.” 

Healy cautions against using surveys, as they tend to reflect intentions rather than actions. They are also dependent on mood and other environmental issues occurring at the time the employee responds.

“People’s responses to surveys aren’t as accurate as people themselves – behavioural data is far more useful,” he says.

“Don’t ask people how they feel about hybrid working versus working from home – look at the swipe card data that tells you how often they came in.”

Healy adds that most organisations have a long way to go in how they manage data.

“Once you’ve met all data hygiene factors, one of the key things is to make the data as openly available as possible,” he says. “One of the great features of data science is that many opportunities are at the intersection of silos.”

“If you’re not able to figure out from the top down where those interesting insights are, democratise the data – open it up for people to look at.” – James Healy, Principal, Deloitte’s Human Capital Consulting

Generally, there aren’t that many surprises in localised datasets because HR specialists are usually across trends in their area and have an idea of what they are going to tell them.

This is why Healy says that the value lies in putting together datasets across workplace silos. 

“For example, take HR data and put it together with the property data, which tells you swipe card information and gives information about building occupancy. Bring that together with IT department data that tells you which terminals in the office and desks have been occupied. And suddenly you have a much more interesting picture,” he says.

Transparency is key

“Data and insights shouldn’t be a closely guarded secret. Acting like they are can really hurt trust,” says Dorothy Hisgrove, Head of People and Inclusion at KPMG Australia.

“By democratising access to data and providing clear guidance on what data will be used for, we can encourage employees to be more comfortable to share their feedback and insights.”

In an attempt to lead the way, last year KPMG began providing all employees access to the data and comments received in their annual employee feedback survey. 

“It was a bold move, but it has been received very well from the firm and has dramatically improved transparency,” says Hisgrove.

However, Hisgrove cautions that data is only as useful as it is usable and timely.

“Centralised data management can create bottlenecks in data insight generation that significantly reduce the ability to act on data while it’s relevant,” she says.

Listening to employees at regular intervals helps firms identify trends and emerging themes and act on them quickly. 

“Timely access to data allows you to set targets from where you are to where you need to get to and measure the progress you are making,” she says.

Focus on your end goal

Information overload prevents data insights from being effective. Rather than focusing on the data, Healy suggests, focus on the question – and then find the data that can help you answer it.

“It’s far more productive to start by working out what insights we want in our organisation and employees,” he says. “However, this is a use case that is only illuminated by bringing together different datasets. If you’re not able to figure out from the top down where those interesting insights are, democratise the data – open it up for people to look at.”

After all, Healy reminds us, data can only do so much – organisations still need to be smart about how they use it. Invoking the aphorism of American astronomer Clifford Stoll, he says: “data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.” 

This article first appeared in the May 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.

Acquire a sound foundation in people analytics and learn more about using people data to improve decision making with this short course from AHRI.

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The right way for businesses to handle employee data has been a hot-button issue for some time. In light of recent media attention on big-name corporate data leaks, concerns about data security have been pushed even further into the spotlight.

During AHRI’s recent webinar on collecting and storing employee data, Emily Booth, Special Counsel at Holding Redlich, spoke alongside Justin Waite, Managing Director at Sentaris and Rob Scott, Chief Operating Officer at Smart WFM about the ways organisations can strengthen data security and ensure they are compliant with relevant employment laws. 

Queries about managing employee data came in thick and fast from webinar attendees, and the experts responded with insights on everything from Fair Work obligations to the most secure places to store data. 

In an effort to keep the conversation going, Booth spoke with HRM to answer some of the audience questions that the experts didn’t have time to address during the webinar.

Q1: Why do we need to collect employee data in the first place?

A lot of HR professionals would be able to tell me more about why in practice they need to collect employee data, but as an employer you also have a legal obligation to collect and store employment records. For example, certain records need to be collected and kept for seven years, including information about pay, leave, hours of work, reimbursement of work-related expenses, workers comp insurance and superannuation contributions. These regulations are prescribed under the Fair Work Act and the Fair Work Regulations (view details here). 

It’s also best practice to keep other records, such as resumes/applications, employment contracts and performance reviews, to provide a full employment history and assist you to undertake your normal HR functions, such as performance management. 

“For serious data breaches under the Privacy Act, the penalty is currently $2.2 million. And they’re looking at increasing that by the end of the year to the greater of $10 million.” – Emily Booth, Special Counsel, Holding Redlich

Depending on your organisation, there may be other reasons why you need to collect employee data, which might include working with children checks or certain licenses that the employee is required to have in order to perform their normal work.

Q2: How long are we legally required to keep employee data?

Other than the  requirements under the Fair Work Act mentioned above (that employee data is stored for seven years) there are other laws that require you to keep your tax and superannuation calculations, and how you met your choice of super fund obligations for five years. 

Depending on your organisation, there’ll be various other laws that require you to retain various data.

Q3: What are the risks of not retaining employee data properly?

You would need to look at that in respect of your individual organisation. Obviously one of the biggest risks is reputational and losing the trust of your employees. There would also be potential fines and other enforcement action that could be taken under the Fair Work Act depending on the circumstances.

You asked what the penalties under the Privacy Act are, but whether they applied would of course depend on what kind of organisation you were and whether the employee records exemption applied, as we discussed more in the seminar. However for serious data breaches under the Privacy Act, the penalty is currently $2.2 million. And they’re looking at increasing that by the end of the year to the greater of $10 million; three times the value of any benefit obtained (directly or indirectly) from the contravention; or, if the value of the benefit cannot be ascertained, 10 per cent of the annual turnover of the organisation.

Read HRM’s article on 10 things you should keep in mind when storing employees’ vaccination status.

Q4: Is there a length of time we can store recruitment data for prospective employees?

There is not a one-size-fits-all answer to this. We recommend to clients that this be addressed in their privacy policy and privacy collection notices provided to candidates when they submit their recruitment data in the first place. 

If candidates are notified that their data will be stored for a legitimate purpose outlined in a privacy notice, you can keep it for as long as that purpose still applies. Often candidates would be happy to have their data stored so you could contact them in respect of further opportunities that arise. But it’s still good to set a limit on this period of time because, after a certain point, it’s more likely that the information is out of date. 

If a candidate is successful and obtains a role, the recruitment data would become part of the employment record and would be categorised as employee data.

Q5: Are individuals liable for penalties under the Privacy Act, or only organisations?

At this stage, only organisations are liable under the Privacy Act. However, there are exemptions for small businesses with revenue under $3 million in certain circumstances. 

Sometimes individuals might be liable under other laws for related actions, such as cybercrime offenses, including hacking. An action for breach of confidence has also been successfully pursued where an individual published intimate photos of another individual (their former partner) online in what would also be considered a breach of that individual’s privacy by another individual. 

These are examples of other avenues that could make individuals liable, but they are not often pursued. Some of the law reforms in this area are looking at more direct forms of recourse including, potentially, extending the Privacy Act to apply to individuals.

Want to hear more from Emily Booth and other experts about employee data
and cybersecurity? Watch the full webinar here.

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On a quiet May day in 2017, one of the worst things that can happen to a company happened – and it didn’t even know. A global shipping provider operating in Australia was hacked. The perpetrators gained access to its computer systems and maintained this access for 11 months.

This wasn’t just a security incident; it was a privacy breach. The data of about 500 employees – an assortment of information such as their tax file numbers or bank details – was being auto-forwarded via 60,000 emails to people outside the company.

Even had it wanted to, the company couldn’t hide it. The Notifiable Data Breaches scheme had just started in Australia. The company had to tell its employees it had failed to protect them and that their personal information had been in the hands of bad actors. 

Stories such as this are why the traditional view of privacy, as a compliance piece that fits within the risk and legal space, is no longer tenable. Companies have realised they can’t function without the trust of their customers and their staff, and that’s why it is critical to value and protect the privacy of both.

Indeed, it doesn’t just have moral value. Data is often an organisation’s most treasured asset. Companies everywhere hoover up every scrap they can. This includes everything from simple contact details to the sensitive information HR uses to optimise the people experience. 

Andrea will be de-mystifying privacy risks at the HR Tech Conference at this year’s AHRI National Convention – view the full program here.

Compliance concerns

Different privacy laws cover different entities based on their size and the jurisdiction in which they operate. In Australia, many organisations are bound by state-based laws or the Federal Privacy Act and can be penalised for contraventions. There are also fines for breaches that fall under the Federal Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

In the global space, there is the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which massively scaled up the fines for non-compliance with privacy laws.

But such fines are not the real threat to your organisation. The loss of income and loss of reputation due to poor privacy practices can far outstrip any fine you may receive. This is why organisations need to think of privacy long before there is a breach.

Risk planning

I hate to say it, but a lot of projects in the IT space tack on privacy after the fact, usually after the system is built. And they then say, “Oh my, we’ve got all these privacy risks and we didn’t realise, and now we have to retrofit fixes.” And that costs dollars, it costs time, it pushes projects out and it frustrates people.

That’s why many companies advocate for privacy by design. This is a concept that puts the individual at the centre of all decisions when it comes to building a new IT system or creating a new process for dealing with the personal information of employees.

So when bringing in a new HR management system not only should you look at the tech specs to make sure it sits with the IT needs of the company. You need to look at things such as the need-to-know security barriers and the data fields you really need to incorporate, as they’re all linked to privacy responsibilities.

Privacy by design means looking at and identifying privacy risks as part of project planning. As you would with any risk management process, you overlay the identified risks and come up with mitigation strategies. Even if you outsource your IT, contractors should be bound under the same privacy responsibilities as your organisation. That they’re a third party will not be a good enough excuse should a breach happen.

Human-centric

No matter how well your procedures are written, or how sure you are that staff understand privacy, if you’re not training and educating your staff regularly about the importance of privacy, a breach will happen.

That’s why you need to instil a respect for privacy in all staff, because a single person can inadvertently click on a link and not realise they’ve just given a stranger all of their company’s data.

In HR we talk about the need to be good communicators, the need to be agile and so on. We call these things core competencies. In today’s world, I would add respect for privacy as another core competency.

Andrea Calleia CPHR is the privacy learning manager at Salinger Privacy.

This article originally appeared in the August 2019 edition of HRM magazine.

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If you wanted an accurate picture of the workforce how would you go about attaining it? LinkedIn is betting that whatever your solution would be, it can do better. It’s created a product called Talent Insights (TI) with which it hopes to win over organisations who want data that helps improve its HR analytics.

The obvious advantage LinkedIn has over other solutions is that they don’t need to go out into the world to collect this data. Its users from across the globe are consciously and unconsciously giving the platform constant updates on their interaction with employment. From skill updates to which company pages they’re going to.

So the social network doesn’t just know when someone changes a job, it’s able to offer data on the macro and micro level. It can tell you how many software developers there are in Australia, and which company in Melbourne has been hiring the most. Would you like to know where your ex-employees go after the exit interview? Or the attrition rates of your three top competitors? TI promises an answer.

What’s unclear is the usefulness of TI’s answer. Its strength – that professionals on LinkedIn offer it data willingly – could also be its biggest weakness. And beyond that, is it a good thing that LinkedIn is opening up its data like this?

HRM went to the Sydney LinkedIn offices earlier this week for a product demo, in order to understand what the company was trying to accomplish.

HR analytics

What’s initially striking about TI is that if you were a company that had no in-company people analytics, simply adopting the tool would give you a start. It gives you a sense of how many people your company employed, along with each member’s tenure, seniority, skills, and so on (that is, so long as all your staff are on LinkedIn with up-to-date profiles, but more on this huge caveat later). You can also benchmark your analytics against industry standards – is your turnover in sales comparable with your peers?

Fascinatingly, it could provide you with a more accurate picture of why staff are leaving. If people in exit interviews are saying they’re departing over flexible work arrangements, you can verify how many ex-staff actually went to organisations that provide it.

One thing that might alarm some about TI, is you get the sense it’s too transparent. Yes, you can find out about competitors, but they can also find out about you. With a few mouse clicks, a rival can compare its workforce composition to yours, including where you’re getting staff from and what skills they have, and use that data to make strategic decisions.

When asked about this, LinkedIn representatives said this data was already available to those who really wanted it, and that their clients overwhelmingly feel the information benefits outweigh the negatives. It stressed that it puts member concerns (around privacy and other matters) first. The product has been out a while with no sense of a real backlash, but it will be interesting to see if one develops. Bigger companies might not mind, but will smaller companies – especially those with an owner-founder?

An example

In the LinkedIn demo, they gave an example of how they think the tool is best used.

Imagine you were an engineering firm pitching for business in Queensland and you wanted to scope out whether you should open an office in Brisbane. Your first question might be how many civil engineers are currently living in the city? By creating a talent pool report on civil engineers (the tool uses machine learning to cluster job-title variations) you could find out how many were in the capital, and then narrow your search down to the particular skills you might need.

TI can then tell you the relative demand of your ideal candidates  in the area, whether the total number is on an upward trend, which companies are the biggest hirers, and so on.

One of the more interesting features is TI’s ability to align this information with employment branding. LinkedIn does an annual membership survey that asks what people are looking for in a job, whether that’s flexible work practices or very competitive compensation. TI allows you to segment your talent pool using this data. You can find out how attractive you might be to Brisbane civil engineers by comparing what your company offers, with what they want.

It also allows you to search more broadly. For instance, if what you’re really looking for is really project managers that are capable of working with civil engineers.

Finally, you can easily do a similar search for other Australian or global areas, and find out where you could possibly be hiring from should a Brisbane office be essential and civil engineers are few and far between.

The caveat

As mentioned above, the big question mark hanging over  TI is that its data quality is very much dependent on the engagement of LinkedIn users. It’s not solely dependent, as it draws on information from off-platform in order to reduce inaccuracies (it scrapes recruitment platforms for duplicate job ads, for instance).

But it’s still mostly dependent. If a certain industry or profession is less engaged with LinkedIn, if the people in it are less likely to use the platform to make updates to their job status, or if they’re less likely to check out a company of interest, then the information TI offers about that industry isn’t as useful.

This might be especially true of job skills. If an individual sees LinkedIn as essential to their career prospects, they will make sure it lists every skill and experience they have. If they see it as tangential, they might not keep it up to date.

For instance, I used LinkedIn diligently after leaving university, when I worked exclusively in video. So my skills in editing programs and film production are highlighted. The only way the platform knows I have skills in news journalism (which I’ve spent far more of my career doing) is because of the endorsement of someone I’m almost certain I’ve never met (my apologies to Giovanmatteo from Universita’ Europea di Roma if I’ve just forgotten you).

The flip side to this is that LinkedIn has accrued a lot of data over a fairly long time period – which can provide hidden advantages. For instance, I still have video production skills, even though I don’t telegraph that fact, TI could reveal it. It could show companies whether their current employees have talents they didn’t know about, and so assist in hiring/promoting decisions.

Engagement levels

So what are LinkedIn’s engagement levels? According to Alexa, in terms of website popularity Seek (ranked 31st) is in the same ballpark as LinkedIn (20th) in the job hunting space. LinkedIn also has over 10 million Australian users (which is a lot, considering Australia’s workforce is about 12.6 million).

Of that number, according to Vivid Social, the platform has approximately 4.5 million monthly active users. Presumably all of those users have up-to-date profiles, so that leaves about 5.5 million profiles which would have varying degrees of accurate data. It seems promising, but the reality is that only LinkedIn has a full understanding of how engaged people are on its platform, and they’re not about to reveal unflattering statistics.

Would TI be valuable to your organisations? How solid is its data? If anyone has experience using it, good or bad, please comment below.

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But don’t despair. If you discover what really does make the difference between your best employees and the rest, you may be able to fish from a pool of undiscovered talent, more productive than before, cheaper, and easier to hire and keep.

This is the promise of “moneyball” – the analysis and synthesis of all the data that employers (mostly) already have on their employees.

The data-driven moneyball strategy could be the next big thing to hit recruitment and talent management since the advent of online hiring. Quite simply, it aims to take the guesswork, gut feel and prejudice out of hiring and promotion decisions.

For instance, did you know that casual workers who fill out online job applications with third-party browsers like Firefox or Chrome perform better and change jobs less often than people who use Internet Explorer?

US predictive analytics company Evolv analysed data from up to 100,000 employees to discover that fact.

And why should the choice of browser matter? The vice-president of global sourcing and talent strategy at Randstad, Glen Cathey, speculates that people who have taken the trouble to download a browser that has not been pre-installed by the computer manufacturer have made a conscious decision that they prefer the performance of something else.

“It indicates a higher IQ and that they are better performers,” he says. “It is a lot about exercising independent judgment.”

Here’s something else you probably didn’t know: people with a criminal background are better call centre employees than cleanskins, according to Evolv.

Think about how grateful you would be if a company was willing to give you a chance, despite your blemished record. That kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?

“They have more to prove. They need the job,” says Cathey.

And the data also shows that job-hoppers are no more likely to quickly quit than people who have a history of staying put. That is another much-maligned group of job-seekers that could be worth another look.

Data-based conclusions like these cast a new light on hiring requirements. The things we used to think were important, like a clean record and job stability, can fade into irrelevance once you start looking for evidence to prove that they really matter.

Job myths exploded

And what about the biggest requirement in hiring: previous experience? It is still the “big daddy” in all job interviews. Hiring managers generally believe that people who have done the job before are a better bet.

Cathey says that for hourly (casual) workers, people with no previous experience in a similar job had the same probability of survival over 180 days as experienced workers. So, for those kinds of jobs, having done the job before makes no difference.

“For hourly workers, it is not necessary to pay top dollar for experienced labour,” he says.

According to Evolv’s white paper Workforce Wives Tales , “All the conventional wisdom about how to better recruit, retain and manage an hourly workforce can and should be tested. That may sound like a pipe dream, but it’s not.”

What is moneyball?

The strategy of moneyball was popularised by a book from journalist Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, and a movie based on it, which detailed the journey of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, which was gutted when far richer clubs stole its best players. The club’s general manager Billy Beane was sold on the idea of looking solely at statistics to find talented players that the other clubs overlooked.

Many of these players had significant weaknesses, but if they were put in the right position and operated as a team, they could do what they did best, while not being called upon to be all-rounders. These players were described in the movie as being “like an island of broken toys”.

Thanks to moneyball, the club achieved the longest unbroken string of wins in the history of the game and, with a salary budget of $41 million, outdid clubs who were spending three times as much.

The lesson here for employers is that an ideal employee could be someone they would typically reject.

“Many employers are discriminating against people . . . they may be avoiding better performers. We are going to have to make more data-based decisions,” says Cathey.

“I’m not saying you have to hire people you don’t like, based on numbers, but I think [hiring] is going to be a whole picture put together, more like a scorecard.”

And the really good news for employers is: if you stop fighting over the same small pool of people and fish elsewhere, you can save a lot of money.

“If you could identify the overlooked people, you are no longer fighting the war for talent over the same people.

“Companies can technically pay less because there is a premium to pay when you are all after the same people,” says Cathey.

“In Silicon Valley, everyone wants to recruit from the same five companies.”

This is an extract of a June 5 BRW article by workplace affairs writer Fiona Smith. AHRI has reposted it with permission. You can read the full article on the BRW website.

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