With the HR function playing a more strategic role than ever in many organisations, the ability to make evidence-based decisions has quickly become a critical skill for practitioners.

As HR leaders know well, in an era defined by rapid change and disruption, the stakes are too high to rely on gut instinct alone. By grounding strategies in evidence, HR practitioners can offer clarity amid uncertainty and ensure their efforts are aligned with the broader business goals.

In recognition of this, recent years have seen the concept of ‘evidence-based HR’ (or EBHR) grow in popularity. Evidence-based HR is an approach that emphasises the use of data, research and empirical evidence to make decisions about HR practices and strategies.

The term has become increasingly recognised in the HR community, with many employers placing more focus on data-driven decision-making. The rise of AI and more sophisticated analytics tools has also made it easier to collect and analyse large amounts of HR-related data to inform an evidence-based HR practice. 

According to Tanya Hammond FCPHR, Founder and Chief Collaborator at Tailored HR Solutions, while the increase in awareness of evidence-based HR is a welcome development, there is still some progress to be made in terms of how HR harnesses the right evidence in the right way.

“What we’re observing is that evidence still means ‘what we can get out of an HR system’,” she says. “But I think the world has evolved beyond saying that people analytics is something that’s purely systems-based – it’s way bigger than that.

“It’s about unlocking the data in the HR system, and being comfortable asking questions and considering the data against a variety of factors to draw out meaningful insights,” says Hammond, who will be speaking about reconfiguring a healthy, resilient and high-performing organisation fit for now and tomorrow at AHRI’s National Convention in August.

What does evidence-based HR look like?

One of the most important principles of evidence-based HR is to incorporate a variety of sources and forms of evidence into decision-making. Relying too heavily on one system or process as a single source of truth can prevent HR from noticing subtleties behind workforce trends.

“This will include unlocking relevant information from HR information systems, but also branching out further to leverage other sources of evidence, such as external expertise and research findings,” says Hammond.

In a report published last year, the Corporate Research Forum broke down the sources of evidence typically drawn on by a well-rounded, evidence-based HR practice into a four-part framework, as shown below:

Source: Rob Briner and CRF

As an example of evidence-based HR in action, picture a scenario where an organisation finds its employee engagement scores have declined significantly over the previous year. 

Using the principles of EBHR, HR gathers data through engagement surveys, focus groups and individual interviews to understand the main drivers behind this decline. 

They identify that employees feel a lack of recognition and growth opportunities. They then examine research on effective recognition programs and talent development initiatives and decide to pilot a new program focusing on employee recognition and career advancement. 

The program tracks engagement metrics before and after its implementation, showing an improvement in employee engagement and satisfaction. HR then scales the program company-wide and continues to monitor its effectiveness through regular engagement surveys.

“Drawing on a broad range of evidence allows HR to effectively define the problem and help identify important nuances behind organisational opportunities, issues and trends,” says Jaye Matheson, Chief Insights and Transformation Expert at Tailored HR Solutions.

“People analytics or evidence-based HR is a method to uncover the root cause of an issue, and by gaining varied perspectives, you’re going to get better insights and a more impactful solution. Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up,” says Matheson, who is also speaking at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition.

Getting started with evidence-based HR

One thing that can hold HR practitioners back from embracing the shift towards EBHR is the misbelief that they need to be experts in data and analytics. 

“In fact, many HR practitioners have the right capabilities, tools and resources to undertake EBHR, like problem-solving, a curious mind and strong business acumen – all foundational elements for effective HR decision-making,” says Matheson. 

“Often, people want HR or people data to be perfect before they do anything,” she says. “But you can’t let perfection get in the way of making a start and delivering something impactful. If you want to run a marathon, you’ve got to start running.”

The more evidence HR is able to leverage, the more likely they are to uncover places where data is being reported inaccurately or inconsistently, and support continuous improvements.

“Instead of saying, ‘My headcount doesn’t line up,’ ‘My turnover numbers are wrong,’ and letting the conversation end there, we should be using this information holistically to help answer a question,” she says.

“When faced with inaccurate data, people often decide to stop there,” says Hammond. 

“[Maybe] it’s wrong by two or three per cent because it’s live data, and it’s constantly changing. But even if it’s [slightly] wrong, a trend is a trend. And it’s not ‘wrong’ for the purpose in which we’re going to use it.”

“You can’t let perfection get in the way of making a start and delivering something impactful. If you want to run a marathon, you’ve got to start running.” – Jaye Matheson, Chief Insights and Transformation Expert at Tailored HR Solutions

Given the sheer volume of evidence considered in EBHR, both Hammond and Matheson advise HR to ensure they are dedicating enough time to assessing and acting on the information and insights.

“The tension is the desire to move quickly,” says Matheson. “There tends to be a bias to action. People tend to want to go forth and solve a problem. 

“But, if they want to make the right decisions and know with confidence that they’re investing in the right initiatives to achieve their desired outcomes, they need to take the time to exercise diligence to fully examine the information from various different perspectives.”

Risks and ethical considerations

As with all branches of data collection and analysis, employers need to be aware of the relevant legal safeguards and their ethical responsibilities to their people. 

“You need to understand the basic foundations of people analytics and the principles to make sure you’re thinking about data ethically,” says Matheson. 

“[With evidence-based HR], the world is your oyster. But just because you can [use some sorts of information], it doesn’t mean you should.”

She recalls an example of a large organisation which, in an effort to optimise its supply chains, gave its employees wearable devices to track their work tasks. In addition, they also captured how long employees spent taking breaks, which was then used to manage employee performance. 

This example demonstrates an instance where data can be collected to solve an intended problem (supply chain optimisation), but can also be used in a way that may contravene the original intent, leading to questions around the ethical use of data.

“Think about what information is going to have a positive impact on the business and a positive impact on the workforce,” she says. 

The recent proliferation of new AI technologies means that HR is now able to gather and assess information at greater speed and volume than ever before. However, these machines cannot yet replace humans’ ability to think critically about data and spot ethical nuances like this.

As a result, getting the most out of this technology will mean striking a balance between harnessing its processing abilities and maintaining a critical human eye.

Given their expertise in all things people, HR is in a prime position to manage this balance, says Hammond.

“Ultimately, it’s about how we source the greatest people, and how we ensure that people perform at their best,” she says.

“If we don’t use evidence-based HR in the work that we do, then we’re not providing the services that are truly required – we’re not being that trusted, critical, credible partner that our organisations need.”

Understand the principles of data-driven decision making and learn to apply a data-driven mindset to HR strategies and challenges with AHRI’s short course in People Analytics.

The post How to build an evidence-based HR function appeared first on HRM online.

Ninety per cent of C-suite executives believe their companies pay attention to people’s needs when introducing new technology but only 53 per cent of their staff agree, says a new PwC report. The findings come from a survey of 12,000 people from all over the world (not including Australia) and tried to capture multiple generations, roles and industries.  

When it comes to workplace tech, it’s not just new technology where employees and leaders don’t line up. Ninety-two per cent of C-suite execs say they’re satisfied with the technology experience their company currently provides but only 68 percent of staff agree.

The report suggests this has to do with a lack of understanding on leadership’s part about the people that work for them. It says that more choice in their technology (from selecting which devices they use, to being able to choose voice over text) and more input in the initial selection of technology are their primary desires.

But perhaps the statistics can be partially explained by the sunk cost fallacy. If you’ve never heard of the concept, it’s essentially about human loss aversion. We’re loathe to part with what we own. In vain we will “sink” more value into it, rather than ditching it for something new. A commonly cited example of the behaviour is going to a concert you’ve bought tickets to, even if it’s the last thing you actually feel like doing. Your fear of wasting the value you’ve spent outweighs what would make you happier.

Referring to the report’s findings on current workplace technology, leaders could be experiencing the sunk cost fallacy. They have invested considerable resources into their platform, and are both financially and emotionally wedded to the current situation, so of course they will tell a survey they’re happy.

A disconnect

What the sunk cost fallacy doesn’t explain is why, when it comes to new technology, executives feel they’re paying attention to their people’s needs when almost half their staff disagree. Research from Gartner, presented by VP, team manager Clare Moncrieff at the ReimagineHR conference earlier this year, possibly provides an answer.

Gartner found that only 27 per cent of companies have a single strategy for digitalisation, meaning 73 per cent have a more piecemeal approach. The problem with this is that doing things piecemeal increases the amount of factors you might miss (see infographic below).

Gartner also found that 67 per cent of the questions business leaders ask about digitalization relate to digital technologies. In other words, they mostly think about products. This means they are missing everything else involved in a people-first digitalisation strategy.

A lot of the questions executives should be asking can be asked by HR, particularly when it comes to issues around skills, competencies and mindset. This becomes clear when you factor in the PwC finding that only half of staff and 64 per cent of managers are satisfied with the resources they have at their disposal to learn how to use new technology.

HR’s role in digitalisation

It’s always interesting when research firms reach the same conclusion. Both Gartner and PwC recommend that bringing staff along with any technology change is crucial. Gartner has the following ideas to make that happen.

• An overriding question HR should ask is when personalisation should come from people, and when it should come from computers. Would people prefer to ask a machine about their annual leave, but talk to a human when it comes to workplace complaints?
• One issue is a right to privacy. Obviously HR analytics are important but many people fear that if you track them, you will discover some employees can be made redundant. Gartner says that 41 per cent of employees don’t trust their employer to not use their own data against them. So they advise leaders to stop asking for data from staff, and start rewarding them for providing it – possibly even offering to purchase it.
• Similar to the privacy issue are employee concerns that they might “innovate themselves out of a job”. If staff do what you want and help the organisation with technological changes, will they so successfully streamline processes that you find you need fewer staff members?
• The question becomes how do you encourage employees to identify ways to automate their own work. One possibility: in February 2017, British insurance company Aviva asked their workforce of 16,000 “could a robot do your job?” They let employees know that anyone who answered “yes” would be retrained for a different role.

PwC suggest the following:

• Change people’s mindsets around what upskilling means. It shouldn’t be training in the typical coursework sense, but instead focus on lifelong learning.
• Take into account the overall work experience – new technologies will not change what motivates your employees.
• Don’t just use data analytics, a more personal approach is required to find out what people’s jobs are actually like.

Finally, both Gartner and PwC think it’s crucial to expand the number of people who have a say over technology changes. They suggest bringing in staff from all relevant departments, at all levels of seniority, and then seeking out your most firm critics and learning about their objections.

The post Is technology people-first? Leaders say yes, employees no appeared first on HRM online.

Most of us are familiar with Aesop’s fable about the hare and tortoise.

The hare is a classic “type A” animal (and maybe a bit of a bully?); it gets a lot of enjoyment out of laughing at the slow tortoise.

Eventually, the tortoise challenges the hare to a race to prove it too, is going places.

The hare agrees, sets off and quickly shoots ahead. Miles ahead of the tortoise, the hare smugly settles down beside the course and rewards itself with a nap.

Long story short; the hare (who awakes in a panic and realises it neglected to set an alarm) gets up just in time to see the tortoise ambling across the finish line.

The moral of the story: ‘Slow and steady wins the race’. Or, perseverance and grit win out over swiftness and impulsiveness in the end.

Except at work, this doesn’t always hold true, does it?

Almost all of our metrics and measurements in the workplace are set up to give the highest score to the hare, with its rapid Energiser bunny response rate – whether it’s for an email or a client report.

As for the tortoise?

Well, sometimes we just wish it would hurry up.

Why it’s time to give the tortoises their due

These are some of the ideas that writer Malcolm Gladwell asks us to think about – and question – in a keynote address he gave at the Wharton School’s People Analytics Conference.

During the speech, he gives the example of his co-worker at the New Yorker magazine, Sheelah Kolhatkar, whose previous career was as a hedge fund analyst on Wall Street.

There, he said, Kolhatkar felt extremely uncomfortable. Where she noticed that “the best traders were those with a huge tolerance for risk, who were cool and dispassionate under pressure,” as a person for whom merely the thought of making a mistake could keep her up at night, she became “a basket case.”

However, as an investigative journalist, those traits which were not well-aligned with her previous role have allowed her to thrive – and produce exceptional, award-winning work.

Kolhatkar is the type of worker, says Gladwell, who does a job as thoroughly and carefully as possible regardless of the clock ticking on the wall – and is even slightly neurotic – who can be highly valuable in a work environment.

However, being slow and neurotic is not generally valued either by human resource departments, or our educational system.

Instead, we generally want hares: people who work fast.

Gladwell asserts that neurotic tortoises are in fact “highly suited for the present workplace” in jobs that require mastering complex problems, being thorough and not making mistakes. Why then, he asked, do we design selection and evaluation systems biased against them?

“We make life difficult for neurotic tortoises,” he says. And it’s because our systems, from timed exams to task-based projects, are geared to score hares higher, while neglecting to see the importance of the traits of the tortoise.

A new perspective on performance metrics

Dr Andy Walshe, head of High Performance at the Red Bull elite training labs spoke to the idea of value and work at a recent conference in Sydney.

As technology takes a greater role in the way we do our work, he said, those traits that are “most human”: emotional intelligence, collaboration, creativity will develop a greater importance and value in our workplaces.

And it’s on these skills, he says, that we should be focussing our coaching and training efforts.

Brian Kropp, executive director at CEB, agrees.

Where traditionally our work practices comprised the equivalent of “moving a pile of boulders from one side of the room to the other,” new modes of working cannot be measured according to these old, quantifiable methods that focused primarily on individual tasks.

Eventually, he suggests, a robot is going to be able to complete those menial tasks more efficiently and accurately than even your zippiest, most bright-eyed hare.

We need to ask ourselves “how do we not only reward the tasks employees are engaging in, but how to identify and reward the contributions that people are making to each other, how they work within that network and how they drive the network,” he says.

“The most innovative companies are focussing on that question: how do you work collectively with other people to get to a good outcome for the organisation – rather than how do you measure and evaluate people moving a pile of rocks from one place to another.”

Can’t we have both?: the speedy, accurate hare

Later on in his speech, Gladwell was joined onstage with Adam Grant, Wharton professor of management and psychology, who questioned some of his assertions.

In particular, he challenged the premise that most people are either thorough or speedy – but not both. “Could there just be really conscientious hares, who are fast, and who execute, and who are also careful?”

Gladwell conceded that there could be, but that expecting as such was akin to expecting every basketball player to be alike to Michael Jordan.

“I think if you want highly neurotic, highly conscientious people,” he says, “they’re going to be tortoises by and large.”

In summation, Gladwell compels human resources professionals to think deeply about what type of personality they should be looking for in particular jobs or professions, rather than lean on accepted notions of “valuable” traits.

This is particularly relevant when it comes to recruitment, where structured interview formats and psychometric testing may be rigged to score for certain traits over others. It’s here that Gladwell says HR professionals need to take steps to ensure they are using their tools correctly to find the best candidate.

“Analytics are of no value if you don’t have a conversation beforehand about why you want to use a particular analytic.”

AHRI members weigh in

AHRI member Tamar Balkin recently shared the Wharton School essay about Malcolm Gladwell’s speech to prompt discussion with AHRI members.

Let’s not underestimate the tortoise,” says Pam MacDonald, director at Broadspring Consulting.

“To me it is all about role fit and role clarity.”

HR should be “ensuring we hire the right person to suit the role and that the role has been described as it truly is,” she says. “Many roles need a tortoise and to place a hare in those roles creates significant problems in the immediate and surrounding areas.”

Anne Barclay, director at HR Advantage agrees, commenting: “great article highlighting (that) diverse talents are needed in most workplaces.”

What are your thoughts? Are our workplaces skewed to value some working traits over other?

Does this share similarities with our recent HRM magazine article about introverts in the workplace and how we tend to value leaders who make the most noise?

Please share your thoughts in the comments

The post Is it time to rethink what we value – and reward – at work? appeared first on HRM online.

In Deloitte’s latest Global Human Capital Trends 2017 report, 71 per cent of companies considered people analytics a high priority in their organisation, with the percentage of companies correlating business impacts to HR activities remaining similar to 2016 (at around 51 per cent).

As more and more businesses prioritise people analytics to drive business decisions and outcomes, the question becomes, how do you do this well?

Now that Big Data has come to HR, we are seeing the marrying of workforce data with various other types of business data. However, in order for businesses to make strategic decisions, HR departments are increasingly required to not only understand an organisation’s workforce analytics they need to have company-wide data intelligence to achieve desired outcomes, which, in addition to attracting and retaining the right talent, includes boosting the bottom line.

As companies migrate away from outdated HR systems – including legacy automated HR systems with prohibitive pricing and complex implementations – many have made considerable investments in unified cloud-based (Software as a Service or SaaS) HR software, complemented by workforce change strategies. But globally the progression is still underway; the investment market for SaaS solutions is hot, and projected to have reached $106b in 2016 – a figure that will no doubt grow stronger.

Let’s take a closer look at how people analytics is being applied to specific HR functions.

Recruitment

With the rise of innovative SaaS solutions leveraging people data, it is now possible to source best-fit candidates by identifying and measuring where current and previous top talent has come from – including which recruitment channels are most successful (such as Seek versus LinkedIn) to ultimately optimise recruitment spend. With the right talent management software, HR teams can create talent pools to efficiently hire, as well as set and track KPI’s around time-to-hire, cost of hire, and return on investment.

Onboarding and engagement

Once the right candidate is hired they need an orientation to be aligned with business values, goals and culture, and often, candidates need to meet certain training and compliance requirements. This is where people metrics has great analytical capabilities. HR teams can track how long it takes to onboard various roles, as well as optimise both time spent and processes used throughout the onboarding experience, ensuring this is consistent, engaging, and of high quality for each employee onboarded.

To put this in perspective, research by US technology company Aberdeen Group, found that 66 per cent of companies with onboarding programs claimed a higher rate of successful assimilation of new hires into company culture, 62 per cent had higher time-to-productivity ratios, and 54 per cent had higher employee engagement.

Performance

Recognising that company executives need a 360-degree view of talent and business performance, HR managers can use people analytics to benchmark employee performance within company divisions, units and teams in order to set business aligned KPIs. Doing this assists management in identifying and fostering top performers – while developing weak performers – and ensuring adequate succession plans are in place to mitigate any business risks.

Learning

It is becoming increasingly popular for e-learning platforms to be built into HR software solutions and configured to an organisation’s specific requirements. This is now becoming an asset for businesses wanting to ensure they maintain a competitive workforce with up-to-date-skills sets.

Unified HR platforms also have the added benefit of identifying and predicting skills gaps, allowing HR managers to enrol employees in appropriate learning courses, and subsequently, track course completions and pass rates. For employees, the benefits can include access to accredited e-learning courses with personalised learning plans, helping them fast track their skills progression.

By Danny Lessem, CEO of ELMO Talent Management Software

The post This is how people analytics can drive strategic decisions appeared first on HRM online.

As we see with companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon, the blue chip corporates of old are being superseded by companies that continue to disrupt the traditional landscape. We’re seeing a world of accelerated change; sci-films such as Back to the Future seem positively quaint – and nobody doubts that any futuristic movie is not so much a fantasy as much as it is a soon-to-be reality. It’s true when it comes to HR software too. 

It’s also a landscape where the explosion of possibility about technology has coincided with an increased risk; we see the digital world elevate those primal human instincts of fear and mistrust.

The rise of cyber security comes with the rise of cyber hacking; the rise of bots with automation and loss of jobs; and artificial intelligence with fears about the limits of human consciousness.

In my work, I’m lucky to work with founders, CEO’s and HR experts and speak with them about  on how they plan to bring all the above elements of the high-tech workplace to their office, not with fear but with enthusiasm for the future.

As innovative companies provide new HR software that promises to completely transform the way the profession does everything; from day-to-day processes, to high level strategic planning, our challenge is how we navigate through the chatter – and make the right HR software decisions to benefit our organisations.

I suggest that to achieve this goal, we need to change how we approach buying HR software.

1. Ask: Who is the customer?

Firstly, we need to keep in mind the central tenet of what we do. In this case that the software is not in fact for us; it’s for our workforce. We are not the customer – the workforce is!

What do I mean by this?

Essentially, that we need to make decisions based on the nature of our workforce rather than what appeals to us as a user.

To make these kinds of decisions effectively, we need to bring the workforce into the decision-making process, including the line managers, sales,  IT etc.

2. Don’t buy what you don’t understand

The other aspect is that, to be frank, HR tend to be coming to HR software from a very low maturity curve.

For those of you using older technology in the market – those of you still on PeopleSoft, Payroll; I’m looking at you!

Newer isn’t necessarily better: you need to bring into the process the ‘users’ – your workforce.

Understand your workforce profile, their needs, wants and expectation of technology in general. Then incorporate in your business plan: where are you going as a company? What skills, markets, products does your people strategy need in order to enable this business plan to succeed?

3. Succeed to plan, plan to succeed

If you do not have these answers, you are not ready!

My #toptip is this: engage with your vendor’s early so that requirements are set, you have experts in the workforce on hand to produce the right business case, ask the right questions and facilitate the answers you need so you are ready.

In the new world of HR software, it’s not about a one-off purchase anymore that will serve you for years to come.

Now, you are buying into a service – ‘software as a service ‘(SaaS).

So the big change for you is to select the right software, that your workforce will adopt – and actually use efficiently and effectively.

The post Investing in HR software? 3 fundamental things you need to know appeared first on HRM online.

The rise of data analytics tools for workplace planning and management has been particularly impactful in the HR profession, where organisations are using aggregated big data information about employees to make decisions about engagement, hiring and firing, onboarding and future planning, among others.

Industries using big data to make day-to-day decisions on staff management include the service industry, consulting and design companies and hospitals, as well as tech giants such as Google and Amazon.

The research pushes back against the assumption that using data analytics such as word combinations used on social media, images clicked and time spent on job-seeking site LinkedIn to measure – even predict – workplace performance is an adequate replacement for people-driven decision making.

Looking back on 2016, it’s not a stretch to suggest that our reliance on big data may have reached tipping point. Statistical analytics led professional pollsters in both the UK and the US to incorrectly bet against Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, respectively.

At The Guardian, William Davies suggests that “the ability of statistics to accurately represent the world is declining.”

There’s also growing evidence of a decline in levels of trust in statistics. The sentiment in populist thinking, Davies writes, is that “there’s something arrogant and elitist about reducing social and economic issues to numerical aggregates and averages.” Stats alone, he suggests, are a poor reflection of lived experience; not least the complexities of human behaviour.

However in private companies in particular, analytics are becoming central to day-to-day operations and increasing influential to every corner of an organisation’s operations.

And while companies see big data as more objective, faster and scientific than human decision-making, some worry it can also be inaccurate and far less nuanced than human-led decision making.

Gaming the system

Uri Gal, from the Discipline of Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney Business School has been testing the ways that some employees game workplace analytics systems: by entering inaccurate data on their productivity or using spreadsheets that paint a particular picture of their performance. His research has also shown how social media can be manipulated to create a false impression by workers.

Gal suggests that the ways that data analytics systems come to conclusions is simply not accurate enough to replace human decision-making because “inherently what they try to do is to build a simplified model of complex human behaviour.”

Why algorithms don’t make good managers

He also believes that a long-term reliance on algorithms in workplace decision making will affect management within an organisation.

“The less active people become in decision making, the less skilled they become as managers. Analytics cannot capture what is involved in managing people or showing someone how to master a skill.”

It can also lead to a breakdown in effective people management. When an algorithm is used as the basis for an action, “human beings are extraneous to the decision-making process,” says Gal. What is lost is the ability to speak with your manager to overcome a workplace issue and more broadly the potential to bring independent thinking and creativity into workplace management.

Do we need to think twice about data analytics?

Not necessarily, says Gal. But companies do need to be more critical about the way they integrate these technologies into their business. Despite the many flaws involved, companies continue to embrace big data to measure workplace productivity without thinking critically about the consequences of replacing people-led people management.

The post What happens when big data replaces people driven management? appeared first on HRM online.

The idea may seem like it was lifted from George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 that described a future world of omnipresent surveillance and public manipulation. It has moved from idea to reality, however, for employees at several companies in the US and the UK. Spy technology has officially arrived at the office. 

As reported in the UK press this week, at least four companies, including a major bank and part of Britain’s NHS has taken to using what are called “sociometric badges” designed to be worn by their employees. Last year, we reported on how Rio Tinto was employing drones and CCTV cameras to monitor their workforce but “wearable technology” moves surveillance into an even more personal sphere.

The size of a credit card, the devices measure activity and sleep patterns and include a microphone that, although it doesn’t record the content of conversations, analyses the tone, speed and volume of a person’s voice. The badges reveal to an employer who is talking to whom and for how long and indicates stress levels based on heart rate and voice inflection.

The badge is one of a number of products to come out of digital analytics company, Humanyze, a spin-off from MIT’s media lab. Working in the area of people analytics, Humanyze told Business Insider that the badge is intended not to spy, but to help businesses learn more about their staff than a mere survey or observation can provide and so improve their organisation and productivity.

“By mining that data, you can actually get very detailed information on how people are communicating, how physiologically aroused people are, and can make predictions about how productive and happy they are at work,” Ben Waber, CEO at Humanyze told The Times.

Nevertheless, privacy campaigners have been horrified by the development and say that we are hurtling headlong towards Orwell’s Big Brother society. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how such data could be used for more sinister purposes, such as getting rid of ageing or ailing staff.

Humanyze rejects these concerns and insists that companies are not provided with results that identify individual employees, only with anonymous, aggregated data. Employees, however, can access information relating to their own behaviour patterns which, the company argues, motivates them to make changes in their own lives.

What responsibilities do employers have?

As far back as 2005, US professor Adam Moore was pointing out in his book Information Ethics: Privacy, Property and Power, that as technologies grow ever more complex and established within society, ethical problems associated with their use will increase. However, most research on privacy has not addressed broader organisational, managerial and social issues, such as how firms treat personally identifiable information or what role and responsibilities managers have.

As technologies have become more complex and established within society, ethical problems associated with these issues have tended to increase.

Petrina Coventry, industry professor and director of development with Adelaide University Faculty of Professions and Business School, points out that such monitoring gives employers access to personal information about employees that may be sensitive and that employees may wish to keep private. “Employers need to think carefully about the way in which they collect, use and disclose information they obtain from employees,” says Coventry.

In Australia Commonwealth privacy laws regulate the collection and handling of personal information. Known as the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), they apply to all private sector businesses with an annual turnover of more than $3 million, all private health service providers nationally, and a limited range of small businesses and all Australian government agencies.

Nevertheless, employers do have access to personal information about employees that may be sensitive and that employees may wish to keep private, or consider an attempt to spy by their company. And employers need to think about the way in which they collect, use and disclose information they obtain from employees.

Tips for dealing with employee’s personal information

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website contains information on good practice for organisations dealing with employees’ personal details.

These guidelines include:

• limiting the collection of information
• providing notice to individuals about the potential collection, use and disclosure of personal information
• disclosing personal information
• keeping personal information accurate, complete and up-to-date
• keeping personal information secure
• providing access to personal information.

The post The wearable technology that can spy on you appeared first on HRM online.

The McKinsey Global Institute wrote “the amount of data in our world has been exploding, and analysing large data sets – so called big data – will become a key basis of competition underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation and consumer surplus.” Today, big data isn’t really a new concept. But what are the implications for HR?

There is the argument that forms of social media or online data are semi-professional at best, and that to focus on such media from a recruitment perspective is not always accurate. But we have known for years that a number of CVs aren’t accurate, either. More importantly, how relevant can they stay using big data?

Recruiters will start their search online, but that’s where the digital component usually ends. Face-to-face interviews are the next step, followed by some sort of structured or general questioning to narrow the candidate pool. Despite the limited reliability and validity of these models, more accurate ones used by entities that have exposure to big data, such as government bodies and major corporations, are under utilised.

The size and perceived success of the company currently employing an applicant, his or her academic qualifications and commitment to projects all feature more prominently in the recruitment models devised. A large number of organisations do tailor recruitment processes depending on individual needs and the scope of the role, but perceptions about perceived skill in candidates still revolve around previous performance verified by referee checks.

Individual companies will develop “secret sauces” for sourcing, analysing and evaluating hires based on their own data and factual statistical analysis of the make- up of their ideal hire. As SAS, the Scandinavian Airline, says in an advertising spiel: “What if you could increase revenue by 66 per cent using human capital data to make confident, fact-based recruiting and hiring decisions?”

One method used extensively for executive and graduate recruitment has been assessment centres that use a mixture of interviews, extensive testing, experiential exercises and the like mixed with observations recorded by two or more observers per person. This seems to have some validity and reliability, but accessible data available to people involved in recruiting, as well as networks and similar structures, can lead to quicker and simpler hiring processes.

Proctor & Gamble, which has 130,000 employees across 80 countries, developed a single test, calibrated it with 180,000 people and validated it with 2000 employees with great success. People decisions at Google are based on data and analytics; therefore its HR processes are all data based. Luxottica reduced its time to fill senior roles with external candidates from 96 days to 46 days focusing strongly on big data underpinning all of the other models used.

Human capital data should allow for definitive identification of candidates to fill open roles. Basing hiring systems on data – and not intuition – is more likely to develop stronger teams. Further, when it comes to hiring, the single factor that is the best predictor of performance is not personality, interview presentation or prior work performance, but intelligence.

Big data is here to stay – it is constantly increasing in volume and velocity. We need utilise the research available against the traditional hiring processes to see what works for changing recruitment models and what doesn’t. The future belongs to those who figure out how to collect and use human capital data successfully, and if HR professionals can learn and expand their recruitment methods to include big data, then there are big gains down the line.

A workshop on big data will take place at AHRI’s National Convention. Details here. 

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Getting someone else to do this for you is now a growing business in itself, set to be worth US$88bn (A$110bn) by 2021, according to research from US computer data storage company, EMC2 .

This leviathan isn’t simply an issue for finance, sales and marketing departments. It has a key role to play in people analytics, giving HR professionals the skills and ability to support a general manager or c-suite with a near real-time gauge of a company’s cultural climate. Armed with the right data, HR professionals have the potential to identify adjustments that would improve productivity at a strategic level.

Up until now, it’s fair to say that HR departments have avoided devolving their people into numerical data, with some justification. But they’ve also missed the fact that they too have valuable data that can be consolidated and interpreted with an eye for patterns.

Global research conducted by Deloitte principal Josh Bersin showed that only 14 per cent of businesses reported analytics capability in HR in 2013. This was compared to 81 per cent in finance, 77 per cent in operations, 58 per cent in sales and 56 per cent in marketing.

An indication of how times are changing in this area, from Bersin’s research we also learn that 78 per cent of large companies with 10,000 or more employees rated HR and talent analytics as an “urgent” or “important” priority.

It’s a trend that consultancies such as McKinsey are well aware of. “HR is a field driven by intuition – we’ve done this with company X and it should work here – but this doesn’t take context properly into account. The practice of throwing mud against the wall and hoping it sticks happens all too often,” explains McKinsey director, Tom Saar.

There are two problems with this approach he says. Firstly there’s no aim at a particular cause, and there’s a long feedback loop before you know if your hypothesis is correct.

“We’re trying to become more surgical in selecting the areas to make a difference, so you get a multiplier effect from your actions, and a feedback loop that functions essentially in real time. That way you know if something works or not, and can fix it accordingly,” says Saar.

“The benefit is how quickly you can change an organisation. The rule of thumb is that it’s a three to five-year journey to change culture. We’re trying to shorten that cycle, and I think predictive analytics is going to be the key to doing that.”

The first step towards real-time feedback boils down to the data of individuals, as HR explores the mix of employees, their experiences and their predispositions, to better understand the workforce as a whole.

“We’ve seen organisations that can analyse email patterns to understand the level of connectedness between the different sites and functions,” says Saar. “It’s the kind of thing that wasn’t done much 10-15 years ago, but is now a commonplace analysis,” Saar says.

“You can harness data that already exists in the organisation – cultural surveys, engagement surveys, leadership surveys and 360 feedback. All of that becomes data points.

“There’s other data, too, that organisations aren’t regularly tapping into, such as exit interviews and assessment centre results. It uses some external tools, but it’s internal information about the company.”

A workshop on big data will take place at AHRI’s National Convention. Details here. 

This article is an edited version. The full article was first published in the June 2015 issue of HRMonthly magazine as ‘Size Matters’. AHRI members receive HRMonthly 11 times per year as part of their membership. Find out more about AHRI membership here. 

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