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How can #PeopleAnalytics avoid incidents like
the Twitter firings?
www.maxb.com
max1@maxb.com

2. WORK
• Accenture
• Technology start-up
• People Analytics Consultant & Advisor
• Coach
ACADEMIC
• Computer Science
• Chartered Psychologist
• Maths & Stats
• PhD (University of London)
• Visiting Professor, University of Leeds Business School
• Associate Researcher, University of Southern California
Max Blumberg

3. When do executives like Elon lay people off?
3
So it’s all about value. But what is “value”?
Executives like Elon lay off employees when...
It’s clear that employees’ net
value is negative
Or it’s not clear that their net
value is positive
Or their work can be done
more cheaply in some other way
Or their role(s) no longer adds
net value
They think they won’t miss them
Employee net value = Employee value added – Employee cost
At what point do you fire…
A waiter? A firefighter?
A Prime Minister or
President?
A marketing
employee?
An HR team?
A People Analytics
function?
A workforce?

4. What is value? Your ET’s view of your organization
4
Investor
Capital
Tangible
assets
Intellectual
capital
Customers Human Data
Social
capital
Financial
capital

5. CEO’s like Elon are nervous
5
Send prediction of company’s expected return on shareholder
investments to financial analysts
If their prediction is wrong:
Shareholders withdraw investments
Cash flow reduces
Some resources must be liquidated
For their prediction to be right, they
must:
Ensure that the average return on all resource
investments is close to the prediction
Predict which resources are not likely not to provide
the right return and either fix them or dispose of
them
Wall Street, NY; The City, London; CBD, Singapore;
Paradeplatz, Switzerland; Central in Hong Kong;
The Chicago Loop; Marunouchi, Tokyo; Bankenviertel, Frankfurt

6. How executives turn resources
into shareholder ROI
Shareholders invest in your
organization
ET creates a strategic plan which
uses these investments to generate
returns for shareholders by
achieving a set of desired business
outcomes
• Vision, Mission, Objectives
• Formulate corporate, BU & functional
strategie
Invest in resources to implement
strategy
• Tangible
• Intellectual Capital
• Financial
Invest in strategic capabilities to
unlock those resources
• Innovation
• Productivity
• Customer growth
• Quality
BUs & functions implement
strategies
ET adjusts underperforming
resources and strategic capabilities
Organization hopefully generates
profit (value) a portion of which
returns to investors
6

7. How People Analytics can turn people processes into desired business outcomes
RECRUITMENT LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
CAREER
DEVELOPMENT
REWARD &
RECOGNITION
SUCCESSION PLANNING
COMPETENCY
MANAGEMENT
CHANGE MANAGENT
WORKFORCE PLANNING
WORKPLACE DESIGN
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
HUMAN CAPITAL
INFRASTRUCTURE
EMPLOYEE RELATIONS
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
WORKFORCE PERFORMANCE
HUMAN CAPITAL EFFICIENCY
TALENT MANAGEMENT
WORKFORCE ADAPTABILITY
WORKFORCE AGILITY
CULTURAL ALIGNMENT
LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY
PRODUCTIVITY
QUALITY
INNOVATION
CUSTOMERS
PEOPLE PROCESSES
LEVEL 4
WORKFORCE CAPABILITIES
LEVEL 3
STRATEGIC
CAPABILITIES
LEVEL 2
BUSINESS
OUTCOMES
LEVEL 1
HUMAN CAPITAL STRATEGY
PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
REVENUE
GROWTH
ROIC
TOTAL RETURN
TO
SHAREHOLDERS
CAPITAL
EFFICIENCY
FUTURE VALUE
SUSTAINABILITY
SOCIAL IMPACT
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
TALENT
PROCESSES
WORKFORCE
PROCESSES

8. Why does the ET fund People Analytics?
8
They pay you to ensure the workforce capabilities that deliver
shareholder ROI
If PA doesn’t do this, the ET’s own jobs would be more secure giving
the PA budget to a function that does demonstrate shareholder ROI
So what must your People Analytics function do to justify its
continued existence?

9. You need to execute the following strategic people analytics to justify your continued budget
and existence
9
1. Let executives know what your People Analytics function can do
Reduce your chances of being removed by letting everyone know how you can contribute to shareholder returns
2. Research your company’s business problems
Interview executives to find out where your company’s strategic and workforce capability problems lie
3. Generate hypotheses
Ask which aspects of your people processes might be causing the above problems
4. Collect & generate people process data
Collect data about problematic people processes to test your hypotheses
5. Quantitative analysis:
Build statistical models to test your hypotheses
6. Implement your findings
Update your people processes using hypotheses proved correct by the model

10. 1. Let your executives and operations people know what People Analytics can do
10
4. For example, we can test the impact of workforce changes on paper before you impulsively implement
untested ideas (like firing half your workforce, reducing everyone’s pay or putting beds in the office)
3. Instead, our People Analytics function is about proactively building you a great workforce with the
capabilities you need to execute your business strategy.
2. Hence we don’t just do reactive data-related work like reporting, dashboards and visualizations
1.We are not just a reactive data-led function like IT & MIS; People Analytics is strategy-led.

11. 2. Research the business problems with your ET
11
Learn as much as you can about your company’s objectives, business strategy, strategic capabilities,
workforce capabilities, and people processes
Ask about business outcomes
What are our organizational objectives?
Which issues do we face meeting our organizational objectives?
Ask about Strategic Capabilities
What strategic capabilities do we need to achieve our objectives and support our
business strategy?
What issues do we fact with our strategic capabilities including productivity,
innovation, customer growth & quality, and how do these impact achieving our
objectives?
Ask about Workforce Capabilities:
What workforce capabilities do we need to support our strategic capabilities?
What issues do we face with our workforce capabilities and how do these issues
impact our workforce capabilities?
Ask about People Processes
What issues do we face with our people processes that limit our workforce
capabilities?
Your ET may be too far removed to answer this but it’s worth a try

12. 3. Generate hypotheses
Example: Value Profiler
12

13. Example of a Value Profiler Output
Training
Reward
Career
Team
interaction
Org
struct
Recruit
Induction
Low High
Medium Priority High Priority
Low Priority Targeted, Incremental, Improvements
Only
High
Low
Process
Effectiveness
Sales
process
Process Importance
13

14. Example: Service Profit Chain
14 Harvard Business Review, 2008

15. Example: Salesforce Profiler
15 Blumberg, 2011
Processes & Levers KPDs
Salesforce capabilities $

16. 4. Generate data to test your hypotheses
16
The data required to test hypotheses
about the effectiveness of your people
processes seldom exists in any of your
systems
If anywhere, it is most likely to be in your
climate/engagement surveys
Chances are that you’ll need to generate the data you need through employee
listening and surveys

17. 5. Perform quantitative analysis
Build statistical Model
17
Regression
Machine
learning
Multilevel
Modelling
Combinations
of the above

18. 6. Implement
Update your people process using hypotheses proved correct by the model
18
Examples:
Competency management: Identify the competencies required for high performance
and productivity
Recruitment: Identify the personality traits required for agility and innovation
Career development: Identify the career paths required for retention and quality

19. Implementation of analytics results: Recruitment example
19

20. Thank you! Questions? ☺

21. Appendix

22. What is People Analytics?
22
People Analytics is the practice of using….
Evidence-based methods (quantitative & qualitative) to…
Design people processes that…
Create the workforce capabilities required to…
Enable the organization’s strategic capabilities
That generate the organization's desired business outcomes
People
Processes
Workforce
Capabilities
Strategic
Capabilities
Business
Outcomes

23. What is not People Analytics?
23
Ask yourself: If our People Analytics
function disappeared tomorrow, what
would our organization miss most?
• While you’re at it, ask yourself: If I
disappeared tomorrow, what would
our organization miss most?

24. What is not People Analytics?
24
People
Analytics
…
is not a reporting or data mining
function
What can your PA function do that MIS can’t
do? Would you really be missed if you stopped
reporting, dashboards & visualizations?
is not a quantitative-data-only
function:
Qualitative skills are crucial for
understanding your ET and your
culture
does not workforce capabilities that
may or may not be linked to strategic
capabilities
If they’re not linked to strategic capabilities,
they’re useless
is not an employee listening or ONA
function
Employee listening is a data source & ONA is a
model: they are useless if unconnected to
strategic capabilities