Idea in brief
The Challenge
To bring the performance of people analytics up—and in line with the hype—companies need to do more than analyze data on demographic attributes.
The Solution
Employ relational analytics, which examines data on how people interact, to find out who has good ideas, who is influential, what teams will get work done on time, and more.
The Raw Material
Companies can mine their “digital exhaust”—data created by employees every day in their digital transactions, such as e-mails, chats, and file collaboration—for insights into their workforce.
“We have charts and graphs to back us up. So f*** off.” New hires in Google’s people analytics department began receiving a laptop sticker with that slogan a few years ago, when the group probably felt it needed to defend its work. Back then people analytics—using statistical insights from employee data to make talent management decisions—was still a provocative idea with plenty of skeptics who feared it might lead companies to reduce individuals to numbers. HR collected data on workers, but the notion that it could be actively mined to understand and manage them was novel—and suspect.
