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So how do you enter a People Analytics Leader role, when you are the one who establishes it? Let’s put our datasets aside for a moment, and discuss the thoughts, plans, experiences, and hopes, at this crucial phase of the role. I was privileged to further explore this process at one of my old clients – Amdocs. Although organizational researches that fall within the category of People Analytics have been conducted in Amdocs long before, this global company, which operates in over 50 locations, has a new People Analytics Leader – Gal Mozes. I had the pleasure to interview Gal lately on stage, on one event of “Amdocs Career Week”.

During “Amdocs Career Week” both employees and managers in Amdocs were invited to participate in activities, such as lectures from keynote speakers, workshops, Hackathon, and panels with leaders, with the main objective of promoting the dialogue around their development and future career path at Amdocs. This special week was a great opportunity to take the first formal step on the journey to data-driven HR within the entire Amdocs HR community, which encompass a few hundreds of HR professionals. In my session with this audience, I offered an introduction to People Analytics. But my introduction could not be completed without Gal’s interview, which shed light on her onboarding. I’m happy to share this interview with our community, and I’m sure it will inspire other People Analytics Leaders who take their first steps and establish the role in their organizations.

Background

LSH: Tell us about yourself, Gal, and why did you choose to move to the field of people analytics?

GM: I’m an organizational psychologist, and until a few months ago, I was working as an organizational development consultant for the past 8 years. I was leading the sensing domain meaning I was responsible for the annual engagement survey and pulse surveys, so you can already see I had a flavor for the mix of numbers and people. Also, I have a Ph.D. in social-organizational psychology that included creating a questionnaire about behaviors and a lab simulation, so I also have a soft spot for psychological research, and I’m no stranger to social science statistics. And last but not least, I love to uncover insights and help others do the same, so when I started hearing about this new domain called People Analytics, I was quite intrigued. Locating myself in the intersection between organizational psychology and data was the next obvious move, and luck was on my side at me when a new people analytics role was created in my company, and my passion for the area was a well-known fact. A real match made in (workplace) heaven and so I found myself moving to this role.

Challenges

LSH: How would you describe the challenges that your company faces these days in regards to data strategy?

GM: I think that in the past 2 years, we took very important steps to promote ourselves when it comes to descriptive data. We worked hard to create a ‘one-stop-shop’ dashboard for leaders and HRs so that they will have a place to see key measurement in the different people related areas such as recruitment, performance management, talent mobility, burn out and more. I think we still have a way to go when it comes to turning it into a decision-supporting tool and showing the value it brings. But descriptive data is just the first step of the journey when becoming data-driven. However, it’s not people analytics just yet, for which the diagnostic part is the holy grail. When we learn to identify key business challenges and then use clever tools and approaches, such as predictive analytics, ML, planned experiments, etc. to tackle them, then we will be where we strive to be at, which is data-savvy.

LSH: Your HR partners, where are they in the journey of becoming data-driven?

GM: I keep reading articles about how HR is not data-oriented, and the worst thing is they say it about themselves! I believe that where there’s a will, there’s a way and I’m happy to say that I’ve seen a great deal of willingness to go on that journey. People understand that this is a key future capability in HR, and they are willing to step out of their comfort zone and acquire these skills. Yes, I know some might lack the tools and the experience, but this should not hold them back. I’m here to support them, and part of my job would be to provide the tools, training, and consultation that would help them during the journey. I hope this can be a first step in creating their confidence in this data-driven approach, knowing that they’re not alone.

Development in HR

LSH: Why do you think it’s crucial these days for an HR leader to base their discussions on data?

GM: In order to make an impact on the business, you need to talk “the language of the business”, which is numbers, money, analytics, and data related insight. So if an HR leader wants to be a key partner, speaking in the same language and terms is a must. Also, I think that using a combination of their experience and intuition together with the data and analytics would be so powerful that they would be practically invincible. But seriously though, I don’t think data solves everything, but it’s much harder to argue with, and it’s a strong tool to make a point and initiate a change.

LSH: What do you expect from HR leaders as your partners?

GM: It’s easy; I want them to be my partners in crime and go on this journey together. We work in a large organization of 25K employees in more than 50 countries and diverse business units and roles. So the challenges are plenty and quite diverse, it’s never boring, but it’s also a lot. My HR partners are required to be able to raise the business questions in relation to people’s data, as they are there in the field and they know the needs and challenges in a way I could never know. So my request to them is data-minded so we can work together to identify the opportunities to utilize data and uncover the insights that can bring value to the business and the employees. This means the HR leaders should be able to review data, hold a conversation around data points and analytics, and most importantly, find the relevant business questions.

Success

LSH: What would you define as a successful first year in the role?

GM: That’s a tough one, much easier to say what others should do! Honestly, I understand It’s a huge mission, and so much more than being “analytic” and knowing how to work with data. That’s why I would define success in the first year relating to two main stakeholders: First, let’s start with my partners in HR. I would love to see a change in HRs mindset so that they would feel comfortable with data. Again, I see the approach towards HR in relation to data, and I truly don’t think it’s justified. If we will move out of our own way and desert this perception, then I think this can become one more valuable tool in their already impressive toolbox. Also, based on the wise words of people analytics leaders the duty of the people analytics function is to make the HR more data-driven, and I’m not going to argue with the experts but rather take this advice and learn from their experience. Second, If I want to earn my keeping, then there has to be a contribution to business success. And while knowing this is a key element of this role’s essence, I also know it’s very ambitious. So while I already started looking into a few interesting leads, I am aiming to find a quick win people analytics project. This means easy to access and use data in an area it would be possible to do a real change that is valuable to the business. And for that, I need to know that I’m not alone and have my trusted HR partners so that together we will find the right opportunities to make an impact.

LSH: Thank you, Gal!

I look forward to seeing you spreading your net in Amdocs’ huge HR group, and lead it to first successful case studies in the coming year. I’m honored and fortunate to be partnering with you in educating HR professionals to be more data-driven!

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(This article is based on my Hebrew “TED” talk at the conference People Geekup Tel Aviv in June 2019. I dedicated this talk to HR professionals who make their first steps on their data-driven journey. Read also my list of Public Speaking).

How to change the analytic mindset of HR for good? I deal with this question for years. I’m a People Analytics consultant and mentor. I help HR teams to leverage people’s data and HR technology to drive insights that contribute to business success. A nice side effect of my activity as an advisor is making HR professionals heroes in their organizations. I’m an applied researcher for more than two decades now – a multidisciplinary professional with a background in Economics, Business Strategy, Psychology, Statistics, Programming, and more. Connecting all dots into a diverse role is not only a millennials theme. It is the reason I started my own business many years ago.

Connecting the dots

 

Here’s a fun fact about me: I’m a photographer artist. I’m also an eternal student, a curious character who learns about ideas and human experiences, and an autodidact in wide-ranging fields of interest – Positive psychology is one example. A few years ago, I realized that principles of Positive Psychology, which I learned from books and lectures, are nicely reflected in my personal experiences as a photographer artist. I started to document those reflections, and soon enough, I introduced to the world a new therapeutic photography method, that was proved to be effective to my students and audience. I called it Focus on Happiness.

If there a single sentence that sums up my entire therapeutic photography method, this would be it: “The view is an interaction of ability and opportunity”. Every picture or frame of our lives is a combination of the things we can do and the circumstances that enable us to do so. As simple as that. This insight is most relevant for me today, as I mentor HR managers on their data-driven journey. The impact of HR professionals in their organization is a combination of what they can do with data, and the business needs, i.e., the circumstances in which they express this ability. Today I’ll share the three key practices (and a bonus one too) that enable such a combination, between ability and opportunity. If HR professionals follow them, their success in impacting the business by People Analytics is guaranteed.

Computers are useless

 

Why not start with the bonus, for a change? The first quote I added to my diverse inspiration list has been attributed to Pablo Picasso, the most vital artist of the 20^th century: “Computers Are Useless. They Can Only Give You Answers”. Obviously, Picasso had no clue about People Analytics, but his idea is applicable to all of us in this domain. There is no point in running the most sophisticated analytics or building a shiny dashboard, without the attempt to answer a business question. Start your analytical journey with a business question that involves actionable insights. Picasso was right! Computers can only give us answers. We are the ones who must come up with the right business questions in the first place. Only then, we can proceed with the data, our people data.

Experiment with data – our own data

 

In my recent article, People Analytics – Build the Value Chain, I mentioned that there are plenty of online courses for People Analytics. Some are pretty good; others are nothing but excellent because they enable students to be exposed to the invaluable experience of experts, respected colleagues in this field. However, all online courses lack the opportunity to exercise actual business questions of your company and real people data from your own HR-tech solutions. This can be done only in Intra-organizational training and mentoring. Such training enables up-skilling HR to be more data-driven, and moreover, it may also be the actual foundation of People Analytics projects.

So, whatever you do to educate yourselves, make sure that your learning opportunities include experiments with your own data. Master business questions in your organization and your own data, so you’ll be able to build your company HR data strategy in the near future – move from business question to actionable insights by owning your data sources, storages, analytics and visualized outputs.

Hack #1 – when you afraid to fail

 

I was recently a panelist in HackingHR Tel Aviv. For me, the most exciting moment in the event was when half of the audience raised hands after I asked, “Who works today or is going to start working soon in People Analytics?” I knew most of those faces in the audience, and I realize my contribution to establishing this profession in my country. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t fail. And personally, I know a lot about the fear of failure.

When you start your journey to data-driven HR, be prepared to fail. However, if you create psychological safety in your learning environment, you won’t be afraid to start again. Your failure will only mean that you are not there, yet, but you are getting there. Take Adam Grant’s advice – always question your default solutions and try other options. Or, in the word of a mentee testimonial, in a case study of people Analytics is SMBs – “We could afford to experiment with data, and making mistakes, knowing that we had the support of a professional framework… In our mentoring sessions, but also between sessions, each of us could comfortably ask any question, raise ideas, and make a mistake. Thanks to the openness that was created within the team, everybody felt that we were able to cope with the challenge.”

Hack #2 – when change is difficult

 

Change is inevitable, and that is also true in the HR domain. But the experience of leading a change is hard. Why? Scientific evidence connect the challenge of change to the way the human brain is wired and explains why most change initiatives fail. As I previously mentioned, “A core driver of the brain function is maintaining safety and stability. Therefore, even a beneficial change can be perceived as a threat. When you lead a change in your organization, you directly conflict with your brains’ core needs.”

To overcome this barrier, and help against the reflexive resistance, you need to create new rituals within learning sessions, that would generate a sense of security. While mentoring HR teams, I discovered that rituals are effective: “When meeting agenda and pace of learning are predictable, and when new social norms such as asking questions and thinking out loud are created, people practice openness and curiosity. Familiarity with the setting gives them a sense of certainty and stability.”

 

Build the Value Chain

 

I followed all these key practices – Practice your own data, psychological safety, and rituals – As I built my training program for data-driven HR, which I offer now to organizations worldwide. I help HR professionals to build the People Analytics value chain through sixteen lessons and four milestones. Each HR team can create, with my guidance, its unique rituals. The team members learn by using their own data to solve their business questions, in an experimental environment, where mistakes and failure are welcome as an opportunity to learn. I’m very excited to mold my experience, both my failure and successful case studies, into a structured course that suits each organization, no matter how large or small.

 

 

Data Makes you fly

 

When I started this blog, I chose one of my crane’s photographs for the main page slider. As I previously wrote, cranes are a great metaphor – always on a worldwide journey, with their large flocks, dynamic roles, and inter-dependencies. They are just like us, people in organizations, who are on their journey to data-driven HR. When I wrote on that slider that “data makes you fly”, I couldn’t imagine that in three years I would be recognized as one of the global influencers in the HR-Tech industry, and have such a fascinating career opportunity. In my mind, I only had my career path up to that point. But I also thought about HR leaders who embrace analytics and become heroes in their organizations.

I hope that the HR journey in the data world will last, as the cranes’ endless journey. However, we face such dramatic change now, that may turn everything to other directions. The demand for new skills in the HR role, i.e., the Procurement and Ethics of HR-Tech breathe down our neck. HR people can’t procrastinate their own change. They must up-skill and be more data-driven. I call you to join this journey today.

Featured in the book

"This book is not a typical textbook about People Analytics practices. It offers readers an opportunity to learn and change while enjoying themselves, taking time to contemplate, absorb ideas, and, hopefully, overcome barriers."

"You will find in this book sixteen lessons, organized in four milestones that, from my experience, build the People Analytics value chain."

Littal Shemer Haim

Author

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