Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lexy Martin
10 min read
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In early January 2019, a headline on the McKinsey Leadership and Organization blog caught my
eye – “The critical importance of the HR business partner.” A key point made in the piece is that
HR continues to struggle to deliver effective talent strategy. The disconnect centers on the lack of
capability of HR business partners (HRBP), those who counsel managers on talent issues. The
article remarks that the value of great HRBPs remains unquestioned. However, a great HRBP is
For me, the article does not go far enough in describing the disconnect. From my research, not only
must these senior partners deliver strategic advice to business leaders on talent issues, they must
also support these leaders in getting optimal performance from their talent. They must be able to
measure talent performance. But to do this, HRBPs must manifest superb data and analytical skills.
Indeed, they may not even be the right evangelists! (but that’s for another article)
Early last year, I embarked on a research effort to determine critical practices to succeed with people
analytics. I also looked into key roles that contribute to the success of analytics.
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A Vice President responsible for HR operations at a top US bank told me that his HRBPs weren’t up
to the task of evangelizing people analytics. And, despite the transformation work the bank had done
to enhance the strategic capabilities of its HRBPs, they were not even yet truly strategists.
Further, maybe only 10% were comfortable and competent with data! It was a refrain I heard often as
I continued to do interviews last year looking at great people analytics practices. We also con rmed
analytics was “we do not have a ‘data-driven’ skillset within HR and / or our HR business partners.”
This was particularly prevalent in organizations just getting started with people analytics! When I
present these ndings at conferences and in workshops and ask audiences if they have similar
issues, the audience laughs! “Of course! It’s our primary challenge too!”
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Let me come at this topic from another direction from some long-running research based on the
Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey that I managed for its rst 16 years. It speaks to why people
analytics is important.
This survey, that looks at HR technology adoption and the value achieved from adopting
technologies, reports that starting back in 2000, organizations with some form of workforce
1. High level of people analytics process maturity including the use of a people analytics solution
3. Higher than average number of analytics topics (metrics) available for analysis
Organizations typically start to enable people analytics usage primarily among the HR community,
but the above shows a correlation between managers as people analytics users and improved
nancial performance. Thus, when beginning to enable people analytics, the question I think is
important is, “do you enable usage directly to business leaders and managers or through HRBPs?”
If it’s going to be the latter, we need to better prepare them. Keep in mind that not only does the
HRBP role require re-engineering (which means expansion of their role de nition to include these
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data and analytical skills), individual HRBPs also can bene t from having HRBP managers that
In any case, here are a few ways to prepare HRBPs to be data-savvy so they can evangelize people
analytics:
suggested the data-savvy HRBP of the future must be able to do the following.
Summarizing from an article I wrote last year on the roles and responsibilities of the HRBP manager
of the future but applicable for HRBPs too, here’s what they need them to do over and beyond what
1. Link the business strategy with talent strategy and back this up with data on how the workforce
2. Be open to using (and also becoming) a champion of people analytics. Learn to use people
analytics solutions and then use your change management skills to champion people analytics
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3. Use analytics to become a “data-driven” strategic HR business partner. Come prepared to any
discussion with your business leaders and managers to show how the workforce is meeting
business goals.
4. Apply analytics to improve talent processes. For any part of the employee lifecycle, be prepared
to show measures of the process: “So, how is the organization doing with acquiring, developing,
5. Stimulate other HRBPs to work collaboratively to use and promote people analytics. Learning
together breeds comfort with people analytics. Take on a project as an HRBP team to address a
key challenge of the business, such as where to open a new distribution center or how to be a
6. Learn to tell a story with data. Don’t just report metrics but tell the story about how the data
relates to a business challenge. For example, don’t just report turnover of 15% and how it is
trending but talk about how that translates into increased costs of hire and decreased revenue
7. Put the right HRBP Manager in charge of the team. In addition to having responsibilities for the
HR aspects of the job, this person should enable people analytics within the organization.
Now not all organizations are here – far from that. A good way to check readiness is to look at the
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Assess HRBP skills
Start by assessing your HRBPs capabilities, and then work to help them develop necessary skills,
whether that be how to use a people analytics solution, how to use data and analytics, or how to tell
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At Visier, we suggest using a gap analysis to determine which HRBPs have the skills, who they need
to develop, and even who they need to replace to get the skills needed. In gure 1, we show the key
capabilities that HRBPs need to be most effective as promoters of people analytics usage. We use
this model to assess the capabilities of a customer’s HRBPs and identify which capabilities to
enhance.
how HR service delivery is changing. Until recently, the transformation of the HR service delivery
model focused on simply leveraging automation for record-keeping and transaction management,
The emerging strategic services model elevates the ability of HRBPs to deliver workforce insights
within and beyond HR so they are able to consistently use data to advise leaders and people
managers on strategy.
For example, one of our customers, a not-for-pro t healthcare organization with over 50,000
employees, developed a program to enable its HR business partners to deliver quanti able business
impact. Its evidence-based partner consulting model consists of a three-pronged approach to
1. It has a toolset that HR uses to bring data, analysis, and insights to the forefront of problem-
solving.
2. It is building a skillset in the appropriate use of the toolset, along with developing consultative
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3. It is also impacting mindset, a business-focused approach to problem-solving, one that uses the
toolset and skillset in partnering with leaders to drive outcomes and success in meeting the
organization’s goals and objectives.
Develop HRBPs
Changing the mindset and skillset of HRBPs to have a business- and data-focused approach to
problem solving requires development and training. This will vary by organization and its maturity
with people analytics. If just getting started, develop and train pilot users or super users. Then take a
train-the-trainer approach for others. If further along, the focus of development may need to be to
help HRBPs develop a hypothesis and tell stories with data.
While HRBPs are learning and developing enhanced capabilities, it’s important to give them time to
learn and excel. They need to be freed from other work. In the previously mentioned survey, among
advanced organizations, we see they much more frequently free their HRBPs from other activities
while they are helping them become effective agents of change.
important to create a communication plan, and then to maintain a regular cadence to build
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momentum as you move your organization to a data-driven culture. We see organizations providing
newsletters, brown-bag lunches, and wikis to build capability. Focus these on helping your HRBPs
engage with their business leader and manager clients.
needs to set up a way to support HRBPs and other users. Among advanced organizations, we see
them establishing a center of excellence focused on people analytics support.
With this, they can apply a “ t for purpose” approach to both get data, education, and support to the
broad set of stakeholders within the organization, including their HRBPs. This kind of support
structure also ends up freeing the people with deep analytics skills to focus on the more
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We’ve all heard the saying, “What gets measured gets done.” And, not only that, what gets measured
So HRBPs should be challenged to set goals they wish to accomplish with people analytics and then
periodically review them and assess their success. Both individuals and organizations can bene t
from a continuous process improvement approach!
More importantly, recognize your HRBPs for their progress and results. One of our customers gives
their HRBPs recognition badges for completing tasks on their action plans and goals. That public
recognition reminds not only the individual, but their colleagues, and their business and manager
have. Maybe to jumpstart creating more applicable HRBPs, we even need to hire a new HRBP
manager for the future.
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As we go through HR transformation, whether of the HR organization itself or through HR
digitization, we need to reassess the role of service delivery in a future with new people analytics
tools and capabilities. We need to develop HRBP skills with sensitivity to the level of maturity of the
organization with people analytics. Once we start on our people analytics journey, we need a regular
cadence of communications to our HRBPs as well as to the organization.
We need to evolve to a support structure through a people analytics center of excellence. And, we
need to track HRBP goals and performance against goals and recognize them for their
achievements.
by Lexy Martin
understand their leading practices and results from people analytics. You can
follow her on Twitter or reach her at lexy.martin@visier.com. To get updates on
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