Article: Is your Talent Analytics going the Titanic way?

Talent Acquisition

Is your Talent Analytics going the Titanic way?

CHROs should keep tab on talent analytics of the organization to ensure that the ship is steering in the right direction
Is your Talent Analytics going the Titanic way?
 

Use tools that don’t need you to train your Business Managers to understand the behavioral data reports

 

The benefits of talent measurement and analytics are obvious and much written about. As companies prepare themselves to implement talent analytics, are CHROs asking their teams the six key questions? These will help validate their approach to Talent Analytics (especially the Behavioral part) and make sure that the ship is sailing in the right direction.

Are you fitting a square peg in a round hole?

Are you force-fitting the same psychometric assessment to capture behavioral data for different job roles in your company? Capturing behavioral data using the same assessment for all your job roles is like comparing a whale, a pigeon and a rabbit on their ability to swim. The behavioral expectations of sales is very different from the finance function. Customize your assessment and even the reports to measure what really matters to your company. So, don’t force-fit! If the data captured is not relevant, your analytics will be meaningless. Garbage in is Garbage out!

Is your business manager becoming the odd man out?

Assessment in most companies is an isolated activity. The reason is unnecessary complexity involved in implementing assessments and trainings & certifications required to interpret the assessment reports. Use tools that don’t need you to train your Business Managers to understand the behavioral data reports. This will avoid confusion about the input data and the business managers will believe in analytics (i.e. output) as well.

What’s the point of assessing if you don’t analyze?

Most of the companies conduct assessments only because that’s a mandate from the top. But HR managers often confuse assessments with analytics. Assessment gives you data only at a micro level. But analytics is required to get the big picture. What’s the point of the behavioral data if there’s no analysis done on it to derive actionable insights? Try to take every assessment exercise to the logical conclusion. For example, post the behavioral assessment, the same tool can help you with analytics reports like success profiling, talent distribution, training requirement and attrition cause reports. So analyze, don’t just assess!

Are you overselling the objectivity of your behavioral data?

Don’t over-sell psychometrics. It’s not a magic wand. We all know that there’s a bit of subjectivity involved in the behavioral data that we get from psychometric assessments. It’s very important to clarify this upfront to the Business Managers and set clear expectations. At the same time, let the business heads understand that psychometrics is arguably the only science to measure behavior in a scalable, standardized way. Business Managers would appreciate the upfront clarifications on this.

Are you getting seduced by your own hypothesis?

Pleasure is in the discovery. Don’t go with a set mindset to prove your hypothesis! Discover results; don’t just flirt with the tools to find what you would like to find. Also, don’t celebrate too early and conclude! Go through the whole process of analytics – from identifying what to measure, scientifically measuring it, analyzing – and then narrowing on the insights.

Are you confusing correlation with causation?

A big risk when you run analytics is a bias of over or under stating a relationship and mistaking correlation for causation (whether A causes B or just that they tend to occur at the same time). Be careful to consider situational aspects (market conditions, product quality etc.) along with the behavioral data before concluding on the analytics.

If your answer to most of the questions above is ‘Yes’ or ‘Maybe’, you seriously need to ask tough questions to your team. Used the wrong way, analytics can be just as blind and biased as human beings have always been! Make sure, your Talent Analytics doesn’t go the Titanic’s way!

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Topics: Talent Acquisition, Technology, #HRMetrics

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