What I’ve learned running a team applying analytics to HR

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I’ve always been a strong believer of how HR teams could use data better.

Before I became a part of DBS Bank’s HR team, I was a business leader, running a business and managing people. Data-backed solutions for HR problems were always more effective in creating value and improving productivity for the organization rather than decisions based on “gut feelings.”

So when analytics first appeared in the world of people operations five years ago, I thought it was great. I had read much about it and found myself selling these solutions to clients. It was fascinating to see how big data transformed gut feel into deep insights and recommended actions in hiring and retaining talent.

But I didn’t truly understand the power of human capital analytics until I had to set up and run the human capital analytics team for DBS.

For starters, it’s ridiculously hard work. In that first year, we developed our target operating model, hired the team, built our employee analytical records (ours has more than 600 attributes), and completed modeling for two projects. Phew!

Here are five things I’ve learned since setting up the human capital analytics team. It may not be rocket science, but it’s a meaningful reflection of the challenging yet fulfilling journey.

Set a clear direction and an inspiring vision

I’ve found that having a clear direction of how human capital analytics operates and why it’s important is key to attracting the right talent.

Data scientists aren’t satisfied with simply knowing what projects they’ll be working on. That’s not enough. Instead, they want to feel that they fit in and are part of a critical function in the organization. They want to understand the larger plan and if the organization is committed to it or if it’s just a passing fad.

A clear direction helps HR align with the organization’s overall people priorities. It lets you tackle the easy wins by showing your stakeholders that the team knows what it is doing and that analytics is a tool that helps them and delivers value to both HR and the business.

Putting the human capital analytics team at the heart of insight has led to more effective decision making.

The answer lies at the crossroads of small and big data

It is so easy to get caught up in big data—especially when you have a lot of it—that we often forget the context of the problem.

You need the “small data” to get meaningful insights.

This was the most painful but powerful lesson I learned. We lost our way in one of our projects even though we began with a solid hypothesis, which drove our data collection.

Never forget the return on investment

Storytelling is critical in getting buy-in

The world of data scientists is ripe for disruption