Workforce Management Featured Article
Changing the Corporate Culture of Data Mining to Offset Privacy Concerns
Data, analytics, monitoring and automation are among the key buzzwords when it comes to workforce productivity. Today’s human resources (HR) technology solutions boast that gathering data on employee habits and performance levels will only serve to help organizations and employees become more productive. One of the less discussed aspects of gathering all that data is exactly how it is being used, and when data mining techniques cross the line into privacy invasion.
A recent study from Deloitte (News - Alert) found that more than 70 percent of companies view “people analytics” as a high priority And yet, the company found only nine percent of those companies have a good understanding of which talent mechanics drive overall performance within their organizations. When it comes to spending, a mere five percent of all big data investments have gone toward HR technology, according to a survey from Tata Consultancy (News - Alert) Services.
The disconnect between recognizing the importance of people analytics and implementing and using technology solutions to improve overall business performance can be attributed to a few factors. First off, organizations need to look at data mining and gathering holistically, rather than on an employee basis. By understanding how workers are interacting and can complement and benefit each other, employers can use data to improve efficiencies throughout the organization and better utilize individual worker strengths and attributes. Mining data more holistically also helps negate the inherent creepiness factor of monitoring single individuals’ performance and productivity levels.
By developing a more holistic process for collecting and analyzing companywide data, organizations are essentially changing their HR culture and looking at ways to improve their teams, rather than individual employee performance. This removes some of the pressure from individual employees who may feel they are being singularly scrutinized based on their personal work habits and productivity levels. By analyzing those performance metrics as part of the overall team/company performance, employers can better understand how their workers interact and pinpoint areas that can be improved, rather than singling out individual employee performance.
More specifically, HR technologies need to be utilized to mine relational analytics, rather than merely people analytics. Relational data can capture metrics like communication among different people in various departments throughout a day, building a more holistic picture of how an entire organization functions. According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, there are several key characteristics of relational analytics that are critical to creating an organization-wide culture of data mining that doesn’t cross the line into individual privacy invasion.
Ideation, the ability of certain individuals to generate strong, valuable ideas, is a key metric for any data mining solution. A relational approach to data mining helps to better pinpoint those workers who are contributing across the board and have the potential to generate more holistic, comprehensive ideas that will benefit an entire organization. Similarly, influencers are important individuals in any organizations. Once again, analyzing influencers in a silo does a major disservice to an organization when influencers’ entire networks throughout a company may be analyzed to get a much clearer picture of their importance and contributions.
Traits like efficiency and innovation are also better pinpointed through relational analytics rather than individual scrutiny. These benchmarks offer value throughout an organization and understanding their impact across various teams can better serve a company’s long-term goals.
A relational, team-based culture of data mining and analytics will yield organization-wide benefits, while also taking the pressure off workers who may have previously felt singled out by individual performance analytics. By changing the corporate culture surrounding HR technologies and analytics, organizations can truly realize the benefits of relational analytics and ultimately gain efficiencies and savings while improving innovation and team performance.
Edited by Maurice Nagle