As we saw in Leonard’s case in our last blog post, Leonard thought that he had done great analysis that would stand on its own to drive different business behavior. But, nothing changed.

What did Leonard do wrong? Leonard told people about workforce analytics vs. selling them on workforce analytics. What’s the difference? We are passionate (and rightly so) about our craft, but others with plenty of experience and expertise may have been quite successful throughout their career without relying heavily on talent-related statistical evidence. Why should they change their approach?

Before focusing on telling them what we’ve done or can do, we first need to engage them where they are and acknowledge where they’ve been.

We already mentioned in our last post that it is key to recognize how and when to present information. Let’s look at Leonard’s case and see where he could have perhaps handled things differently to better prepare and align his leadership team.

1. Getting to the starting line: Who requested this analysis? Did others buy-in to its priority and relevance? Could Leonard have tested the presenting issue with leaders to both gain broader engagement and solicit more perspectives on hypotheses relating to the underlying cause of the issue before digging in to the analysis?
   
   
2. Passing “Go”: Did the leadership team appreciate the approach and trade-offs of time and data to ensure that they were aligned in terms of methodology and commitment? A classic example in the HR realm relates to how job data are tracked in many organizations. See if this example sounds familiar to you:
   
   
   
   

   

   Leonard wanted to test the impact of time in position in his analysis. He calculated this variable based on the observed change in job title in the HRIS data. While this method can be a reasonable approach in some cases, there are pitfalls that may arise:

   • Is there calibration of job titles such that changes in title represent meaningful changes in role and responsibility vs. act as a mechanism to make someone feel more valued (financially or otherwise)?
   • Does the organization change job titles when it restructures? As you can see (and likely already have observed), time in position, while a highly useful metric, can be fraught with data quality challenges at a minimum.

   If Leonard wanted to use this metric, he had to consider the tradeoffs and engage leaders in the process, so that there was a common understanding and appreciation of the approach followed and its implications for his results.

3. Pacing yourself: Analytical leaders are well versed in a myriad of methods and, with increasing ease of data access and management, it is enticing to deploy more complex methods. That said, those methods tend to be more appreciated and effective after simpler approaches have been exhausted. While there are multiple reasons for this phenomenon, in practice it is often better to follow a simpler approach initially to engage leaders and build trust—in effect, earning the right to proceed alongside leaders to more sophisticated models based on their needs and concerns. In addition, we will want to share progress along the way, so that leaders understand and appreciate the continued decisions that were considered along our journey.
   
   
4. Reaching the finish line: When presenting the results, there is sometimes a tendency to think that the story will tell itself. “It is all right there in the data.” To truly cross the finish line, we have at least two more hurdles to overcome:
   
   
   1. how do we tell the story in a way that resonates with our target audience and
   2. how do we help them think through the actions that can be taken to drive a better outcome?
      
      
   Storytelling is a hot topic in HR analytics and is likely worthy of its own blog post. With regard to taking action, our experience is that leaders often benefit from having a forum and structure to think through potential actions to help them translate findings into an ongoing game plan for change. Even if an analytics leader doesn’t have specific HR expertise to drive action planning, they can either take advantage of a pre-built structure or partner with others in HR to help drive this discussion.

Here’s a general rule of thumb: Leaders are quick to discount an analysis that they don’t trust or where they don’t like the results. Yet, there is limited value to always proving leaders right. The above approach helps address the inherent challenges of change management in the HR analytics domain through Measurable insights that focus on Effectively and Realistically engaging leaders and Integrating with their efforts to identify Targeted actions to drive change. That is what it takes to make sure that your approach has MERIT. If you would like to learn more, please contact us at info@meritanalyticsgroup.com .