Having worked in the HR analytics arena for over 30 years, there is one persistent truth: Unless something is compliance-related, it may not get analyzed at all. Now, perhaps this statement feels a bit extreme, but think about it: Not all organizations measure even the most strongly correlated workforce factors driving business performance, like engagement, manager effectiveness and career-based rewards.

Why not? There may be several factors at play—typically tied to one or more of the following:

• Data availability and quality concerns
• Lack of confidence in the underlying methodology (e.g., a belief system that surveying isn’t reliable, which may be part of the proposed analytical approach)
• A “know-it-all” perspective (e.g., what are you going to tell me that I don’t already know, and will I believe you?)
• Resource constraints (e.g., do I have the people with the time and requisite skills to do this analysis?)

In fact, the first and often most challenging part of working in HR analytics is convincing leaders of the efficacy and value of the analysis vs. the actual execution of the work. So many HR analytics leaders I have spoken with over the years have had the same complaint: “So much of my time is spent selling workforce analytics when the value of what I know and enjoy is in delivering analytics.”

Why is this criticism so persistent? One can draw comparisons to what happens in so many firms when they promote talented technical experts into managerial positions. Nothing. There is often no training on how to be an effective manager, no dedicated on-the-job support and no regular accountability or coaching to address issues often experienced when new managers are placed. So, well-intentioned organizations take highly-skilled technical resources and put them in a generalist role often to afford them more upward career mobility and don’t provide basic tools needed to be effective in a substantively different work context. Why are we then surprised about the systemic challenges that we see in terms of manager effectiveness across so many firms and industries?

In HR analytics, organizations apply a similar model of talent development—let’s take someone who is a strong technical expert, likely from a discipline outside of HR, and make them the leader of HR/workforce/people/talent analytics and/or planning as a “stretch assignment.” And, not only do we expect them to effectively translate their technical skills to a new and highly-regulated area (HR), but we also often implicitly or explicitly leave them with the added challenges of managing leadership expectations, resource constraints and data and technology limitations.

If this story sounds all too familiar to you, you’ve likely either been in this situation yourself or seen someone else go through it. Rather than repeat these mistakes, there is a better way to approach these key transitions to both improve and accelerate the overall experience.

As much as sales skills are key to sales-related positions, selling is a part of almost any role. That said, there are unique considerations when selling workforce analytics because we are often talking about analytically-oriented individuals (a/k/a “introverts”) trying to convince leaders (a/k/a “extroverts”, who may or may not be analytical by nature). While this dynamic may be daunting, there are fundamental techniques that can be applied to enhance success rates.

One simple example is in the basic format of how and when we present information. In one of our case studies, we see “Leonard”, a new leader of workforce analytics, proudly presenting key findings to his organization’s leadership team. He covers details of the approach, the data utilized, the findings and potential actions. Sounds like a complete picture? Perhaps on paper, this approach works, but in a meeting room with leaders, who haven’t been engaged in key steps along the way, Leonard’s story was too much too fast. Leaders didn’t appreciate the data challenges that influenced the ultimate approach and were skeptical of the results.

Did they tell Leonard? No, they made vague statements like: “interesting,” “fascinating” and “I’ve never seen this before.”

What did Leonard do wrong? While Leonard had a lot of the right content, Leonard did not prepare or read the room to gain leaders’ buy in. Not only did Leonard likely need to prepare leaders along the journey (individually and/or as a group), but Leonard should have considered engaging others in some of the potential actions to ensure that his proposal would both resonate and be realistic. Leonard read the room in a positive way, but months later Leonard sees that nothing has changed and can’t understand why.

Have you ever seen anyone in a similar scenario? To share your experience or learn more about this example, and others that inform our approach to coaching HR analytics leaders, please reach out to us at info@meritanalyticsgroup.com .