People Analytics

People Analytics examines the field of people analytics through both conceptual frameworks and detailed practical cases drawn from the author's years in industry and business, written from both the HR and the business perspective. It is built on data science models and SMAC (social, mobile and cloud) technologies. The book makes the business case for why organizations should invest in this area and why HR functions and companies should take it up, and it looks at how people analytics improves business performance.

The book lays out stages of adoption and maturity models for putting people analytics into practice. It traces a progression from managing and converting employee master data, through reporting, visualization and dashboards, to descriptive and operational analytics, and finally predictive modelling. It also covers how big data and social networks are reshaping HR and talent frameworks, and how HR can mine those networks for predictive insights that benefit the business. Applications of people and talent analytics are described at length through case examples.

The author argues that HR should be guided by measurement and oriented toward business results. The book discusses "lead" and "lag" indicators and the measurement systems needed to track them. It introduces statistical tools for drawing key insights from data to support sound decisions, and it explores visual intelligence and data representation as alternatives that go well beyond conventional tools such as Excel.

The book is aimed at HR practitioners who want to question established practice by working from data and evidence, posing the right questions, and developing new capabilities to guide change and lead transformation in their own function, across the wider business and throughout the organization. It is also useful to HRM students who want a thorough grounding in people analytics as a key subfield of HR.