So, I looked at some of the things that I faced as an HR professional….
I love sports and am always amazed by what happens all around and the way athletes and sportsmen grow in their lives. The IPL gave way to a greater fantasy of watching teams come together and play. In 2007, the Rajasthan Royals won the IPL. They were the unlikely winners by a long shot. There were no million dollar pinch hitters, they had an old Shane Warne who was not known to be an inspiring leader. Not sure if Shilpa Shetty had a role but, it just seemed impossible for them to win. A couple of years later I read a book by Michael Lewis called ‘Moneyball’. It was about a baseball team- Oakland Athletics, who won 20 games on trot, an unlikely event, almost impossible. But it happened. Owed largely to a Manager Billy Beane ( played by Brad Pitt). Billy was pushed to the corner because his owner did not buy expensive players, his team had lost some players to other teams and they were left with a bunch of not so great guys. Beane is committed to win and has an ambition to beat the best, in an economical way. He had to make some drastic change to his strategy. He had met a Yale grad, Peter Brand, who based on some statistics, said that there were some fantastic players available. Billy went through reams of data, agreed with his young partner and made the decision. Together they recruit a bunch of undervalued players, misfit boys, who have the potential to be match winners. Billy had to take those chances. Translating theory into practice is not easy. He did and the rest is history. Rajasthan Royals perhaps had such a story, except it was never told this way!!This story has relevance to our current state: big plans, small purse, big ambition, no money. But we have to win. No Brand, small brand, have to recruit, and the best, and win the war for talent. There are many areas where this plays out. Where do we recruit? Who do we retain? Do we have to go after all the big boys? And all of this in the most economical way!!. Organizations spend millions of dollars to make business work, and yet Talent remains their number one concern area. This webinar is about to let you know what you can do to make your CEO listen to you and get it right. Beane’s problem was that wealthier teams such as the New York Yankees,With many multiples of the A’s salary Teams such as the New York Yankees, with many multiples of the A’s salary budget, could out-bid the A’s when scouting for new talent. Beane addressed this problem with crucial insight: baseball scouts often use flawed reasoning and fallible “gut feelings” or “professional judgment” when selecting baseball players. FROM MONEYBALL TO WORKFORCE INTELLIGENCEThe story of how Billy Beane used analytics to identify undervalued baseball players has far-reaching implications for many industries. The most obvious parallel is the war for talent. Baseball is not the only domain where the stakes are high when it comes to attracting and retaining talented employees. Consider the following facts: Most companies must devote anywhere between 40 and 70 percent of their operating expenses to compensation, benefits and other employee-related expenses.8 In many domains, a rule of thumb estimate of the cost of replacing an employee is 1.5 times that employee’s salary. Finally, the business press is replete with warnings that as the population ages, the competition to attract and retaintalented workers will intensify. Yet most large organizations still make their hiring decisions using a highly labor-intensive and subjective approach often centering on subjective evaluations of candidates’ performances at interviews.
So, I wish to speak to the fewmost important things here:First things first:We must know what data we have that we report out.Do we draw insights from it? This is something that is key to your career…INSIGHTS.Do you have a problem statement that can be spelt out?In short:A clear understanding of the problem at hand.The ability to speak to the Business and let them know the value once there is a problem that has been solved.The greatest value of Analytics is the ability to predict the future…that is INSIGHT.Eg. I had a salary issue on hand…..and the way I asked for a 12 % hike was not what everyone was doing…..that would be blue murder !! So I erad up a lot , looked at history, drew a model of the past, and predicted that we would more likely end up at an x% in the next few years. I spoke to the CFO of the company and had my data pat on….at the end of 30 mts, the CFO was so pleased that he wondered why I didn’t ask for more, and I said that I had a Business to protect it drew a loud laugh in him.So, let us speak of how analytics has evolved:
This is where it all begins : if we have Time on one axis and Value on the other, this is how it would look. We start with the basics reporting. I remember I had to report out each day of the number of workers that were in the factory, and the overall numbers that we had as our headcount. Later, I gave that reprot as a Monthly report. It occurred to me that there was a pattern of those present and it led to some analysis. And if I were to look at other plants / depts around, it would be cross functional. The final one is when I am able to predict the attendance on any particular day of the year, given the data that I have. Aah !! Now I had my bosses attention.
There is a new buzz word in the market : Context Intelligence !! It means that if we have all the parameters and build a heuristic model around it, it may well be that we could predict outcomes. Eg. How many of those offered would actually turn up / do well etc.Where can we use this intelliegence? Recruitment, Talent Analytics and Planning, Resource Allocation, Career Planning, Leadership pipeline, Engagement and Retention, Compensation etc.And this is not impossible, as I will show you later in the presentation.
I had to make a presentation to my CFO on whether the salaries in India would remain competitive for the next few years viz a vis the US. To me this was a great opportunity to show that even though we had an increase of about 10 to 12 % hikes, India would remain competitive for us, and that the actual cagr on compensation would be 4 % !!