The sky is the limit when it comes to the impact of People Analytics.
Historically, we tend to put people in professional boxes based on their natural skill sets. If a recent graduate loves numbers and analytics, they’re told to pursue a role in finance or join a business analytics team. If a candidate loves understanding what makes people tick, they may find themselves drawn toward HR and People Strategy. But in today’s people-forward and data-driven workforce, these old rules are antiquated—and these two seemingly opposite skill sets can be incredibly powerful when brought together.
I recently spoke with Patty Smith, People Analytics Partner at Cruise, who is proof that there are a lot of choices on the People side of business for individuals who are drawn to data sets as much as they are to solving human-centric challenges. A People leader with a Harvard MBA, Patty’s role in people analytics shows us two things: One, on the People side, there is a growing appreciation for the impact of analytics and the tools it takes to capture people data. And two, It’s hugely important to have the right people in place who can look at these analytics, better understand the people driving companies forward, and build better businesses overall.
In this conversation with Patty, we discuss the brief history of people analytics, where it’s headed next, and why it’s such an exciting path for HR professionals looking to blend their interests in both numbers and people outcomes.
What makes People Analytics such an important emerging career?
Patty: HR is changing really quickly. I studied applied math and psychology which told me two things about myself: I like math and I like understanding how people work. But it took me almost 10 years to find my way into the field of People Analytics. Part of the reason why my role exists now and didn’t when I was graduating is that 10 years ago most companies weren’t overtly pursuing People-driven strategies. This is still true with so many companies today.
When a company first transitions to pursue a people-forward strategy, the executive goes to their HR generalist and says, hey, show me the data—and so many companies are unprepared with that information. As a result People teams are realizing that there’s a vacuum of demand for data literacy that they haven’t historically needed on their team.
What was your journey from business analytics to where you are now?
Patty: I’ve always been trying to find that combination of working with data and people. After working at Lattice – before your time! – I started my own recruiting company where I was trying to find a better way of incorporating data into candidate profiles. The company did a lot of psychometric analyses by interviewing candidates and coming up with profiles that would indicate candidate/company fit and result in a better all-around hiring experience. The output was better data on a person and a great proof-point that what you put into a people-driven process is going to amplify what you get out of it.
It wasn’t the right business strategy at the time, but it made me realize how much I care about this problem space and I realized people analytics was my path forward.
People analytics is still in so many ways a very new field. We’ve taken some significant steps, but there’s still so much more to do, and so much that we can do as we get access to more complex People insights and find new and innovative ways to build them into HR processes. How do you see that evolution continuing?
Patty: Working in business analytics, I noticed the function is standing on the shoulders of companies like Salesforce which, 20 years ago, defined core processes like, here’s how we run a sales process. Here’s where marketing fits in, etc. Once that mechanism was solidified, then lots of companies built businesses on top of it to help us automate adjacent processes. That is where people analytics is now, and what I’m seeing on the recruiting analytics side is that we’re starting to see a convergence in how we think about recruiting data but we are still grappling with fundamental questions like, how do you define your funnel?
We see disparate applicant tracking systems like Greenhouse, Workday, and Ashby, but I think there will be some sort of consolidation. Coming out of that, there will be other companies that help you with that process and automation piece. From a data perspective, a lot of my time is spent actually doing the data engineering work to pull data sources together and build our data infrastructure. That’s not where I want to spend my time—I want to be getting to the insights!
Those insights are where the promise of People Analytics ultimately lies. Right now, we’re just beginning to coalesce around what the basic measurements are and how they’re defined. I turn to our people analytics leader when I want insights, and their goal is getting all the relevant data that drives the insights that lead to impact. If that’s where we are now, when you think about where you see people analytics going, where do you think the biggest impact will come from?
Patty: I see People Analytics sitting on top of the operational layer of HR and providing the connective tissue across DEIB, recruiting, people ops, etc. That’s been such an underinvested-in layer and there are businesses solving one problem or another in this space, but there’s still a long way to go. There’s still quite a bit of manual work being done and I can’t wait to see more companies pop up that can really automate and make the HR folks’ lives way easier to open up space for more insight-driven conversations based on people data.
Something I love most about working in HR right now is working among people who care about people. The things we’re bringing to the table really have a direct impact on people’s lives. What is keeping you excited about HR? As you’re looking at the next five years, what do you see as the most exciting things for candidates considering entering this field?
Patty: I also love having that direct impact on people, and on top of that I love building new things. The idea that there’s such a vast, undiscovered plane to create in this space is so exciting. It also comes at a time when there’s a lot of interest and need for better people processes but we’re still figuring out how to meet that need with elegant solutions. There’s a company waiting to be built, a team waiting to be led, and thought leadership opportunities all across the board. If you want to have an impact, this is the place.
It feels like business leaders are catching up to how strategic and data-driven HR is and can be. Ten years ago, before those tools existed, it would be me trying to make a gut call, which was way more anecdotal and less precise. Now, I can have that conversation with the CEO backed by data. So we can be more proactive and get to the right solution that’s going to have the biggest impact, faster, and as a result, People leaders are much more influential in the c-suite than ever before. What do you see as the value in increasing HR exposure to MBA programs? How might that impact the future of who has a seat at the table?
Patty: Tactical things you learn in a finance or accounting class are small wins but as my professors would say, the most value you’ll get [out of an MBA program] comes from the leadership classes. And at the end of the day, the leadership questions being asked in those classes and case studies are all grappling with some sort of People problems.
The problem might be, for example, how do you manage an underperforming executive? Or, what is the right approach to opening a new international office?These classes teach students how to lead with empathy through human-centric challenges—and that is the expertise of the CHRO/CPO persona.
So, the problems are the same, but who is addressing them has shifted from the CEO to CPO/CHRO. There’s an umbrella narrative of the people-centric business—do you think that’s driven by business needs and/or a shifting need in treating employees as more human?
Patty: Companies leading with a people-first strategy still need to prove the ROI for this strategy somewhere. However, it’s really difficult to have one metric that you hang your hat on like, “attrition is down,” or “employee satisfaction is up” since those metrics don’t always have a direct relationship to the business’s bottom line. You and I understand the benefit of this strategy and we believe in the long-term business value it creates. But some companies do need to prove it’s worth the investment until they see lagging indicators like losing talent to companies operating in this way. So why now? Why is this the time? Some companies have already proved out this [people-first] concept—and I believe that in time the rest will follow.
Final Thoughts
When the People function is held to the same level of rigor as other parts of the organization, when our metrics are alongside financial metrics, that’s when we’ve succeeded. The next phase is that we have to hold ourselves, as People leaders, to those standards and continue to build on that foundation and prove value. We will also need to rely increasingly on People leaders with business and analytical minds to help get us there.
For many years, we didn’t even have the tools to start those conversations. Now, we’re starting to be able to prove the value of a strong recruiting practice, for example. But there’s still a long way to go. We’ve just started on this journey and now that people have gotten a little taste, they want more.
