New Trends in Human Capital Research and Analytics

Alexis A. Fink, Microsoft Corporation

We are seeing a broad trend toward data-driven decisions across myriad business areas. In HR, the trend has been evolving for the past several years. Levenson opens his 2005 HR Strategic Review article with, "HR Analytics is an emerging discipline that can help enable HR to fulfill the promise of becoming a true strategic partner" (p. 28).

ac Fit?, -enz, one of the founders of the analytics movement has said: "Unquestionably, analytics is going to give HR a major makeover. Analytics is the engine of business intelligence and BI is a prerequisite for sustainable performance. Although analytics have been in use in production, marketing and finance for many years, HR has successfully avoided it. That evasive action will block HR from ever being a strategic partner with a seat at the C-level table. The good news is that there are already a number of companies doing fine work here. The days of anecdotal reporting are over and hard evidence is the new language." Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology has a long history of driving organizational success through effective use of analytics. Recently, organizations have been stretching the bounds of traditional HR and traditional I/O psychology and expanding their analytics in new and intriguing ways. While much has been written about the importance of analytics, there is precious little available that conveys the range of research projects that organizations are undertaking, or the approaches that have been most useful. We have little to guide us as we seek to transition to a more data-driven profession and leverage a broader range of datasets and methodological approaches. To that end, we sought to understand the leading-edge practices of peers at respected organizations, so that we could adapt, extend or be inspired by their work. In parallel, we explored the most recent work by key thought leaders regarding the state-of-the-art in human capital analytics. We conducted interviews with several thought leaders in the field, and reviewed the recent literature. Here are the findings of our inquiry.

review of relevant recent literature, including the practitioner literature, academic literature and popular press, (2) interviews with practitioners in a variety of organizations, representing a variety of industries, and (3) interviews with a set of thought leaders in the area of human capital analytics and research. Reviews of the practitioner literature (primarily CLC and Conference Board White Papers) offered some intriguing case studies. However, they often were described in isolation, rather than delving into the broader context of an ongoing research and analytics strategy. Further, they did not explain their results and integration into organizational systems in satisfying detail. Reviews of the academic literature were similarly unsatisfying, identifying intriguing methods and relationships, but not connecting them to the broader picture of business success or long-term strategy (There are notable exceptions, primarily meta-analyses, e.g., Birdi et al, 2008.). In contrast to the academic literature, there is a growing body of popular press books on the topic of analytics generally, as well as an emerging body specific to HR. This body of work seems to embrace the term Human Capital, rather than Human Resources. Our emphasis here is to aggregate insights, observations and reflections from the interviews we conducted during summer and fall 2009. These interviews do not reflect a random sample of organizations, nor do they include all organizations that are pushing the boundaries of analytics within HR. However, they do reflect a range of industries, geographies, organizational maturity and size. More importantly, they show a range of effective approaches to analytics and research on people issues within organizations.The list of participant organizations is in Exhibit 1. Where we had permission, we shared firm names. Otherwise, we used a consistent

masking scheme; that is, we always refer to Company G to as Company G.

Interviews
We conducted interviews with 22 leading organizations and a half-dozen thought leaders over the summer of 2009. Interviews examined a standard set of aspects relevant to managing an internal Human Capital Research and Analytics function. We addressed: 1. Content and topic areas: a. Employee Surveys b. Linkages c. Manager Assessment d. Leadership Assessment e. Quality of Hire f. Selection/Staffing g. Retention/Turnover h. Performance Management i. Onboarding/I.ifecycle j. Culture/Employee Value Proposition

(EVP)

2. Methods - T h e primary approaches used to answer research questions and inform decisions | 3. Staffing - Talent profile of the team conducting the work 4. Work profile - Extent to which teams are leading an agenda, partnering with key executives, executing against a pre-determined set of priorities, or executing against annual or recurring processes 5. Influence model - Where, on this continuum, does the team primarily operate? TOOLS/PLATFORMSDATAANALYSISINSIGHTINFLUENCEDECISIONS. 6. Consumption - Who consumes the work, and what is the engagement model with them 7. Organization - Reporting structure and organization alignment >
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Our Study
We explored new and current trends in research and analytics in three ways: (1) a

Content Areas
Participants reported various content areas where research and analytics are influential in their organizations. Representation across content areas is shown in Exhibit 2. Some of the most commonly described focus areas for research and analytics were: Employee Surveys, Linkages, Manager Assessment, I eadership Assessment, Quality of Hire, Selection/Staffing, Retention/Turnover, Performance Management, Onboarding/ Lifecycle, and Culture/EVP. However, the list above simply captures some of the most frequently cited topic areas. Most organizations incorporated diversity and competencies into their analyses; those efforts are not represented separately here. Other areas were identified that are less wellrepresented, such as Company A's work with their emerging country strategy and overall structural assessments. Additionally, Company A's research and analytics team provides support beyond their core scope of research and analytics, working on high-level projects such as major reorganizations or big acquisitions. Company N reported intriguing work about how people are working, such as office space utilization, and the interaction between work location (office, home, remote location) and performance. Beyond informing HR decisions, those analyses also inform real estate and security decisions. At least one organization, PepsiCo, has developed an integrated model that reflects all their areas of inquiry, shown in Exhibit 3. Some of the key questions addressed by PepsiCo's four areas of inquiry are: External Marketplace o Workforce planning o Demographics o Competitors from employment branding o Expected demand for talent Internal Marketplace o Jobs - what's the work we have? o What are the promotion rates.' o Which roles have the highest turnover? o What are the feeder roles? o Are there structural issues with any of these jobs? Talent o Who do you have? o What are the capacities?
16 PEOPLE & STRATEGY

O Inventory of people o Gaps o Projections of what will be needed Perceptions and Surveys o What do people think? o How do they feel about the company? Employee Surveys. Everyone included in this project delivered an employee survey. This is likely a selection bias as many of the company contacts came through survey benchmarking consortia. Typically, these surveys focus on employee engagement, manager capability, etc., and are distinct from (yet related to) other employee survey efforts, such as onboarding or exit surveys. Most are annual or biennial surveys. Some (notably Company B) do rolling surveys, sampling one-twelfth of their population every month. Company L, in particular, has done some intriguing things with its employee survey, developing a discretionary effort subscale and a propensity to quit subscale. Microsoft has moved to name specificity in its surveys, pre-populating manager names, and, for senior employees, senior leader names. This has helped drive accountability for survey results. Linkages. Most organizations reported expanding their usage of linkages to draw insights across multiple data sets. The thought leaders included in this study also saw increased use of linkage analyses, including some intriguing ones linking, for example, FBI branch-level engagement to outcomes like compliance. When leaders discussed linkage analyses, the analyses are often linkages among different HR datasets, rather than linkages to non-HR data. We wonder if this is the best approach Jay Jamrog has described one of the challenges for HR/Human Capital as our tendency as a function to focus on projects best described as "HR trying to fix itself" rather than demonstrating compelling linkages to key business issues. A handful of organizations (Unilever and Company K, among others) link HR data to financial or other non-HR data. Target is developing multi-level models to examine relationships among individual assessment scores, team level engagement and satisfaction, and store or organizational level outcomes, such as customer satisfaction and financial outcomes. Some organizations expressed frustration at the infrastructure barriers to conducting

linkage research. One company noted more than 30 legacy HR systems and four separate instances of Peoplesoft in North America alone. Where they discussed linkage studies, they often found the findings quite useful, illuminating relationships or patterns that were either previously undetectable, or intuitively obvious but unproven in degree. Best Buy demonstrated that engaged retail employees deliver more rewarding customer experiences (as measured via customer satisfaction surveys), and, in turn, produce significantly more sales than their disengaged colleagues. Other participants used results of linkage studies to drive such things as specific leader behaviors that were shown to be effective, or refining selection criteria. Manager Assessment. While several organizations went into depth describing their practices around leadership assessment, fewer seemed particularly excited about their manager level assessment programs. However, those that described processes around both manager and leader effectiveness often have approaches that are well-aligned up and down the organization. For example, both PepsiCo and Company B reported extensive use of assessments (e.g., personality assessments) for their manager populations. PepsiCo said it shifted to greater depth and less breadth in its 360-degree manager assessment, delivering a greater overall impact for the company. Like many companies, PepsiCo does annual upward feedback for all managers. Target uses simulations for multiple levels of manager assessments; e.g., a first level manager might participate in a simulated direct report meeting, whereas an upper level leader may be asked to lead a simulated strategy session. These simulations, and the larger assessments in which they are embedded, are continually evaluated to ensure that they accurately predict subsequent performance on the job. Leadership Assessment. The majority of organizations include leadership assessment aspartof their approach to research and analytics. Company G has invested heavily in its talent processes and has found strong linkages between leadership assessment data and performance. Three interesting insights from that body of work include: 1. The profile of what predicts success tends to look different at different levels of the organization. There is not one "good" profile.

2. There tends to be a curvilinear pattern for derailers. Some level of a derailer is okay, and they only become problematic at more extreme levels. . Self-awareness tends to predict performance among leaders. Similarly, PepsiCo has made deep investments in leadership assessment, and it ties leadership assessment strategy to business strategy. Beyond the more typical personality and capability assessments, this approach also includes a business simulation. Microsoft also has an unusually deep investment in qualitative assessment of leaders, targeting a limited set of senior leaders for an interviewbased 360-degree feedback process. Some companies address and assess leadership at an aggregate level, rather than at the individual level. Company Q does analyses to determine whether its current workforce includes the people it needs to accomplish its future objectives. So, rather than assessing each individual leader (an I/O psychology approach), it takes a workforce-planning approach to the leadership bench, and projects capability demands into the future. Although a number of individual companies do this exceptionally well, some thought leaders noted that, as afield,we need analytics around tracking individuals and skills sets across multiple jobs, feeding into succession plans and promotional opportunities in efficient ways. Quality of Hire. Particularly among those organizations describing a close relationship with their staffing and recruiting teams.

Quality of Hire was a popular topic. Company B has an effective program centered on a 12-month check-in with each new-hire's manager, assessing people skills, technical skills and overall performance. It has been able to feed useful information back to the organization by analyzing the data by several variables, such as profession/function (e.g., science vs. sales), or individual recruiter. Intriguingly, Synopsys has begun linking its quality of hire work to its onboarding survey. Synopsys also is looking explicitly at variables such as how manager quality influences the quality of hire. Microsoft has been evolving an approach to quality of hire assessment that examines data over a two-year period, and has yielded some surprising findings about variables such as hire source. Bill Macey of Valtera noted, "The overarching question [across selection and diagnostics I is the same - how do I put the best people in the best environment for organizational success?" Quality of hire is emerging as a body of work that represents an opportunity to answer this question by taking a holistic approach to choosing and deploying human capital assets in organizations. Thus, it's disappointing that some still use the term Quality of Hire to refer only to hiring process efficiency (itself an important concern) rather than the more comprehensive approach some of the leading organizations take. Selection/Staffing. Several of the teams reported work in the area of selection and staffing. In general, these analyses centered on developing and validating selection procedures, a classic specialty area in I/O psychology. PepsiCo employs a tight integra-

tion between assessment (selection), succession planning, and how those connect with recruitment. Those teams, with tight linkages to workforce planning groups, also described some forecasting work. A few participants (Company T, Company Q and Company H) are involved in workforce planning activities within their research and analytics functions. Company N conducts fairly extensive forecasting around its workforce, including level, mix and the external labor market for that talent. Retention/Turnover. Most companies described some analytical work with retention and turnover. A couple (Company C and Company Q) do intriguing forecasting work around turnover, rather than simply post-hoc analytics on individuals who left the company. Company C's work resulted in a set of 12 predictor variables for retention that together predict more than 80 percent of attrition over several years. Company Q's work examines anticipated turnover trends and their impact on several variables, such as demographics. Separately, Company Q presents attrition data as part of a larger story. They always present context with data. Others go beyond traditional exit surveys in intriguing ways. Company E developed very sophisticated models of its employee population to predict retention. This work involved cluster analysis to identify four core segmentations in the employee population, centering on engagement and commitment. Ultimately, Company E was able to predict quite effectively voluntary terminations (resignations) and incorporate those accurate projections into staffing plans. >
VOLUME 33/ISSUE 2 2010 17

Performance Management. Like selection and staffing, those companies who described involvement with performance management weren't managing the programs or even necessarily reporting on results, but rather were testing the overall effectiveness and efficiency of their performance management systems (e.g., Gompany S), especially as those systems related to key populations of interest (e.g., Gompany G's work with leaders). For example, Gompany N analyzes ratings distributions to determine whether the overall performance management system is functioning properly: As a system, was it too harsh or too lenient? Onboarding/Lifecycle. Several companies pursue a lifecycle approach to understanding the employee experience. Rather than surveying at one fixed point in the calendar year and simply analyzing by, say, tenure, these companies reach out to specific at specific points in the employment lifecycle. Company B described its comprehensive approach, gathering specific data at the two-, six-, and 12-month marks of each employee's tenure. Company L has an even more comprehensive lifecycle assessment strategy, including surveys at six months, 15 months, five years and 10 years of tenure. Then it analyzes those data for retention drivers and strategies. While this is most commonly done as part of an onboarding and/or exit process, some companies, like Company K, have identified a key point in the lifecycle, after which attrition drops off dramatically. Company K uses survey data to identify predictors for those who choose to leave at that pivot point vs. those who choose to stay long term.

Gulture/EVP. While many of the organizations mentioned are engaged in some work around culture and EVP, few went into detail about their current efforts. One exception was PepsiGo, which described a significant campaign around its Employee Value Proposition (EVP), involving a team of business people, a consultant and a creative firm to develop supporting collateral. While many mentioned culture, few described specific qualitative or quantitative efforts targeted directly at capturing culture. In contrast, Microsoft has tackled both culture and EVP very directly from a research standpoint, gathering deep, global qualitative and quantitative data. These data have been used to inform investment decisions and curriculum decisions across a wide range of offerings. Microsoft also uses its culture assessment methodology as part of acquisition integration.

tives; it finds it is "often fully sufficient to provide descriptives." While most organizations mentioned qualitative analyses, they typically described it as adding texture to the quantitative analysis, rather than being the primary analytic strategy. Procter & Gamble makes extensive use of text analytics, such as word clouds. Beyond the usual range of social science statistics, some (Gompany G) use ethnographic methods to uncover trends in areas such as leadership, or uniquely developed methodologies, such as Mercer's internal labor market analysis. The thought leaders we interviewed advocated for broader methodological and statistical range. Bill Macey said that the methods used in developmental psychology (e.g.,life-spanmodeling,cf.McArdle,Grimm, Hamagami, Bowles, & Meredith, 2009) have potential for addressing some of the more complex measurement issues in studying organizational change where items and respondents differ across measurement occasions. He also noted that econometric methods offer some intriguing and useful approaches to examining difficult measurement challenges, such as the use of discrete choice modeling as an alternative to rated importance, and models for assessing selection bias such as occurs in censored or truncated samples. John Boudreau suggested that our analytical models need to reflect the core businesses of our organizations. For example, Gompany Q monitors employee morale using an approach akin to statistical process control, a common method of quality management in manufacturing.

Methods
Participants primarily use fairly standard analytical tools, such as regression. Some use more advanced techniques such as Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) or discrete choice analysis. A few, notably Procter &c Gamble, report valuable findings from techniques like latent growth curve modeling. Others, like Company N and Company F usefinancialmodeling effectively (e.g., longtermfinancialpayoffs of different scenarios). In many cases, however, they did not gain insight through the most sophisticated analytics. However they did gain insight through linking multiple data sources and mining for patterns across data sets that were undetectable within a set.

Staffing

Several companies pursue a lifecycle approach to understanding the employee experience. Rather than surveying at one fixed point in the calendar year... these companies reach out to employees at specific points in the employment lifecycle.
A few organizations are doing lifecycle research with a bit of a twist. For example, Gompany G applies a lifecycle approach to its leadership population, identifying natural career paths, which they then can replicate intentionally.
18 PEOPLE & STRATEGY

Two companies (Gompany A and Gompany Q) are moving into forecasting. However, several organizations intentionally focused on data that were easy to understand and/or consume. Gompany T reported that about 90 percent of its analyses result in just descrip-

Although most participants reported that I/O psychologists are instrumental in their teams, many reported that other disciplines contribute key capabilities to their teams' agenda and work. Some said it is helpful to have someone on the team who is "an SME on the company itself" (Gompany K). Several reflected on the importance of multiple perspectives (e.g. HR, Line, MBA) in ensuring the end product is consumable. Many see the need for balancing capabilities among the team, although the types of attributes described varied, from educational backgrounds (I/O psychologists vs. MBAs), to personality factors (balancing intuition and data). Another (Company G) said it borrowed needed resources from other groups

rather than "owning" them directly. Target described a dedicated team of statisticians, located in India, as part of its analytics .lpproach. Additionally, some of our thought leaders believe that companies can achieve further impact through strategically leveraging other disciplines, such as labor economics, accounting, anthropology and engineering. In keeping with this idea, C'ompany S"s analytics team includes i'h.D.s with backgrounds in sociology and behavioral economics. Jac Fitz-enz even suggested that a futurist could play an intriguing role, bringing alternative perspectives about long-term scenarios. John Boudreau expanded beyond identifying core disciplines from which the HR research and analytics teams could benefit to suggest that, "analytics strategy should mirror the decision making values pervasive in the organization beyond HR."

Influence Model
Consistent with broader trends suggesting increasing attention to research and analytics in decision making, many in the study reported that their work is evolving from simply reporting data to delivering insight and influence. They described this shift as something quite simple, such as a conscious effort to simply ask "why" on a more regular basis, and ensuring that research and analytics resources are dedicated only to projects with a clear potential impact, rather than those primarily serving curiosity. In this case, this shift was portrayed as "from analyst to consultant - looking for simple and concise, not for mountains of charts."

tion to operating on the influence/decision end of the continuum. Jay Jamrog said, "It's not just about being data-driven, you need the story. Effective influencers have the data, but they don't bludgeon people with it - the influence is around telling the story, and being rooted in the data." Similarly, John Boudreau noted, "It may be more about the storytelling than about the math...the analytics don't look that different depending on disciplines, but the way the story is told is different across disciplines." The research and analytics team's power to exert influence may be rooted more in mental models than in capabilities. The ways these

Work Profile
Companies reported that, although some portion of their work is consistent from year to year, a significant portion of their agendas are cither being ci)-developed with an organizational leader, or the research and analytics function is actually developing the research .iiid analytics agenda. Some characterized their work as something akin to a portfolio, encompassing standard offerings delivered on a regular basis, custom offerings delivered in partnership with one or more key executives, and an "R&D shop," pursuing intriguing or compelling problems independently identified by the consulting team. Company S said it "has dedicated a few PhD's to high impact problems that no one is asking us to solve, but that we know will have a big impact." Some respondents noted that they occasionally face challenges with the more leading-edge work, in that their organizations are not always ready to accept it. One said, "We tried to do I a specific project | for three years before it was accepted and valued and used. Getting the right audience at the right time often takes a few tries." Some of the relatively smaller organizations (Synopsys and Company M) reported having greater leeway and ability to drive an agenda than the larger organizations. The thought leaders were all consultants, and thus had a slightly different perspective on the types of talent they typically see inside organizations. They reflected that their role is often to present ideas the client had not considered, thus to a certain extent leading the agenda.

The research and analytics team's power to exert influencemay be rooted more in mental models than in capabilities.
Some of the teams operating more at the Influence &i Decisions end of this spectrum (Company A, Company H) have gone as far as to separate out the tools, data and basic reporting, so they can focus their resources on advanced analytics and insight. In contrast, others (Company Q) have aggregated the entire analytic stack, from the data in the people systems up through the sophisticated analytics, into a single organization. Company S aggregated broad analytic capability across HR specialty areas such as compensation, benefits, and staffing. Target specifically mentioned investing in resources to enable deeper analytics, while simultaneously investing in building awareness and visibility for the work. Several companies cited the challenges in moving to becoming more strategic in an environment of resource constraint, whether those constraints were imposed organizationally (Company B) or somewhat self-inflicted (Company K, who said, "It's hard to have the time to be strategic when you're spending all your time doing all the ad-hoc kinds of requests...we only rarely or occasionally say no."). Thought leaders confirmed this, noting that they also see a broad trend toward "people aggressively pursuing getting towards the decision side." Seymour Adler indicated that sometimes trust was an essential pre-conditeams think about themselves, and the ways their organizations think about them may be a greater determining factor in their influence than their native capabilities or professional expertise. One interviewee said with frustration that HR leaders "don't know what they need, and so end up with a random pile of data." Thus, moving along this continuum is more complex that it may at first appear. One organization thought that the theoretical continuum (TOOLS/PLATFORMS DATAANALYSISINSIGHTINFLUENCEDECISIONS) actually goes too far. According to this company, it is undesirable for the research and analytics groups to have decision-making responsibility. Rather, organization leaders need to have ownership for their decisions.

Consumption
Although HR is by far the mostly commonly mentioned consumer of the work from these groups, some (Company G, Company A) specifically mentioned other stakeholders, such as boards of directors, and/or direct business leaders (Company R). Others, notably PepsiCo, described employees as a key consumer, noting the range of direct-to-employee products and programs they deliver (e.g., employee survey, performance management, 360, manager quality). This mirrors the CLC findings (2008) regarding the customers of >
VOLUME 33/ISSUE 2 2010 19

linear relationships, while others "have dotted line accountabilities everywhere." However, one of the key analytics groups at Company L reports up to a strategy group and up through a separate VP (the entire group sits outside HR). Some of the thought leaders stated that the opportunity for impact can be limited by working through HR, rather than working directly with business leaders. Some acknowledged that sitting within HR was a bit of a double-edged sword, in that being in HR provides access to volumes of data, but it also imposes a credibility problem in organizations where HR is not a strong partner in driving the business. In contrast, some of the organizations said that a central role in HR provides them with an enterprise view and broad data access that would not otherwise be possible.

HR metrics. Its HR Metrics Team Survey revealed that HR was a customer for 100 percent of respondents; Executives, 67 percent; Boards of Directors, 50 percent, and CFO's 33 percent. Several companies noted that consumption varies with the executives in role. For example. Company Q began weekly business metric updates to the CEO when its new, more data-oriented CEO took the reins and brought "an insistence that we make decisions based on data." This enabled the research group to develop new metrics and get higher visibility for existing ones. Thought leaders are naturally in a position to be influential at the senior executive levels of an organization, and thus might be expected to work with a different consumption model than internal groups. Rick Guzzo reflected that, "Some of the great experiences are working with a strategy committee," and shared that a substantive portion of engagements involved direct work with a company president or CEO - a model that has proved very effective. Similarly, Bill Macey indicated that some of his most interesting work has been in engagements with strategy leaders. This presents an interesting problem for those of us in HR. Is it possible to create an appetite for compelling analytics on Human Capital problems by doing the work outside HR and thus relieving the work of the stigma of HR? If so, at what point does HR rise to reclaim that work? Or, as Boudreau and Ramstad (2007) suggest, it is necessary to evolve a specific decision science for HR problems?

Finally, as we discussed before, often the greatest insights came from linking multiple datasets and identifying patterns across them. Doing this well requires "getting out of the weeds" and examining systems as a whole to identify potentially useful connections. It does not necessarily require sophisticated analytics, although those can be quite helpful at times. It does require high-quality datasets. Many quite useful analyses, such as examining the difference in revenue results between highly engaged salespeople and less engaged salespeople, can be done fairly simply in Excel or other desktop spreadsheet applications, as long as the identifiers to connect the two results sets are in place. Where sophisticated techniques are required, external consultants or university faculty members typically can be effective partners for the heavy lifting.

Recommendations
This inquiry leads the aspiring Human Capital Analytics professional to a few natural conclusions around the importance of the mindset we bring to approaching problems, the tantamount importance of good data, and the opportunities afforded by making connections. First, and perhaps most important, may simply be the mindset. Boudreau and Ramstead (2007) draw the analogy to the transactional approach of accounting versus the strategic approach of finance. It is difficult to credibly eschew good data as a decision aid. Unfortunately, all too often data are an afterthought, rather than being an integral part of the way problems are identified, analyzed and solved. Second, this project made it abundantly clear that poor quality or missing data are significant barriers to good analytical work. While this seems obvious, many organizations expressed frustration at the difficulties their data quality or structure posed. Sometimes this could be addressed with significant manual effort; in other cases, data simply never were captured in the first place. Perhaps the single most important data integrity item is using consistent variables and identifiers, so that data can be mapped or merged. The value that Human Capital analytics delivers to organizations in terms of retention, organizational effectiveness and even bottom-line results should be considered as part of the ROI in upgrading or synthesizing HR data systems.

Conclusions
Keith Hammonds' 2007 article in Fast Company ( "Why we hate HR") suggested that one of the core problems with HR today is that "HR pursues efficiency in lieu of value. Why? Because it's easier and easier to measure." Research and analytics groups are a direct contradiction to that indictment. The work we've highlighted here represents a movement toward sophisticated analyses on issues that actually do matter to the bottom line of businesses, rather than simply applying the most readily available numbers and calling it a metric. The evidence suggests that our field truly is in the midst of a sea change. Jac Fitz-enz describes it as "a radical shift, like the shift from analog to digital, from steel to plastics." Although the findings and perspectives participants share here are exciting, one cautionary note is in order. Data from Lawler & Boudreau (2009) suggest that, while HR's perceptions may be that we are significantly more data-oriented and strategic than we were several years ago, examining perception data across time (rather than retrospectively) reveals that the extent to which HR makes rigorous, data-based decisions has been flat over a three-year time frame (2004 - 2007). These data were based on HR as a whole profession, not the analytics functions specifically. At least among participants in our inquiry, most were able to cite specific examples of their evolving influence over the past several years. A review of the scope of work covered by the organizations included in this inquiry reveals

Organizational Structure
Finally, the bulk of respondents saw their work as primarily HR, both in terms of organizational structure and in clients and consumers. In some cases, these are fairly
20 PEOPLE & STRATEGY

.1 broad range of analytical insight being brought to leading organizations. Employee surveys, manager assessments, leader assessnients, calibration of performance management systems, lifecycle research and linkages studies emerged as nearly standard practices across the organizations included. This suggests that, at a minimum, a solid foundation for data-based decision making .iround human capital is in place. Participants' perspectives that their own work is moving from largely data provision toward more insight atid influence also suggest that thefieldas a whole is moving in a more strategic direction. As we cotitinue to evolve methodologies, and Durability to link multiple data sets continues to improve, our opportunities to impact the organizations we serve will grow. Our challenge and opportunity is to move beyond the data to deliver compelling insight and influence. Organizations that can make this transition will gain significant advantages in their markets.

References
McArdk', |. J., CIrimm. K. |., Hamagami, K, Bowles, R. P., .Meredith. W. (2009). Modeling lite-span growth curves of cognition using longitudinal data with multiple samples and changing scales of measurement. Psychological Methluh. I4{2}, 126-149. Birdi. K., Clegg, C , Patterson. M., Robinson. A.. Stride. C. B.,Wall,T. D.. & Wood, S. |. (2O8).The Impact of Human Resource and Operational Management Practices on Company Productivity; A Longitudinal Study. Personnel psychology, (i , 467-501. Boudreau, J. W., & Ramstad, P. M. (2007). Beyond HR: The neu' science of human capital. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Corporate Leadership Council (2008). Workforce analytics function: Understanding the importance, role and striiclure (CLC Catalog Number CLC6473932). Hammonds, K. H (2007, December). Why We Hate HR. Hast Company. Retrieved from http://www.fastcornpany. C()m/niagazine/97/open_hr.html Lawler, E. E., & Boudreau, J. W. (2009). Achieving excellence in human resources management. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Levenson, A. (2005). Harnessing the Power of HR Analytics. HR strategic review. 4(3 - March/April), 28-31.

Alexis A. Fink, Ph.D., .Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., works in the people and organization capability function at Microsoft. C'urrcntly, she is group manager, culture and talent transformation. In this role, she is responsible for execution of and deriving insights from Microsoft's suite of employee engagement research programs, for driving enterprisewide culture change, and for building out an enterprisewide talent strategy and framework. Fink received her doctorate from Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, Va. A productive scholar as well as an accomplished practitioner, she has more than 30 publications and academic presentations to her credit.

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