Manu Khetan Interview About People Analytics for HR COE

How can HR monitor the effectiveness of people analytics on centre of excellence?

Manu Khetan: It is very easy to answer

or to measure today in the current times where I feel that HR has secured a great seat at the boardroom and the reason why I say that is because the HR center of excellence is becoming very-very important for any organization to survive or to stay current or to stay profitable in the current times. If you take example of a Google vs Microsoft, if you take example of SAP vs Oracle, we take example of Apple vs Samsung all of these companies basically are in a way feeding each other of the innovation of it and the innovation comes from the decision makers which actually drive the people aspect of the entire community and that is the community which represents the entire company. So, I would say basically that as long as we are able to measure the process effectiveness of the entire HR Tower, that probably is the key in order to be able to define the total center of excellence of HR.

If we are able to define the right process from a company maturity perspective and if we are able to map that particular process than each centre of excellence can derive the right metrics of people analytics which can function and result in an innovative in a profitable company.

What is one key a challenge in using people analytics to derive strategic insights for the workforce?

Manu: Typically what happens when any HR project or HR transformation initiative is run in an organization that we either start from a system or we start from a process. The challenge is basically that the amount of time the business stakeholders need to invest in the beginning which probably could be as little as one week to be able to derive what exact process you want to automate in your organization and that will result in the right people analytics and the right HR metrics.

If we are able to do it than it is the best magic step that we could take. I am a great advocate of investing time two steps behind rather than in the actual journey and that’s where probably the challenge lies – the stakeholders’ time, in order to be able to align them to the process and getting there buy-in which is exactly coming from the business priorities. Then the outcome of the system automation and the process automation actually result in a great people analytics which is HR center of excellence.

How can HR overcome this issue?

Manu: HR needs to make sure that instead of just going and following a conservative approach of looking at a project like a project they should make sure that while they have been able to, if at all are they, aspire to get a seat at the boardroom they should get time and they should get the blessings or get the alignment from the business.

That is one discussion they should constantly have with the business stakeholders in order to be able to get their time, in order to be able to get that buy-in before embarking the journey. So the conversation between the HR leaders and the business leaders actually is one aspect which the HR should always be mindful of. This is one challenge that definitely they have because of the time of the business leaders which is very difficult to get but at the same time this can get or play a great role if they are able to do it. It of course can work wonders for HR department and for the entire business as a whole.