“I guess my recent study is groundbreaking. Even Nobel prize worthy. I discovered that the more people are going to the beach, the more the sun will shine. I validated that several times, in June, September, December…”. So, what goes wrong here?

 

Indeed, causality is reversed. But how sure are you that you don’t do that in your own HR-related decision making?

 

Furthermore, People Analytics projects are most often focused on relationships within the HR domain, but how do these initiatives relate to strategic business outcomes? What does the logical chain, the causal chain, look like? And if you reason from the right to the left, so you start with the business outcomes, would you end up with the same People Analytics research, of a completely different scope with much more business impact? All crucial questions in your attempt to become more data-driven, as an HR-professional, HR function, or organisation.

​

In this workshop, associate professor Sjoerd van den Heuvel PhD guides you through the process of developing the problem definition and conceptual model as the fundaments of your people analytics project. You learn how to identify and define the business problem (or opportunity) for which People Analytics is a (crucial part of) the solution. You will develop a first version of a conceptual model for your own projects, which make clear how all relevant factors related to your problem (or opportunity) relate to each other. What participants from all over the world who participated in this workshop over the last two years mentioned: “didn’t realise this was so difficult”. Ideally, you participate in this workshop with colleagues from your organisation so that you can collaborate, but you can also join as a solo hr or people analytics hero. This session will be fun, frustrating, confusing, and extremely helpful. Are you up for the challenge?

​

• How to unravel the essence of the problem for which People Analytics could be the key to the solution?

• How to make strategic business impact with conceptual modelling in people analytics projects?

• How to avoid oversimplifying reality which causes ineffective people analytics interventions?

• How to effectively instruct your data-scientist who essentially speaks a ‘different language’?

​

Outcomes

​

• You learn how to practically apply a systematic approach for identifying and unraveling the true (strategic) business problems.

• You experience how HR professionals tend to be focused in HR problems and solutions, while they should actually contribute to business problems and perhaps focus on solutions from within other disciplines

• You learn what alignment between a business problem, an analytics goal, and analytics question look like.

• You learn about the 4 core ingredients of any conceptual model

• You develop the conceptual model for a desired people analytics project in your own organisation

• You experience how easy it is to base you people analytics project on incorrect, inaccurate, and invaluable assumptions

• Next week you spend your days developing conceptual models: that’s a promise!

​

Some food for thought: Solid research confirms that improving emotional intelligence in the workplace does not only have a positive impact on the individuals, but also on the organisation’s bottom line.