WEBINAR: HR Analytics for Everyday HR and Talent Pros

So by now someone in your organization, maybe even you, is going on and on about data and Big Data and analytics and maybe even predictive analytics being the future of HR and talent management. Seven out of ten surveys say as much, so it must be true, right? A quick Google search of "HR analytics' turns up just north of 14 million results. So it seems like everyone in HR has or will be talking about how important analytics are to the functions.

But in the words of the immortal Al Czervik in Caddyshack, 'So what?' 

What does the HR analytics revolution mean for you, the average, working, front-line HR/Talent pro?

Well glad you, or really I asked. Because my friends over at Fistful of Talent are there to help answer this and many more questions on HR Analytics with the next installment of the FREE FOT Webinar entitled The New HR Math: Dumbing Down HR Analytics for Everyday HR and Talent Pros, (sponsored by HireVue, a company that gets predictive analytics at a whole other level) on May 27, 2015 at 2PM ET.

The smarty-pants geek kids over at FOT will hit you up with the following:

 - 5 HR and Talent Analytics you should stop measuring immediately! You know what looks really bad to your leadership? When HR is using the old math, and everyone else is using the new math!

 - 5 HR and Talent Analytics you should start measuring immediately! Don’t be that parent fighting the good fight, ostracizing your kid from society by not allowing them to use the new math skills! We have the new cool measures you really need to be using in HR and recruiting today

 - 3 Best Practices every HR and Talent Acquisition shop can do right now with their analytics. You now know what the numbers are, but what the heck are you supposed to do with them? Fear not, Tim and Kris watched every YouTube video possible on the new math, they can show you the way!

 - A primer on what’s next once you start using these Predictive Analytics. Since you specialize in people, you naturally understand the move to using analytics that helps you predict the future is only half the battle—you have to have a plan once the predictions are made. We’ll help you understand the natural applications for using your predicitive analytical data as both a hammer and a hug—to get people who need to change moving, and to embrace those that truly want your help as a partner. 

You’re a quality HR pro who knows how to get things done. Join FOT on May 27th at 2pm ET for The New HR Math: Dumbing Down HR Analytics for Everyday HR and Talent Pros,  and we’ll help you understand how to deploy the "new-math" principles in HR that allow you to use predictive analytics to position yourself as the expert you are.

CHART OF THE DAY: Messaging Apps vs. Social Networks

While you were busy growing your empire on Facebook these last few years, something interesting has been happening in the non-US parts of the world and in particular, among those crazy kids that won't get off of your lawn. 

Global usage of the top 'messaging' apps, (like WhatsApp and WeChat) have caught up with global usage of the top social networking apps, (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). Here's the chart, courtesy of Business Insider, then of course, some FREE comments from me after the data. 

Some quick thoughts on what, if anything this trend might mean for for HR/Talent pros:

1. Messaging, like regular old SMS texting, is always going to be the most effective way to get people's attention. If you can get into a candidate or prospect or employee's 'white list' of messaging buddies, then you can capture some valuable attention and even more valuable mindshare. Of course this is easier said than done, so for now most of us will just keep emailing....

2. Communication preferences and habits, as evidenced in how some of these messaging apps dominate in certain countries and among certain age cohorts, vary quite a bit around the world. While the US has been slower to adopt messaging compared to say Asia, other parts of the world see messaging as their de facto communication medium. Some of this is probably due to the greater tendency in many non-US parts of the world for internet usage to be almost completely a mobile-device scenario. And for many of these users, Mobile = Internet = Messaging. Whatever the reason, any HR pro that has to operate globally has to be aware of how local audiences want to and expect to interact and communicate.

3. Some of the elements that have fueled the growth of messaging apps are bleeding into workplace or enterprise apps as well. The best recent example would be Slack, a corporate communication platform that works on both smartphones and computers, and seems to be succeeding where other attempts to create corporate social networks, i.e. the "Facebook for the Enterprise", have struggled, by replacing e-mail as the main communications channel inside firms.  Organized around short, direct and group messages, organized into topics or projects, Slack seems to be catering to the same kinds of people who have adopted messaging apps overall. 

Anyway, one last thought, take a look at what kinds of apps your kids are using these days too. Chances are they are using much more messaging and less 'social networking' than you think.

Have a great day!

CHART OF THE DAY: How America will look in 2050 in one chart

This short, but fascinating recent piece from the Washington Post is the source for today's installment of CHART OF THE DAY - a quick snapshot of how the US population is expected to change by 2050 in three key areas - religious affiliation, age, and race/ethnicity. As always, I will drop in the chart, then some FREE commentary from me after the data: 

Washington Post

Let's take a shot at interpreting the meaning/relevance to HR/Talent pros of each of chart's three data sets in order, shall we? Sure why not...

1. Religious affiliation - A big trend here is the increase in the percentage of the population that will categorize their religious affiliation as 'unaffilitated', i.e., not attached to a specific or traditional religion or church. Folks who consider themselves 'spiritual' but not formal church members fall into this group. What might be the HR/Workplace implication of this trend? Kind of hard to say. Could be that more organizations over time will have to re-think their company holiday schedules and practices as fewer employees will identify with the religious-oriented holidays. Probably of the three data sets in the chart this one is the toughest to interpret.

2. Age - This data is not surprising to anyone who watches demographic trends - a big surge in the population of older Americans, so much that the 65+ cohort will be almost the largest in the country by 2050. Of course living longer in general, means working longer into older age as well. Workplaces in the next few decades are going to have to do more to accommodate this rise in older workers through some combination of physical and environmental changes along with support and benefit programs more tailored an older workforce.

3. Race/Ethnicity - Again, nothing really surprising in this data, America in 2050 will be less white, more Hispanic, and generally much more diverse overall. This trends has been playing out for a while, but slowly, so perhaps most HR pros are not yet doing or at least thinking differently about what it might mean for work and workplaces. At a minimum any organization that is conscious about wanting their workforces (and more importantly perhaps, its leadership ranks), reflect more closely their customers and communities are going to start to feel the pressure soon. It will be kind of a shame if by 2050 if most of the white guys we see in the workplace have C-level titles.

Anyway, that's it from me. Share your thoughts in the comments on this data, if it matters at all to you as an HR pro, and what you and your organization might do in response.

CHART OF THE DAY: The World Economy in 2030

Today's Chart of the Day comes to us courtesy of Bloomberg - a look at the World's 20 largest economies by GDP, stacked up and showing both their relative sizes today, and the estimates for where the Top 20 will rank by 2030 - just 15 years from now.

As always, we will hit you with the chart, then some FREE commentary from me (it is my blog) after the data:

So for the HR/Talent pro what is there to make from the data on the World's largest economies in 2030?

Three things come to mind:

1. Look around. If you and your organization is US-based, or derives its sales and income primarily from US customers, you probably have a few years, maybe as many as 10, before you need to really worry about how these shifts in size and scale might impact your business and livelihood. You might be ok for a while, maybe for a long while, but if double-digit growth in sales and income in on your organization's 5-year plan, then it is going to be really challenging to achieve that target unless you start (or increase) the business you are doing in the faster-growing countries of the world.

2. China. Of the Top 20 economies China is expected to grow the most in the next 15 years, coming really, really close to topping the US as the world's largest. What are you doing today to help your organization better prepare to compete for your piece of this huge and growing market? Do you have the right kind of talent that can work in and understand this market? Are you able to talk confidently about the unique HR/Talent challenges you'd face, both with managing expats as well as recruiting locally?

3. Slow growth in the old world. Places like Germany, France, Italy - heck, pretty much all of Europe are predicted to grow much slower, and thus make up a smaller portion of the world economy, over the next 15 years, than emerging powers like India, China, and Brazil. This is not really news, but again for the most part in the US we still tend to think of Europe and European countries as having much more influence in the global economy than perhaps we should.

No HR pro lives in a vacuum. No organization operates completely immune to the larger market forces that surround us all. It's important to know where the future might take us, and perhaps even more important to know how to speak the local language when we get there.

Have a great weekend!

VIDEO: Fun with the quantified workplace

The coolest thing you will see on the Internet today, (excepting for cats, bunnies, and 'which superhero would you be' quizzes), comes to us courtesy of the Sid Lee Agency in Paris who have Arduino-powered sensors hooked up throughout their office, and they brought the data together in a single dashboard.(click for a giant version of the dashboard)

The result is a really interesting and clever view into the inner workings of the workplace in real-time.

Check out the video below, (Email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), but better still, just head over to the live dashboard to see the real-time updates.

Pretty neat, right?

And I think the best HR/Talent play in the dashboard is on the lower right, where Sid Lee has a tile showing current number of job openings at the agency. Clicking that tile takes you to the firm's career site, (which, not for nothing, is woefully unappealing to look at compared to the activity dashboard. Come on HR/Recruiting, pay attention to UX would you?)

I totally dig this, and I am not even sure why. It's just cool to look at I suppose. Like cats and bunnies and superhero quizzes.

Have a great Wednesday.