Challenges
Differences in data definitions and hierarchy between Finance and HR, as well as an on-premise HR solution with limited self-service, meant the People Analytics team were spending most of their time on data maintenance and reporting activities with a lack of capacity for analytical project work.
There was no governance or prioritisation framework in place and limited collaboration with other analytics teams across the business.
The different capabilities needed for reporting, analytics, consulting and product development meant the team was not configured to deliver value-add work.
Lack of engagement and sponsorship with the business and HR Leadership team meant the team were not working on critical business issues.
How LACE helped
Insights
Delivering a workshop and deep-dive interviews with the People Analytics leadership team and their stakeholders in HR and Finance to understand service delivery challenges, ambition and perceptions.
Desktop review
Reviewing existing documentation relating to team strategy and service catalogue.
Design principles
Agreeing design principles, skill categories, a best practice governance model design and organisation options for alternative service models.
Value case
Producing a value case estimating the business impact of repositioning the People Analytics team to focus on value-add work and reducing time spent on reporting.
Providing an outsider perspective enabled us to gain support for our recommendations within and outside of the People Analytics team.
Categorisation of some of the team’s major challenges as opportunities for them to focus on in the short term and wider issues that will require cross-functional collaboration to address.
What we learnt
Building in-house solutions are more expensive than you think – in this instance we found that it could be up to 20 times more expensive than an annual licence fee would cost.
Even advanced analytics teams struggle if data models and structure are not set up correctly – the focus becomes too labour and time intensive on data cleansing rather than finding other ways the business can add value.
Importance of planning and prioritisation – working out what is important and adds most value to what you work on as a business (i.e. less ‘fire fighting’) is critical – asking the questions “how do we decide what is important? How do we bring those perceived to be ‘blockers’ on the journey with us?” is key.
What made us fundamentally different?
- Quantifying the case to keep the technology – being able to break down the details of resources, time, what it costs to do – being able to understand the ability to see beyond the licence fee was a perspective the client had not been able to assess independently.
- Quantifying the impact of streamlining how the business delivered on reporting and simplifying their data model enabled the client to save more time than they had anticipated.
