How Diversity Powers Team Performance 01-07

The topic of workplace diversity has vexed businesses and employees for decades. Increasing diversity has long been promoted as the right thing to do, but that notion could be viewed as simplistic and ignoring the deep benefits that inclusion can bring to an organization. Scott Page, a professor of complex systems at the University of Michigan, tackles the issue in his new book, The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off In The Knowledge Economy. He discussed why diversity must be more than “feel-good metaphorical statements” on the Knowledge@Wharton show, which airs on SiriusXM channel 111.

Knowledge@Wharton: What drove you to research this topic?

Page: It’s a little bit of a C.P. Snow moment. He was the British academic who said there are two academies: science and arts. Within the University of Michigan or almost any university, you’ve got people in the humanities and in the arts and philosophy departments talking about the need for inclusion on normative grounds, a sort of moral case for a more integrated society. Over in computer science and ecology and business, there are all these people showing in a knowledge economy this incredible value from people who have different perspectives, different ways of looking at problems, different tools.

On one side of campus, there’s a whole bunch of people talking about the pragmatic benefits of diversity. On the other side, people are talking about the normative benefits. They weren’t communicating with one another. I saw this as a real opportunity for a fruitful conversation.

Knowledge@Wharton: Don’t you think this “right thing to do” mindset about diversity feels a little patronizing?

Scott Page: It does in a way. We want our firm to look like America or have people that come from all these different categories, as opposed to asking whether we are bringing in people who can help us fulfill our mission or be better at whatever it is that we do as an organization.

Knowledge@Wharton: Are we seeing a significant shift in companies thinking more deeply about diversity in the workplace?

“The talent of the team depends on having diverse people on that team.”

Page: I think you’re seeing a real shift as the nature of work changes. One of the tropes I use in the book is: Think about a firm that’s hiring people to do physical labor like chopping down trees. In that world, you can figure out someone’s ability, which is how many trees they can chop down. If you’re hiring 10 people, you should hire the 10 best people, and to not hire someone because of their race or religion or gender would be discrimination. Going back to the civil rights movement, that’s how a lot of this was framed. You shouldn’t discriminate. You should hire the person who has the most ability.

Think about Apple: That company generates $2 million in revenue per person. No one in Apple is chopping down any trees; they’re working on really hard problems. As evidence begins to accumulate, it’s becoming clear that you want smart people who think differently, who have been trained differently, went to different schools, have different knowledge bases. The talent of the team depends on having diverse people on that team. This has become something that everyone has started to recognize as more and more data rolls in showing that to be true. You end up with firms recognizing that cognitive diversity is a strategic asset.

Knowledge@Wharton: There are concerns that Silicon Valley is not diverse enough in terms of women working at these companies. Diversity isn’t just people of different backgrounds. There’s also gender diversity as well.

Page: Right. Identity diversity is a difference in who we are. Cognitive diversity is the difference in how we think. If you’re Apple, if you’re Google, if you’re Amazon, the question is, does identity diversity matter? The evidence shows it matters in four ways. The first is syllogism. If you and I come from different identify groups, we have different knowledge bases. You search different things on the web than I search. We read different books. We have different interests.

On some problems, identity diversity correlates with cognitive diversity. It’s also true that if I’m sitting in a room of people who are all trained like me and look like me, I don’t think as hard and don’t feel the need to explain as deeply. Imagine you’re designing a building and put a blind person on your team. You’re going to think about the building entirely differently just because that person is in the room. Or if you put a physically disabled person in the room. Just being around difference, that’s the second thing.

The third one is the things we see as problems vary depending on our identity. Where we want to devote our energies is a function. Having more people from different identity groups in the room just leads to more possibilities, and that is well-documented.

The fourth thing, and I think this is the one that people miss, is that all these women who are not in tech because they just don’t feel comfortable there, or people of color who are not in tech because the culture just doesn’t fit, you’re not only missing out on talent, but you’re also missing out on diversity. Because when you make the pool bigger, you’re just going to get more diversity. Even if women work differently than men, just by having a larger pool, you’d have more diversity.

Knowledge@Wharton: You’re looking at the benefits, but diversity can backfire on companies that don’t commit to a meaningful policy.

“If you don’t bring a lot of diverse lenses to bear, you’re likely to have blind spots and make mistakes.”

Page: Absolutely. If you think of how a consulting company comes in and does an evaluation, they’ll ask, how does this affect people? How does it affect process in terms of the organization? Is there risk? How are competitors responding on a list of dimensions with which you evaluate a business decision? If you don’t bring a lot of diverse lenses to bear, you’re likely to have blind spots and make mistakes.

What I’m trying to do with the book is speak math and logic to metaphor. You know how people say, “Oh, diverse perspectives are useful,” and that sounds like a reasonable thing? You want to ask, what do you mean by diverse perspectives? And what types of perspective are useful? You want this to move in the direction of science and away from feel-good metaphorical statements about different people being in the room.

Knowledge@Wharton: There is a trend of companies wanting to build teams. The days of giving a project to one person and having it done a month later are going away, so the need to have different ideas is more important than ever.

Page: That’s exactly right, and the reason why is because everything is so connected now. When I think about any sort of business policy, there’s an environmental effect, there’s an energy effect, there’s a personnel effect. No one’s going to have the bandwidth to think of all the dimensions to a problem. What you see within universities and within organizations is this rise of team-based work. The effective teams have to be diverse when the problem is hard.

One of the things I play within the book is what I call the opposite proverbs problem. It’s like anything your grandfather said, your grandmother said the opposite. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Two heads are better than one.

It’s not the case that you always want a team. But firms are figuring out that where you need teams are on high-dimensional, complex problems. I’m a professor of complex systems. When I look at complexity, whether I look at ecosystems or engineered systems, I realize the way to cope with complexity is through diversity. The right way to harness that complexity is through diversity. Not all diversity. Don’t turn that dial all the way to 11. There’s an appropriate amount and an appropriate type. I think firms have seized the new challenge: Who should be in the room and how do we get the right people in the room, interacting in the right ways, to lead us to innovative, new ideas and products?

Knowledge@Wharton: You could take this philosophy well beyond the company and put it into society.

Page: Absolutely. The reason the book is called The Diversity Bonus is that it’s not a marketing ploy, it literally is a bonus. One of the most amazing pieces of research that I talk about in the book is a study that looked at 28,000 predictions by economists over a 40-year period. The best economist is 10% better than a random economist. If you average the best economist with the second-best economist, who is 9% better, you get 18% better. Bringing somebody in who is demonstrably worse makes you better because of the fact that they’re different. There literally is a bonus. It’s not marketing. It’s math.

Knowledge@Wharton: That’s why the more perspectives you can bring to a problem, the greater the potential benefit.

Page: With one caveat: They’ve got to be good. This is the challenge, the deep paradox that lies in this sort of logic. If it were possible to create 100 ways of looking at a problem that were all good and diverse, we could nail everything. Therefore, it’s got to be impossible to do because these things are just not predictable. But the point is, typically two is better than one, and three is probably better than two. You may not want to have 15 different ways because you might not be able to provide fuel for 15 reasonable ways of looking at a problem.

“You want diversity to move in the direction of science and away from feel-good metaphorical statements about different people being in the room.”

Knowledge@Wharton: How does all this apply specifically to the knowledge economy?

Page: First, I see increased reliance on teams. I also see firms casting a much wider net in terms of who they hire. A third thing you see when organizations go into a 360 on errors, they’ll ask, “Why did we make this mistake? Is it because we didn’t have someone in the room who would have seen this?”

Sometimes you place your bets, you take your chances, and things are going to work out or not work out. Other times, you just completely forget to look at a particular dimension and realize next time we make this decision, we’re going to have someone from the unions in the room. Or next time we make this decision, we’re going to have someone who knows logistics in the room. You want to make sure that you’ve got the right level of diversity to cover all the bases.

Knowledge@Wharton: Workplace culture is also a factor in the success of diversity, correct?

Page: Ten years ago, I wrote a book called The Difference, which is kind of a mathematical book about the role of diversity in complex systems. Because of that book, I got invited to a lot of high tech firms, including Boeing, Yahoo, Google, Ford and NASA, to talk about the mathematics of diversity and things like random forced algorithms — really geeky stuff.

You go into those places, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, every one of them is so different.” There’s the famous David Foster Wallace quote where there’s two goldfish swimming in the water and an older goldfish comes up and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” They’re kind of confused. He swims off. Then one says to the other, “What the hell is water?” You go into these firms, and it’s like the water is different in every place. One of the things that’s so important is making sure that you have a culture where people feel comfortable sharing their diverse ways of thinking. If you look back at the O-ring disaster with NASA, that’s a case of a culture where people didn’t share what they know.

Knowledge@Wharton: In the book, you link diversity to the U.S. Supreme Court and some of the decisions by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Page: There was a famous Supreme Court case, Grutter vs. Bollinger, involving the University of Michigan, where Scalia says Michigan has a choice. You can be diverse or you can be excellent. I think “super-duper” is the phrasing that he used. So, it’s a choice between super-duperness or diversity. If we were admitting students and they were going to go chop wood, he’d be exactly right. My point is not that Scalia is wrong. My point is that there are places where Scalia is right, namely chopping wood, but there are other cases where Scalia is not right, and that involves almost anything that’s complex. The fact is, if we really want to be super-duper on complex problems, we have to be diverse. There’s no trade-off.

I think Scalia was kind of pernicious about it. We get back to your earlier comment that it seems patronizing. Well, we’re including some diverse people because we want to do the right thing here. If I really wanted to figure out obesity or the opioid epidemic or inequality, or write a health care plan, the idea that I wouldn’t be bringing people of every race and both genders from different reaches of the country just doesn’t pass the sniff test.

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Asking Questions Can Get You a Better Job or a Second Date 01-05

Knowing how to keep a conversation going can improve your career as well as your social life, according to research by Alison Wood Brooks and colleagues. 

New research suggests that people who ask questions, particularly follow-up questions, may become better managers, land better jobs, and even win second dates.

“Compared to those who do not ask many questions, people who do are better liked and learn more information from their conversation partners,” says Alison Wood Brooks, assistant professor and Hellman Faculty Fellow at Harvard Business School. “This strategy does both. It’s an easy-to-deploy strategy anyone can use to not only be perceived as more emotionally intelligent, but to actually be more emotionally intelligent as well.”

The research, published in the paper It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking (pdf), examined data from online chats and face-to-face speed dating conversations. In addition to Brooks, the coauthors were Karen Huang, HBS and Department of Psychology, Harvard University; Michael Yeomans, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University; Julia Minson, Harvard Kennedy School; and Francesca Gino, Harvard Business School. It was published in September’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 

“Follow-up questions are an easy and effective way to keep the conversation going and show that the asker has paid attention to what their partner has said”

The first two studies in the paper examined more than 600 online chat participants tasked with getting to know each other. A third study consisted of 110 speed-daters engaged in round-robin dates—over 2,000 conversations.

In all three studies, those who asked follow-up questions were better liked than those who didn’t. “Follow-up questions are an easy and effective way to keep the conversation going and show that the asker has paid attention to what their partner has said,” the researchers write.

Researchers study 2,000 conversations

In the first two studies, people were assigned a random partner and told to chat for 15 minutes in order to get to know each other. In the first study, one person in each pair was told to ask at least nine questions or at most four questions, and the other person was unaware of his or her partner’s question-asking instructions. In the next study, both people in each pair were told to ask many (at least nine) or few (at most four) questions.

Nine research assistants read through a sample of 368 transcripts and identified question types. They discovered and hand-labeled six different types of questions: introductory, mirror, full-switch, partial-switch, follow-up, and rhetorical questions. Forty-four percent of the questions—more than any other type—were follow-ups.

Based on the hand-labeled question types, the research team was able to create its own machine learning algorithm, natural-language-processing software to analyze the speed dating conversations. For the third study, armed with their algorithm, they examined data from a 2013 Stanford speed dating study called Detecting friendly, flirtatious, awkward and assertive speech in speed dates (pdf) as a way to test in-person interaction.

And there, perhaps, was revealed the ultimate proof that follow-up questions work. The top third of question askers got the most second dates. Researchers found that if a participant were to ask just one more question on each of the 20 dates, he or she would succeed in getting a “yes I want to see you again” on one more of the dates, on average.

Be careful, though. Asking too many questions can have the reverse effect, the research shows. “Asking a barrage of questions without disclosing information about yourself may come across as guarded, or worse, invasive,” Brooks says.

Brooks, who has been fascinated by “why people don’t ask more questions” since grade school, has mulled over this topic in many discussions with her mother, whom she thanks in the study. “My mom, a talented natural psychologist, and I would often reflect on why people don’t ask more questions. What holds them back?”

One reason might be ego. People may be so focused on sharing what they know that they aren’t considering what they might learn from others. Or, they may think to ask a question, but are afraid of asking one that is perceived as rude, intrusive, or incompetent.

But, there’s a third, darker reason. Potential questioners, such as a manager, may not ask because they don’t care about the answers—they may feel apathy or disinterest in what the other person has to say.

“This type of apathy is often misplaced—we have much to learn from others, perhaps especially from those lower in status than ourselves,” Brooks says.

“Every workplace has norms and rules of conduct, explicit and implicit. There are rules of appropriateness. And rules of professionalism,” Brooks says. “It is possible that we are more likely to make conversational mistakes at work and violate these rules and norms and expectations.”

A job interview is one circumstance that may benefit from asking more questions. For example, standard practice suggests that a potential new boss is expected to do the asking. But asking more questions as a job candidate may show how much you can contribute in a potential job, that you are an engaging listener with high emotional intelligence. Plus, the manager may like you more.

“We don’t have many evidence-based prescriptions about what you can do to become more emotionally intelligent or to take other people’s perspectives,” Brooks says. "In fact, there’s research that shows even if you tell people, ‘try to put yourself in other person’s shoes,’ we aren’t very good at it.”

The right way to question

For those who aren’t natural question-askers, Brooks recommends heading into any conversation with an explicit goal of asking questions.

“Think to yourself, I need to ask at least five questions in this conversation, or, I need to ask questions in this conversation, listen to the answers, and ask follow-up questions. It’s easy to do, and—even better—requires almost no preparation.”

The researchers are interested in looking at other areas, now that they’ve established a link between question-asking and liking.

Potential areas include:

What happens in extreme situations when someone asks zero questions, or, when they ask 50?

What can be gleaned about gender, status, age, or personality from question-asking in conversation?

What can be learned from groups in terms of productivity or happiness when it comes to question asking? 

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A Look Ahead: Employee Engagement Trends for 2016 12-30

A  Look Ahead:  Employee Engagement Trends for 2016

Here’s an understatement for the year ahead: The workplace is changing and engagement strategies are changing along with it.  Anyone involved in employee engagement knows that conventional wisdom has been turned on its head by a newly plugged-in and  charged-up generation of workers.

How well do you know the people who come to work every day and how will you effectively engage  them in the next 12 months?

Here’s a roundup of top-trending strategies  from BI WORLDWIDE to help make 2016 your most engaged and productive year ever.

TREND: Focus on happiness Organizations have been trying to “sell” employees on engagement but what employees really want is happiness, pure and simple. Instead of declaring undying loyalty or planning long-term career intentions, employees want to enjoy their work, find meaning in it, be recognized when they do well and feel a sense of achievement.

What can you do?

Acknowledge contributions and effort. Go beyond the cookiecutter recognition program and create unique recognition tailored  to employees’ passions. • Recognize service. Don’t wait for the traditional five-year anniversary. Celebrate milestones early and often, including at  one month and one year. •

Enhance your culture. Work should be somewhere employees want to be, not have to be. Don’t be afraid to give them opportunities to thrive.

TREND: Ask more from managers Of course it’s true that the standard practice is to acknowledge contributions made across every level of the organization. But still, there’s an added zing when an immediate supervisor or manager notices—and recognizes—excellent work. Managers might need some help in spotting and rewarding desired behaviors but the effort will pay off in the long run.

What can you do? 

Train them. Let managers know why recognition is important  and the value it plays in reinforcing key behaviors. • Empower them. Research shows that when managers have recognition budgets to use at their discretion, employee tenure increases. • Communicate, then measure, then do it all again. Spread the word and keep checking back to make sure goals are being met.

TREND: Make work meaningful In a market that’s increasingly shifting in job-seekers’ favor, employees are looking for more than “just a job” and are seeking work that’s personally meaningful.

If employees aren’t using their skills and being challenged, they’ll move on. Hiring managers might be seeking someone to complete specific tasks immediately but they must also make sure even entry-level jobs provide opportunities to learn, contribute and grow. What can you do? • Ask, don’t tell. Instead of doling out an assignment and dictating the process to team members, challenge them to find improvements and recognize them at every step in the process. • Delegate a project that would not otherwise get done. Offer team members the opportunity to run with an idea that you haven’t had the chance to explore. Give them basic parameters to follow, then make them fearless by removing any consequences for failing.

Let them lead. Turn over an existing project and let your team members manage everything, from strategy development through project management to leadership presentations. Hold the team accountable to the budget and timelines while letting them know you’re there for support.

TREND: Lead with compassion Research by Dr. Brad Shuck, an internationally respected researcher on the psychology of engagement, and Maryanne Honeycutt-Elliott, expert in leadership development and executive coaching, has shown higher levels of engagement from employees who work for a compassionate leader—one who is authentic, present, has a sense of dignity, holds others accountable, leads with integrity and shows empathy. In fact, 74% of employees who work for compassionate leaders say they are unlikely to leave their current organization in the next five years.

What can you do? • Translate strategic goals into individual goals. This requires authentically listening to others and working to leverage their strengths, as well as having a willingness to be flexible and adaptable. • Develop others. Focus outward–not inward–in a way that develops the skills, competencies and abilities of others. • Give and receive helpful feedback. Listen deeply and communicate well, and you will create credibility, trust and influence.

TREND: Meet them where they are Innovative technologies allow employees to speak and be spoken to with relevance, and relevance leads to better results. They’re accustomed to pulling out their mobile devices whenever they have a spare minute and crave instant, easy access to news, apps, pictures, videos, statuses – all on their terms. They expect the same of their recognition program.

What can you do? 

See it, believe it and live it. Start with a clear direction that includes what you’re communicating and use multiple channels and touchpoints. • Make it easy. Give employees the ability to recognize each other on devices with which they’re comfortable. Incorporate social elements like news feeds, comments and sharing, built using responsive design or in a native app. • Mix it up. Offer multiple ways to communicate to employees, including traditional methods like company intranets as well as mobile, social recognition platforms and data visualization boards  in areas where employees gather, such as break rooms.

TREND: Train more, with less Research shows that today’s learner is overwhelmed, distracted and impatient. Two thirds say they don’t have enough time to do their jobs properly. In fact, employees say they can only devote one percent of their time to learning and career development—just minutes in an average work week.

What can you do? 

Make it short and sweet. Break eLearning into Learning  Snacks–two to three-minute bites of learning about a single topic  or task. Learners receive Learning Snacks only when they’re needed and don’t need to “check out” of work for multiple hours just to complete training. • Be multi-device savvy. Millennials are now the largest generation in  the world and the largest generation in the workforce.

Be aware that they almost unerringly reach for their mobile phones first. Make it seamless by delivering training to all major devices from a single version. • Custom tailor learning. One size fits all? Not anymore. Each of your learners has previous knowledge and expertise, as well as specific gaps in knowledge and skills. Use data to dynamically configure the learning experience for individual learners. 

Keep an eye on culture. Chances are good that your learning audience is now a global audience, so be sure to deliver all course languages in a single version, using streamlined translation processes available through the cloud. Tweak translations to be relevant to the in-country culture, needs and limitations.

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How is HR analytics changing people management? 12-25

Shyam's take on HR analytics

I agree with Vinay on the need for HR analytics in the diverse cross culture environment in India.

However the accuracy and usefulness of the data depends on the quality of its integration.
This is possible only when the Data Scientists have also knowledge about HR domain. Otherwise the inference we draw will have a huge margin of error and so will the action on the benefit of it.

I suggest that, after drawing inference from the data. The HR specialist should interact with the concerned employees to authenticate the results. If personal interaction is not possible, they can send out a questionnaire and prepare reports based on the employee inputs. And  when taking a decision or inferring an opinion, it is suggested that data output along with the Report of the actual interaction with the employee should be taken into account before coming to a conclusion.

Specially when working on the Predictive analytics, it essential that, the stats are as closer to reality as possible.



How is HR analytics changing people management?

It is developing an engaged, agile and flexible workforce by making use of data to obtain valuable insights on the employees.

          

In today’s VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) landscape, small and big companies are continually facing uncertainty and volatility in their operations. The working environment is increasingly becoming very complex and ambiguous. This has put human resources into a challenging situation in terms of making definitive decisions in the workplace. HR has to look constantly at new tools for making risk-free decisions, and this is where the help of HR analytics comes in.
HR analytics is the use of statistical methods like factor analysis, correlation and regression and making use of different sources and variables to arrive at meaningful insights. It helps HR understand the dynamics in the workforce.

One cannot rely on a person’s experience or tacit knowledge to base one’s decisions on, but on real data and numbers to back one’s workplace decisions. This has proved to add value and improve workforce resource utilisation and deployment. HR analytics is not about merely collecting vast amounts of data, but analysing and processing it to provide meaningful insights. These insights are then used to provide the answers sought by the company, to the following questions, among others:

• Will the predictive attrition model help identify who is going to resign in the next, three, six or 12 months? What is the efficiency factor of this predictive model?

• Is the new tax-friendly employee compensation and benefits programme driving higher retention?

• Are the highly engaged employees at the workplace highly productive? Are they spreading positive employer brand in the workplace and social media?

• Will work from home/flexible working hours lead to better engagement, and to what extent?

• Which generation of employees (Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z , Millennial) is contributing more towards profitability?

• What are the major reasons for attrition? Is the preventive HR intervention effective in controlling attrition?

• Is there any correlation in employees who are leaving within six months of joining?

• Is there any relation between employees who stay within 10 km radius and retention?

• Is the newly designed Employee Fraud Risk Management effective?

Is there any correlation between frauds committed by habitual noncompliant employees/ disengaged employees?

Finance function decisions are based on data, such as graphs, charts, etc. However, in HR, it is based mostly on the relationship component and there is always the risk of being judgmental when it’s a person making decisions. Through HR analytics, this risk can be minimised.

HR can study the behavioural competencies of high-potential employees and share the data with the recruiting team to help them identify potential employees. This data can also be used in training. HR often comes up with various mechanisms intended to achieve employee satisfaction, leading to employee engagement. But today, the mechanism depends on what the employees value more and whether it is going to achieve the outcome.

Based on the HR analytics data, human resource policies are customised, for example, the recent decision by the Government of Delhi regarding the odd and even number cars taking turns to run on the roads. This has led some companies to offer Delhi metro cards to employees and encourage them to take local public transport instead of using their cars. Some companies are exploring the option of working from home.

People management is being accomplished with change thanks to evolving HR analytics. It gives a clear view of performances and drives the organisation towards its goals. This has led managers to understand their employees better and contribute towards planning for their training and development. In turn, the employees will be motivated to be more in tune with the culture of the organisation.

People analytics empowers HR with the ability to identify the gaps between employees and training, which is necessary to be bridged. This is especially important with new hires to help them understand expectations and workflow processes quicker. By digging into insights, HR managers can not only identify which hires will be low but also the high performers.

Predictive analytics contributes to analysis of the workforce beyond the mere basis of academics. While recruiting, many companies look for candidates with high academic records. But this is not full proof of a candidate’s ability to perform. Some bugging questions come to mind:

• Why does one programmer perform better than the other?

• Why do some average employees succeed while some perceived as good recruits fail?

• How much time does it take the new employee to be productive?

One way to employ the use of HR analytics is acceptance and deployment of HR management systems and cloud storage availability. These make it possible for organisations or companies to store all their data in a manner that can be integrated with other workplace operations.

Such cloud software today is readily available and affordable. It is time for employers to take advantage of this progress. By deploying HR analytics, companies collect data based on attrition, retention and other HR aspects. These metrics are then used further to look for trends based on ratios and accounts. The data is then vigorously analysed to give Google insight into employee trends.

These insights could be effectively used to shape the organization’s policies and decisions.

Businesses have noted that the ability to take initiative is a better indicator of actual performance.
Companies are deploying predictive analytics to drive their HR strategies. Employee data from all locations is analysed and processed to develop programmes based on age, demography and tenure. Information from predictive analytics/HR analytics is used to attract, retain and manage the right talent. To change the course of the manner in which they deal with employees, data-based information is used like predictive attrition models and exit analyses. This predictive modelling tactic is more handy than trying to figure out later why an employee left.

The new approach of HR/predictive analytics provides the ability to measure, quantify and qualify employee data. The new method digs into the ‘why’ rather than the ‘what’ to get the better perspective of things.

HR analytics helps to develop a workforce that is engaged, agile and flexible by using data to gain valuable insights on employees. In the diverse Indian context, the need for HR analytics is felt even more because every company has a broad array of people to manage. Proper management of this varied workforce is a prerequisite for greater synergy and productivity within an organisation. Companies must look towards HR analytics as the new tool to power an organisation’s success through smart people management.

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I Fired Joe, and We Both Have to Live With It 03-02

I Fired Joe, and We Both Have to Live With It

When I saw Joe* my stomach lurched. The last time I'd seen him was 20 years ago. The day I fired him.

Time is unkind to all but seemed especially unkind to Joe. His face was etched with lines and his eyes, once bright, were flat and lifeless.

He shuffled over and I hesitantly reached to shake his hand.

"Hi Joe," I said. "How are you?"

He glanced away. "I guess I'm doing all right," he said.

Then he asked to borrow a twenty.

***

I was a manufacturing supervisor in the late 1990s when our department implemented an employee-empowerment program designed to shift as much responsibility as possible down to the team level. In time, employee committees became responsible for scheduling vacations, evaluating team members, and making hiring decisions, and we became coaches and "facilitators" rather than supervisors.

I definitely supported it. I started on the shop floor, so I know employees at every level are always capable of handling greater responsibility than normally given. Plus, responsibility yields accountability. Accountability creates engagement. Empowerment fuels a powerful cycle that can take on an awesome life of its own.

And perhaps unsurprisingly, with a little training and guidance, some employees turned out to be far better leaders than many supervisors.

Of course at first most of our employees were skeptical. How much responsibility would we truly delegate? How much authority would we truly give up? At the first sign of trouble, would we stop guiding and start dictating?

In response, we went too far, too fast, erring on the side of greater employee authority so they could learn to trust our commitment.

***

Two weeks after Joe was hired, Mike*, the evaluation coordinator for his team, came to my office to discuss Joe's performance.

"He's terrible," Mike said.

I asked for examples. We identified weaknesses and deficiencies. We brought Joe in to review his evaluation and detail areas for improvement. Standard stuff: some employees are slower to catch on, others just need a reality check, but most come up to speed.

Two weeks later, Mike said Joe's performance had not improved. So we put him on a performance plan, listing skills he needed to display and specific performance targets he needed to reach. Joe said he understood.

Later, though, he came to me and said, "I know I'm a little slow, but I also think they're too hard on me. It's not that I can't do the job. I think the real problem is they don't like me."

So I found ways without being obvious to see better for myself, like hanging out on the line talking to an operator while keeping one eye on Joe. (After all, I couldn't make it seem like I didn't trust the team's input.) He was definitely slow. Still, Mike's assessment seemed, possibly, a little harsh.

Yet the team worked with him every day and no matter how hard I tried I would never know his performance as well as they did. (Which, of course, was the reason we wanted employees to evaluate each other; the people who know your performance best are the people who work beside you every day.)

Two months into his 90-day probationary period Mike said Joe's performance was still sub-par. We brought Joe in, gave him a formal warning, and explained exactly what he needed to do in order to meet job requirements. We created a plan to provide additional training. He said he was trying hard but would try even harder.

A month later Mike turned in Joe's 90-day evaluation. "He doesn't cut it," he said. "We need to fire him."

"That's a big step," I said. "Are you sure?"

"I am," Mike said. "We all are. Check out the individual reviews from the rest of the team."

According to their evaluations it was clear Joe hadn't met requirements. While I still had doubts, the proof was in front of me. The system had spoken. Joe needed to go. So I fired him.

And he cried.

He said he had tried really hard. He said he knew he didn't fit in but he couldn't help it. He told me he had never fit in, not in school, not with friends, not at jobs. He didn't know why but he always seemed to be the outsider. He felt his work wasn't the problem for other employees; working with him was the problem.

He begged for one more chance.

I told Joe we had given him a number of chances and unfortunately there were no chances left. I walked him to the plant entrance (we had to escort fired employees from the building, a "walk of shame" I always hated because it only served to further humiliate a person already devastated), shook his hand, and wished him well.

But I never forgot Joe. Unlike some other employees I fired, I sometimes questioned whether I had done the right thing. Sure, based on our system I had done everything "right," but had I actually done the right thing? Had I ignored the intuition that comes from long years of experience?

Had I let Joe become a victim of our drive towards empowerment?

***

What makes it worse is that some months earlier I facilitated a promotion committee meeting made up of employees using evaluation data to rank employees eligible for an open machine-operator position.

Gene* emerged as the top candidate. Yet some in the room had doubts. "I know he looks good on paper," one explained, "but I don't think he has what it takes." Others agreed.

I didn't. "I understand you have concerns," I said, "but by every standard he's the best candidate. You can't bypass him based on feelings you can't quantify. How would you feel if that happened to you?" The dissenters grumbled but grudgingly agreed.

In the weeks to come, I had to step in a few more times. Several operators on his team felt he wasn't learning quickly enough and wanted him demoted. So I watched. Gene was slow, but once he knew how to do something, he really knew how. Experience -- experience shop floor employees didn't yet have -- told me all Gene needed was a little patience and a little time.

So I made sure he got it.

But I didn't do the same for Joe.

***

I reached for my wallet as Joe told me his story. He had worked a bunch of jobs but none that lasted. He had messed up his knee and didn't have health insurance so it never healed right. He talked about opportunities missed and turns not taken.

Later I thought about the role I had played in his life. Maybe if I had tried harder or better trusted my judgment things would have turned out differently. He may never have been an outstanding employee, but in time he might have turned out OK.

Working for what was at the time a leading employer in the area, holding a solid job with good benefits and plenty of overtime... who knows what Joe's life might have been?

Would he have someday been like Gene, who turned out to be an outstanding operator and then went on to become a machinist with an incredible eye for detail and precision? Probably not. After all, Joe had under-performed in an unskilled position where effort was 90% of the success equation.

But who knows?

***

Hiring, firing, disciplining, promoting... each is an everyday task for a leader. You need to make difficult and agonizing decisions about employees. So you think, you decide, you act, and then you put that decision behind you and move on.

That's the job.

Yet doing that job can dramatically change the life of other people. No matter how hard you try to get every decision that changes another person's life right, sometimes you won't. Those decisions -- and those regrets -- you soon realize you will live with forever.

Those decisions -- and those regrets -- you soon realize will also change your life.

Hats off to all of you who try desperately to get every people decision right... and then pay the unseen price of wondering whether you got one wrong.

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