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Brave New Work

By Development

How People Analytics can help your organisation take ‘First Advantage’ and Thrive in the disruptive times ahead

 

A wave of transformation is about to hit Ireland in the next 5 -15 years… A.I. is not coming it’s already here!

Recently, I was invited to give a lecture to students that are seeking jobs in the manufacturing sector, my job was to uplift, inspire and give hope to these students, I  also had to tell them the truth, which is; that is that their career will have a life span of approximately ten years.

That is because it is estimated by 2030, the majority of their jobs will be replaced by automation.
Worldwide, the estimated figure for the number of jobs automation will replace in the manufacturing sector is twenty million.

According to an analysis by Oxford Economics People, they are also unlikely to find ‘Comparable roles’ as similar jobs in the services sector will also have been squeezed by automation.

 

Have you noticed how few tellers there are in the banks and cashiers in the supermarket?

The acceleration of technology and A.I. is like the sea, it will creep in slowly, you won’t notice it and then, one day you, your family and your co-workers will be surrounded by it.

When A.I. becomes ‘normalised’ in our workplace and communities, ‘ordinary’ jobs will disappear overnight, this is because the processing speed of A.I. is far superior to the human brain. Therefore, work can get done quicker and cheaper.

A.I.’s progression is not linear it’s exponential. Regardless of the debate as to the exact number of jobs A.I. will replace jobs or not, what it does mean is that most organisations will be facing… talent re-deployment.

              

There will come a time in the not too distant future when you will have to decide: Are you going sink or learn to surf the waves?


People Analytics
will no longer be a ‘nice to have’, it will be a ‘must-have’.

Change can happen super fast, therefore organisations will need to understand how to pivot, restructure and re-deploy people at speed (be agile and adapt to change) and this will be key to not only survive, but to thrive in the disruptive times ahead.

Leaderships’ ability to navigate and translate that disruption into ‘a positive’ for the teams they lead will be vital. As predictive analytics, in particular, will be seen by leadership as a way to predict future outcomes, gain control, execute at speed and make the right people choices in a fast-changing world, the organisation, in order to attract, select, engage and retain, the brightest and the best.

It’s not necessarily the ‘fittest’ of the species that will survive, it’s the one that is most ‘adaptive to change’.

Disruption will push organisations to become more attuned to the needs of the employee and for many, this will mean a shift to new paradigms and different models of working.

EIQ and the ‘Self-Aware’ Organisation will take Centre Stage. As the drive and need for specialist roles increases, the hunt and retention of talented individuals becomes more competitive.

HR will increasingly be focused on developing organisational culture and creating a ‘people experience’. Foundational to building ‘a positive people experience’ is to understand the humans in your organisation…                               

               “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”

Albert Einstein.

In the same way as a doctor runs tests to understand an individual’s biological DNA, advances in behavioral science now enable us to use diagnostics to uncover the psychological DNA of our employees.

This makes it much easier to understand the unique design, passions and skillsets that lie in our employees and then create jobs that are designed to match that blueprint.

This recognition that we are all pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, we are all different and therefore have been given a unique design with a unique set of skills, competencies and purpose will take centre stage.

Here’s why People Analytics will be your best friend in the times ahead:

  • Data-driven decisions will enable interventions to be put in place quickly, increase leaders ‘self-awareness’, support and elevate them, to improve empathy, ability to collaborate, manage their teams better as well as optimise their cognitive ability to think through complex problems and lead through complexity.
  • People analytics provides a way to define, quantify and measure softer skills, in particular those that drive EIQ, in the organisation. Equally as important is the ability to predict and minimise behavioural traits that lower EIQ and have the potential to de-rail a team, department or organisation, if not kept in check!
  • Greater Talent Mobility: Having a broader overview of your workforce, their skills and ‘potential’ will enable you to plan better. You will be able to see who are the ‘right people’ which can be mobilised into the ‘right positions’, at the ‘right time’, either externally through a recruitment campaign or internally via an internal ‘grow your own’ program.
  • Builds Resilience: Organisations are operating against a backdrop of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity). Having visibility as to who has the right skills in your organisation, will enable the organisation to pivot and adjust quicker if/when disruption hits. If you don’t understand the skills of your employees you will not be able to respond quickly and may end up relying on ‘knee jerk’ responses which will slow progress.
  • Leverages the performance of your Human Capital. What got us here, won’t get us there’. Having visibility as to where the skills gaps lie in your organisation will enable you to identify training and development needs and better align employees with jobs they are more suitable for, i.e. ‘talent re-deployment. Better skilled and knowledgeable employees will contribute to higher performance. 

Change is coming, this is a given, the critical question now is: Are you going to be Proactive or Re-active?

The world is changing at a rapid rate and this presents a double edge sword for business. You can either take ‘first advantage’ of the opportunities that are on the horizon, or you can wake up one day and realize that not only your job, but also your industry as you know it, no longer exists.

The question for organisations now is not whether or not to introduce people analytics but when and how do we embed the structures, systems and mind-set in our companies to use data on our people in a way that values our humanity while simultaneously create the right eco-system and culture for organisations to ‘thrive’ in the disruptive times ahead.

I believe it’s now time when it’s not enough to know ‘why’, it’s time to know ‘how’…if the spirit moves you…discover how people analytics technologies and methods can support you on your transformation journey, connect with us here at: sharon.miller@human-bydesign.com.

Do you Think Doubling your Employees will Double your Profit?

By Development

It Won’t!

And here is why:

 

Just because you double your workforce doesn’t mean you double your productivity. As bestselling author Jim Collins concluded in his book ‘GOOD to GREAT’ (why some companies make the leap and others don’t)…

“Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”

There is little benefit in having two hundred people operating at 40% efficiency when you can have one hundred people operating at 80% efficiency. Adding more people also means increased costs, in terms of recruitment, training and management overheads.

The key to higher profit margins, is having a high performing workforce.

 

So, How do you Develop a High Performing Workforce?

There is a gap between what the research reveals and what organisations are actually doing. It turns out following your passion really does deliver R.O.I.

Peer reviewed research, published in leading business psychology journals (Dr Shubhakr Gujula, Prof. Beena Chintalapuri*) proves a direct correlation between the level of enjoyment in the task of the job and the results employees achieve for the organisation.

Thirty years of research by Dr.Dan Harrison, demonstrates that employees who are congruent with their jobs and enjoy at least 75% of the tasks of the job, perform three times better than employees who don’t enjoy their job.

Example:

Assuming a supportive environment and competent leadership an average performing sales person in a company generates €100,000 a year in sales for the company. By contrast a high performing sales person with high competence and high levels of enjoyment in the job, studies show will perform three times better, with the potential to contribute up to €300,000 to the bottom line.

 

The key to high performing employees is to have high levels of competency and congruency between the natural passion of the employee and the tasks of the job. This is a critical driver for increased employee engagement and high performance.

 

How to Develop Your Employees for High Performance?

Because it can take between six to twelve months for the organisation to determine if an employee is an “A” player.

It is critical to conduct an audit from the outset as to whether or not a potential new employee has the DNA to become a high performer in your organisational culture.

The latest advances in behavioural science enable an employer to establish (before making a hiring decision) whether or not an employee has the DNA of a high performer.

This empowers the organisation to match the right people to the right jobs with a high degree of accuracy. Validity studies by organisations who have used this methodology, show correlation coefficient of up to 0.7 (high predictive power). The methodology is called Performance Benchmarking.

 

Performance Benchmarking

 

Performance Benchmarking provides a quantitative evaluation that differentiate high performers from average and low performers for a specific job.

The method uses A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) to formulate and measure critical behavioural traits for a job and show the impact they have on performance.

Example:

The example below highlights the critical success factors necessary for a Sales Manager in a Global Organisation.

A benchmark study was carried out to establish the essential traits for successful Sales Managers in a global organisation. The study found that sales managers with the following traits were consistently high performing:

 

·         Authoritve Collaboration.

·         Frank.

·         Numerical.

·         Wants Autonomy.

·         Intuitive.

·         Forthright Diplomacy.

·         Analytical.

·         Collaborative.

·         Precise.

·         Tolerance of Structure.

 

Essential traits – These traits are considered “essential” in the Job and are given a rating according to the level of correlation to performance rating.

 

When choosing which candidates from a selection process to take forward from a shortlist of five potential job candidates (Candidate A, B, C, D, E). The hiring manager then compares the shortlisted candidates to the organisations benchmark for high performance in a Sales Manager Role.

 

Candidate A Scores:

The above diagram shows the distribution score of a candidate who applied for the job.

This particular candidate has a strong alignment with the essential traits for a sales manager in this organisation.

 

In conclusion, the benefits include:

  • Benchmarking matches critical job success factors with actual job performance, resulting in a highly scientific, objective and measurable outcome (up to 80% ability to predict success in a job).
  • For internal ‘grow your own’ programmes the method provides data to improve job performance, by highlighting ‘performance gaps’ which determine where improvement is needed, managers can introduce laser-focused interventions which support employee development.

The result: Better selection and targeted development that leads to higher performing employees.

For further information on how people analytics can help you develop high performing employees, contact us here: sharon.miller@human-bydesign.com.

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you its going to be a butterfly.” Buckminster Fuller.

By Development

Thinking of expanding your business?

Then according to the latest research – your team may need to cultivate a ‘Growth Mindset’.

 

The work carried out by world-famous psychologist Dr. Carol Dwek on ‘Growth Mindset’ has gained much popularity in recent times.

According to Dweck there are two kinds of people, those with a ‘growth mindset’ and those with a ‘fixed mindset’. The former is underpinned by the belief that your abilities are fixed by your upbringing, genetics or intelligence.

“In a ‘growth mindset’ people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work, brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment” writes Dweck.

Our belief at Human-ByDesign is that results in organisations flow through people. When we apply the principles of ‘Growth Mind-Set’ to organisational culture and support our employees and teams to stretch their cognitive skills and emotional intelligence to new horizons, this, in turn, supports the organisation to also stretch beyond its capabilities to innovate, change and grow.

Here at Human-ByDesign we are interested in understanding how we can begin to harness the principles of growth mindset to build positive organisational culture. Our business is grounded in behavioural science and we are currently in the process of developing scientifically sound methodologies and tools to support organisations to develop a growth mindset.

In doing so, it will be important that our work is grounded not only in theory but also in the practical application of the methodologies.

We believe answering the following questions will help to provide clarity and shape a trajectory for that will have a beneficial outcome for the organisations that we will  serve:

  • Why is creating an environment for growth mindset important when developing organisational culture?
  • What behavioural attributes constitute a growth mindset?
  • How do we know if we have a growth mindset or not?
  • How can we measure growth mind-set, in our employees, teams and across organisational culture?
  • How can we develop a reliable diagnostic tool that provides a behavioural mirror so that we can have visibility on precisely were our employees need to focus on development interventions?
  • How can we develop a scientifically validated process, which provides us with a data – set that we can rely on and have confidence in to support us make the best decisions for recruitment and internal employee development programmes?

 

Before diving in to answer these questions, there is an additional piece of the puzzle that I believe is worth noting:

When we juxtapose Dr. Carol Dweck’s Research with Professor Dan Harrisons 30 years of research on *enjoyment theory, we can see that cultivating a growth mindset as part of organisational culture is not as straight forward as we might initially think.

According to Dr. Dan Harrison’s research, employees who are aligned with tasks of the job that they find intrinsically rewarding, tend to be three times more productive in their role.

His central thesis is human beings are designed to enjoy their work. Even when there is career progression in the organisation with ample opportunity for growth offered by the company, his research found that it is human nature to feel restless and seek to move on when we don’t experience ‘job satisfaction’.

The research on this suggests there is a balance to be struck between creating psychologically safe environments to support our employees stretch and grow, while at the same time being mindful to align our employees with work that allows them to be their authentic-self and engage in work they find meaningful, purposeful and intrinsically fulfilling.

Organisations can then tap into a much larger reservoir of creativity, energy and productivity from their employees, which will in turn lead to more mutually beneficial outcomes, for both the employee and the organisation.

To explore further how your organisation can cultivate a ‘Growth Mind-Set’ culture, get in touch with us by Clicking here.

Is Happiness the New Productivity?

By Development

Happiness, ah that elusive feeling, one moment it’s there and next, it’s gone.

Happiness can range from an immediate gratifying experience to satisfying long term meaningful objectives, goals or dreams.

The latest research in neuroscience and psychology tells us that Human’s are goal-seeking mechanisms, we are built to achieve and thrive, the more meaningful the goal we achieve the greater the fulfillment.

Why is Happiness important in work?

Our brain operates at the highest levels of functionality when we believe we are involved in work, that is meaningful to us.

Therefore our most satisfying ‘happiness’ experiences happen at work when we are achieving goals that are authentically aligned to our true selves.

The most important findings in the research are that Human’s have internal self-governing systems and are most disciplined in areas of work that they find intrinsically satisfying.

This self-governing capacity is the key to enhanced productivity and higher levels of performance in individuals and teams.

This essentially means that if the organization hires and retains individuals who are intrinsically aligned with the work tasks they are performing on a daily basis, and they derive job satisfaction from those tasks, the company will require very little additional resources to keep the team motivated and on track.

All supervision systems that a company employs to either ‘micro-manage’ employees or attempt to get them to focus on the task are simply compensation for the lack of alignment between the individual’s intrinsic motivational drivers and the tasks they are working on.

Not only does an intrinsic alignment with work tasks help engage the brain, but science has also proven that our autonomic nervous system comes into balance when we are engaged in activities we enjoy.

Since our nervous system is the master controller governor of our bodies, this system is built to give us rewards when we are ‘on track’ with intrinsically what is important to us and give us feedback i.e. negative emotions when we are ‘off track’ with what is important to us.

We have all had experienced where we are so in tune, so ‘present’ with our work, that we lose track of time. Perhaps it was an important project we were working on or a piece of work that was very meaningful to us.

This is true happiness, this is what psychologists call flow states and this state of happiness enables us to achieve the highest levels of productivity. Science tells us that we are neurologically wired to achieve flow states.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines the flow state as:

“An optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best“. Which means that the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement and success in the process of the activity. It is a state of supreme creativity.”

So how do we know when we are in the flow and how to get into more flow?  

The HATS’ tool developed by professor Harrison is an objective measure of where the individual is aligned with the work tasks of the job. The tool is underpinned by ‘enjoyment theory’, the measure of how much an individual enjoys or is ‘in flow with’ the tasks of the job.

The result of numerous studies and 20 years of validation research has proven that were individuals are 70% or more aligned with work tasks they enjoy, they are more likely to be ‘in flow’ and less likely to need outside supervision.

Independent research has proven that these individuals are three times more likely to be productive in their jobs than individuals who are not aligned with the work they are involved in.

The correct ‘fit’ with the job enables employees to live and work in accordance with what is truly valuable and meaningful to them. They are focused ‘on the job’ not just ‘in the job’, thus maximizing fulfillment, happiness and productivity.

Take the Free Test

If you want to know how to get into your ‘flow state’ at work, or how to help your team  – Take The Free Test at www.human-bydesign.com

How do you make sure that you have hired the best employee for your business and you know they are going to be successful before investing time and money?

By Uncategorized

Hand’s up, who has recruited a new employee, you thought was a dream candidate only to be shocked and horrified when they handed in their notice before their six months probationary period is up?

When this happens, you not only have to start all over again, you have also lost financially because of the wasted time in recruitment costs, salary, training the new employee into the job, lost productivity as well as affecting the morale of the team.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (C.I.P.D) has calculated that the average cost of replacing a junior employee can be up to five thousand; a manager between ten to thirty thousand and a Senior Manager/Director up to 1.5 times their salary!

 

Where recruitment can go wrong…

 

The reason why sometimes using just the interview as a method for assessing candidates is not as effective as we would like is because Human beings are multidimensional… the interview only looks at the individual through one lens, but if we want to understand the potential of a job candidate we have to go deeper and look at that person in a holistic way through a number of different lenses.

Then we can say we have a well-rounded view of that person and can make the decision as to whether or not they are likely to be the best fit for the job, team and organisation they are about to move in to.

Because we are living in an environment where change is the norm, managers need to think very differently about their recruitment strategy. For example, instead of recruiting for their current position, decision-makers will also need to be mindful of what that job will be in six months or one year from now.

Taking the time in the beginning to develop recruitment process that provides a way to measure how a person maps against their current job and their potential to develop into a role in the future, will pay dividends as well as save you time and money, in the long run.

Here’s how Predictive Analytics can help:  

 

  1. First get crystal clear on the performance expectations in the role – what do you want the person to actually deliver on – define it in terms of KPI’s and understand how those KPI’s will be measured in the job.

 

  1. Then define the baseline eligibility requirements –e. Level of education, experience, qualifications and knowledge required in the role.

 

  1. Understand ‘Suitability’ – the behavioural characteristics important for the job and how aligned their values are with the culture.

 

  1. It is also important to define what does not make them suitable, i.e. how they will behave under pressure, for example.

 

Once the above is mapped and the blueprint for the ideal candidate is developed.

You can then migrate this information across to the predictive analytics technology we use here at Human-ByDesign. 

Our technology uses very advanced A.I. Out of the long list of applicants that apply for the role, the algorithm simply looks to see which job candidate is the closest match to the criteria in the job.

The A.I. is very fast, it can produce a full assessment of how well the candidates map to the skills and behaviors required for the job – in under an hour.

This method ensures that you only spend time interviewing the candidates that are the best fit for the role, saving you time and resource.

That is very empowering for you as an employer because it gives you greater visibility into the key strengths and development areas of a job candidate prior to interviewing them.

Many of our clients then use this data as part of the interview process to focus the interview on gaining the evidence they need to make the best hiring decision. In combination with eligibility testing, the results you can expect can be as high as 80% predictive accuracy and that is going to give you much greater clarity and confidence when making your final hiring decision.

To discover more about how predictive analytics can support you to hire the best…you can reach us at: info@human-bydesign.com