Asia is home to more than 60 per cent of the world’s population and according to McKinsey is on track to top 50 per cent of global GDP by 2040 and drive 40 per cent of the world’s consumption. This represents a real shift in the world’s centre of gravity and one that could be further accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

People Analytics is also on the rise in Asia, with LinkedIn’s The Rise of Analytics in HR regional report for Asia-Pacific finding that in the five years to 2018, there has been a 70% increase in specialised analytics professionals in HR in the region.

In the previous three parts of my series of interviews with Arun Sundar we explored what makes people analytics in Asia different, the unique challenges this brings in areas such as using analytics to understand leadership and also the importance of social capital in the region.

In the fourth part of our series, Arun and I turn our attention to the state of people analytics in the region in 2020 and what lies ahead in the coming decade.

As with Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the series, our article provides a specific lens on the Asia-Pacific region and includes contributions from senior HR leaders who live and work in the region, namely:

• Ajit Iyer, Managing Director - HR, WorldWide Operations at Applied Materials

• Sandeep Mookharjea - Head of HR Asia Pacific at AIG

• Peter Wood, Vice President, Global HR at Schneider Electric

It should be explained that this interview was conducted prior to the escalation of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the responses provided by Arun and the other contributors are if anything more relevant given that one of the bittersweet aspects of the crisis is the further elevation of people analytics.

1.     Whilst the full implications of Covid-19 and its impact on business, HR and the field of people analytics are yet to materialise, what are some of the early impacts the pandemic has had on people analytics teams in Asia?

 COVID-19 is an unprecedented tragic crisis, which has changed the game. Period.

Once we acknowledge this, gather ourselves and look at it closely, it is a lot more than a humanitarian crisis. To me, from an Asian perspective at least, it’s an inflection point, a test of leadership, a revelation of the social capital fundamentals that Asia embraces and a massive ‘behaviour shaper’. All these drive change in traditional approaches.

Quite a few valuable and high impact areas which were awaiting their turn to be mainstream will get to skip the queue to aid each of these. I can already see leaders embracing people analytics as one of their immediate options to assess the situation, and aid them to navigate the crisis. This is only going to rise, as organisations are trying to grasp what the ‘next normal’ post COVID could be and how they should make this inflection a successful one for them.

2.     In the previous articles in this series we diagnosed how People Analytics differs in the Asian context. We also highlighted the perspectives and some case studies from leading practitioners in Asia. As the crisis exacerbates what was already going to be a hugely challenging 2020 and you look back, what do you feel? Where do you think People Analytics stands in Asia?

The short answer to how I feel is that, the People Analytics evangelist in me has all reasons to feel “Elated”!

As with other regions, the application of People Analytics in Asia is fragmented, not just within sectors, but within organisations too. In most cases, Asian arms of multi-national companies (MNCs) have been the first to embrace People Analytics given that their HQs have already done so. However there were very notable exceptions from regions and sectors, far and wide. 2019 was by-far the most significant year for the evolution of People Analytics in Asia for all reasons. The year saw some significant mind-set changes both among the creators as well as consumers of People Analytics technologies 

3.     That’s great to hear. What do you think drove this ‘shift’, if I may call it one?

First of all it’s not a shift. The belief in the value of People Analytics was not one of kind, but of degree. Asia has and still is conventionally a believer in the ‘wisdom from atop the hierarchy’. The command and control model’s acceptance, though diluted, still prevails. The bedrock of this system is the belief in the leader’s wisdom. If you were to unpack this, that wisdom is also a function of the belief in the leader’s experience. Wisdom in its basic essence is ‘processed experience’. Asia is also home to the largest ‘people data-set’ in the world. As a consequence, the shift from’ Why People data versus manager’s wisdom’ to ‘What People data to augment his or her wisdom’ was but a natural one. 2019 witnessed a significant inflection in adoption from this perspective.

“Asia presents in many ways the best opportunity for People Analytics to show what it can truly accomplish. We have a multitude of distinct cultures and accompanying successful management styles and philosophies, ranging from small businesses in vast countries to giant conglomerates in multiple countries. When you layer this with a population that has one of the highest rates of smartphone usage, you have the case of the rapid democratisation and consumption of people analytics products/insights at all levels in the organisation.  This is a challenge at the same time as one has to veer away from “anecdata” and focus on what the science of human behaviour is telling us. Data and fact based people analytics will lead the way here” – Ajit Iyer, Managing Director - HR, WorldWide Operations at Applied Materials, based in Singapore 

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4.     Interesting! What did this change mean to the way People Analytics is being adopted?

From an over-arching perspective what this means is that People Analytics has squarely started to fall into many business leader’s agenda. For high impact projects and initiatives like sales transformation, cultural transformation, leadership development, enterprise performance etc companies have begun to leverage People Analytics as a key pillar. Another key change is the shift from ‘data-models’ to ‘decision models’ –the move away from focussing on collecting data for the sake of collecting, to business leaders starting with specific business problems, which subsequently can be translated to a ‘decision model’. The data models followed.

“The intersection of analytics and human quotient will prove to be the tipping point for effective HR partnering , while AI keeps improving the state of analytics overall, one also needs to upskill current HR practitioners around understanding and interpreting the outcomes to make informed and intelligent business decisions along with their stakeholders” - Sandeep Mookharjea  who leads HR for AIG General Insurance for APAC 

5.     Where do you think the focus of People Analytics by Asian businesses will be and should be in 2020 and beyond?

The ultimate value of any technology is about how it positively changes the behaviour and in-turn enhances the ‘tangible’ results of an organisation. Given that perspective, People Analytics that is focussed on driving enterprise performance by helping employees and leaders understand successful behaviour traits that have a direct bottom-line impact are the ones which will get the buy-in for adoption. For example, projects focussed on helping and changing a seller’s behaviour which will help her perform better will get priority over projects that can change attrition numbers by small basis points (generally, but exceptions do exist).

“For leading organisations it’s time to move beyond discovering patterns in data and towards building sound explanatory models. Realising the potential of evidence-based decision making will require behavioural scientists working alongside data scientists to build a proper understanding of emerging relationships across datasets” - Peter Wood, Vice President, Global Human Resources at Schneider Electric, based in Singapore

6.     When do you think People Analytics will achieve its peak value in Asia?

Asia believes in wisdom and has also started to believe in data analytics. Asia operates on Social Capital and the region aspires to perform at its best to make this an ‘Asian century’. If we put this all together, the value of People Analytics will be at its peak when the individual wisdom and her drive to perform better is ‘augmented’ by analytics. Augmentation is a function of providing insights which are time-relevant, contextual and hyper personalised. This can in turn provide insights and drive behavioural change for employees at all levels, not just the management. In short, the ultimate value and adoption of People Analytics lies in Augmented Analytics centred on ‘Data of the People, for the People’. That journey has started and is the most exciting one to watch! 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Whilst the full implication of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on business, the future of work and HR are yet to be realised, it is fairly safe to predict that the growth of people analytics will continue to rise exponentially, and may even be accelerated by the crisis. This is perhaps truer for the Asia-Pacific region than any other. The unique characteristics of the region, the capacity for growth and the enthusiasm for combining wisdom and data collectively make it the region to watch for new innovation in the field of data driven HR.

THANK YOU

Thanks once again to Arun for his reflections, as well as Ajit, Sandeep and Peter for sharing their knowledge and observations in this article.

READ THE OTHER ARTICLES IN THE SERIES

Part 1: People Analytics in Asia Pacific: Why is it different?

Part 2: Leadership and People Analytics - How is it different in the East?

Part 3: The role of People Analytics is enterprise collaboration

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Arun Sundar is an opinion leader in the Asia Pacific technology space. He has built, led and advised many technology businesses both in the region and world-wide. In his personal capacity, Arun is an eminent champion of and commentator on the trending subjects of Analytics, AI and Human Centric Leadership. Arun was part of the management team that built TrustSphere as one of the first People Analytics technologies from Asia to a global business – which is an a HBR case study. He is also the Founding Chairman of the Asia Analytics Alliance and the non-profit movement ‘The Social Capital Institute’. He is currently the Chief Marketing Officer for KPISOFT, a leading player in leveraging Augmented Analytics for Enterprise and People Performance. Connect with Arun on LinkedIn.

David Green is a globally respected writer, speaker, host of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast at myHRfuture, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As an Executive Director at Insight222, he helps global organisations create more cultural and economic value through the wise and ethical use of people data and analytics. Prior to joining Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at TrustSphere, David was the Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM Watson Talent. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations embark upon and accelerate their people analytics journeys.