Episode 165: How to Achieve Data-Driven HR Excellence in a Highly Regulated Environment (an interview with Wendy Cunningham and Peter Meyler)
Join David Green as he speaks to two distinguished guests from the UK's largest long-term savings and retirement business, Phoenix Group: Chief Operating Officer for HR, Wendy Cunningham, and Head of People Data, Analytics & Insights, Peter Meyler.
In this episode, learn more about:
How the Phoenix Group navigates the challenges of a highly regulated environment
How technology has played a pivotal role in consolidating data from multiple sources, revolutionising the HR function at the Phoenix Group
Insights into the Phoenix Group's unique approach to measuring the effectiveness of their people strategy and how they adapt it as the company continues to evolve
The evolution of the Phoenix Group's people analytics team and how it has grown alongside the organisation's commitment to data-driven decision-making
A glimpse into the future, as Wendy and Peter share their vision and discuss the steps they're considering to elevate their analytics capabilities to the next level.
Don't miss this engaging conversation that promises practical advice for HR and people analytics professionals at all stages of their journey.
Support from this podcast comes from Visier. You can learn more by visiting: Visier
If you would like to discover Visier’s groundbreaking research ‘Unlocking Manager Effectiveness: The Next Driver of Value clicking this link.
[00:00:00] David Green: Today, I'm delighted to welcome Wendy Cunningham and Peter Meyler of the Phoenix Group to the Digital HR Leaders podcast. Wendy, Peter, welcome to the show. Before we get started, could you each respectively provide a brief introduction to you and your roles at the Phoenix Group? Wendy, I'll come to you first.
[00:00:29] Wendy Cunningham: Sure. So I am the HR Chief Operating Officer for Phoenix Group. I joined in March 2021. Prior to that, I did 12 years in Experian and 12 years in Barclays before that. And I guess, the role, so my role from an HR perspective is very much about helping Phoenix deliver its people ambition, which is to be the best place.
[00:00:50] Wendy Cunningham: any of us have ever worked. And they are from a chief operating office perspective. That's very much about making sure that we enable that business strategy by delivering operational excellence, and a truly outstanding customer experience, which I would define as our candidates and our colleagues as being our customers.
[00:01:10] Wendy Cunningham: So yeah, that's a bit about my role.
[00:01:12] David Green: And Wendy, before I come to Peter. Obviously we've got quite a lot of overseas listeners on the podcast. Can you give them a sense of what the Phoenix group is about as well, and its size?
[00:01:22] Wendy Cunningham: Yeah, Phoenix is the largest pensions and investment business in the UK. We have about one in five of the adults in the UK have some product with us.
[00:01:35] David Green: So it's pretty big. It's a FTSE 100 organization as well, isn't it? Absolutely. Yes. And Peter, thanks Wendy. Peter, could you give us an introduction to you and your background and your role at the Phoenix Group as well?
[00:01:47] Peter Meyler: Yeah, absolutely. I am the Head of People Data Analytics and Insight. I've been with the, organization for just over two years. Prior to that, I've worked in the world of kind of people analytics, insight, strategy, consultancy for about 13 years, and I spent seven of those years, at the John Lewis partnership, and introducing the whole area of people analytics into that, very iconic retail business. And, my role here was initially to design our strategy and roadmap for people analytics and insights of where were we and where do we want to get to and what's the roadmap for getting. And essentially what I've really focused on is how do we create, an evidence and insight informed HR function, that really feels confident in its work, and in terms of working with stakeholders on a day to day basis.
[00:02:43] David Green: Thank you. That's a really good overview of your roles, and obviously you're working closely together to achieve the goals that you laid out at the start there, Wendy.
[00:02:52] David Green: Obviously, we've both been in and around the People Analytics field for a number of years, and both in your previous organizations and in the Phoenix Group, and certainly as we see ourselves at Insight 222, People Analytics has evolved quite significantly in recent years with more organizations leveraging its power to drive real business outcomes. What key shifts, Peter, have you observed in terms of how organisations approach and leverage employee data today?
[00:03:20] Peter Meyler: Yeah, I think it's interesting for me that you see that movement from, a focus many years ago on employee satisfaction, and then it moved into loyalty, and then it moved into experience, oh sorry, engagement, and now into, employee experience.
[00:03:35] Peter Meyler: And I think, what I've noticed is that the some of the more enlightened organizations are really starting to focus now on, really try to understand when they say people are our greatest asset, what is it they actually mean, and how do they look at them as a kind of a source of competitive advantage and the value they create and not just the cost that they bring to the business?
[00:04:00] Peter Meyler: And I think the key role for people. Okay. People Analytics and Insight is really around how do you maximize that advantage? How do you maximize their contribution and their engagement and their performance? And how do you deliver better business outcomes as a result of that? I think, what's been interesting for me is the big shift for me has actually been two things.
[00:04:20] Peter Meyler: One, COVID where I think that those organizations that were really good from a people engagement perspective just got much, much closer to their people trying to understand the challenges they faced in a a kind of new but temporary normal for them. It became the greatest experiment ever for, flexible and hybrid working, but how sad it took a pandemic, to make that happen.
[00:04:46] Peter Meyler: But they were having to really understand what, what was going on with their people. And I think there was a, there seemed to be a kind of a big shift there for me. The more enlightened organizations did it, but then I think the gap with those who weren't focusing on this type of thing became.
[00:05:01] Peter Meyler: became bigger from those, compared to those who were. I think the other thing is the cost of living increase. I think that's had, a big impact for organizations, but obviously particularly for people working within them. And this whole thing of how do you help and support people?
[00:05:22] Peter Meyler: Once again, good organizations did it really well. Those who weren't who aren't didn't tend didn't tend to do it. I think as we start to now, we know we've come out of COVID. We've come back into a more kind of normal state of work. But I think the employment landscape is more complex.
[00:05:41] Peter Meyler: There's a very tight labor market. And I think that what we are seeing is that organizations are really trying now to do more to, to understand how do we develop our employment proposition and employee experience of the future? And how do we evolve? And I think interestingly for me as well is that, normally you find HR use operating within quite limited budgets.
[00:06:11] Peter Meyler: A lot of the time, the challenge for HR is, how do you make the best use of those budgets? And how do you use them to make the biggest difference both for your people and for the business? And I, Yeah, when you think when you think about that, what you want people data analytics and insight to do is to really inform and prioritize and make sure that you're able to do that and get the right return on investment for that.
[00:06:40] Peter Meyler: And I think some organizations do that well. Once again, I think there are some that really struggle with it.
[00:06:45] David Green: That's really interesting, Peter, because I think you're right to highlight the pandemic and the impact it had on people analytics and companies using people data to support business decisions.
[00:06:57] David Green: I guess what we saw with a lot of companies that we work for Insight 222 is that suddenly it wasn't just the CHRO or senior HR leaders that were interested in how employees were feeling. It was the CEO and the board as well. And they were using that information to make, pretty important decisions that impacted on wellbeing during the during the pandemic.
[00:07:15] David Green: And I guess it's almost like you open, the genie came out of the lamp, really. And I think, business executives, across the ball start to see the value of people data and how it can help 'em make better decisions that, drive business outcomes, but also make the company a better place to work.
[00:07:29] David Green: We, Wendy from your experience, How has this transformation, if you want to call it that, from maybe a traditional HR practices to a more data driven decision making impacted the overall employee experience and company culture at the Phoenix Group?
[00:07:44] Wendy Cunningham: Yeah, so I would say, David, that we are very much still on a journey in this space.
[00:07:49] Wendy Cunningham: Like most organizations, actually. We've made a load of progress over recent years. But I don't think we're so bold as to say it's done and dusted, and we've solved it just quite yet. I think the other thing that's interesting, actually or important here is we're a very acquisitive organisation.
[00:08:03] Wendy Cunningham: So actually, since I've joined, we've very much been on a mission to integrate Phoenix structurally, to create one Phoenix. But actually, we also now need to do the same with our culture, our policies, processes, practices, especially in HR, actually. So I guess we're dealing with an organization that's going through huge transformation whilst clearly we're trying to transform analytics at the same time.
[00:08:25] Wendy Cunningham: I think I said earlier that clearly employee experience is a huge deal for us. In terms of what we're going after from an HR perspective, and we clearly, therefore, want to really maximize that employee experience for all of our colleagues. And I think the efficiency and effectiveness of our operating models, the use of technology and achieving our our vision is a huge part of that in terms of the analytics journey.
[00:08:48] Wendy Cunningham: We've got a big HR change program underway just now, it's an operational change program underway just now called Project Thunderbird, which is not just looking at the technology that sits behind everything we do within my world, but also actually how we then elicit the right data from those systems to be able to tell the story that we want to tell in the future.
[00:09:07] Wendy Cunningham: And I think we can see we need evidence, we need insights, we need that data to be able to tell even more. of the story to the business in order to tell, to really help transform further. But actually, I would say to date, we've done a lot already with the data. Being as acquisitive as we are we've used insights from Peter's team to really inform the transformational and manage the transformational change programs that have been underway.
[00:09:32] Wendy Cunningham: We've used it to design and inform the people's strategy, set priorities. Drive the activities that are aligned to those we've used it. As we look at the the level of diversity in our workforce in setting our D and I strategy and I guess setting targets to improve that John, I could keep going right through to, the, the great resignation debate and the data we use to try and understand the extent to which that was going to negatively impact Phoenix or not, but actually day to day.
[00:09:59] Wendy Cunningham: The, We have, analytics consultants working with our businesses, helping them make decisions as they go around actually what the right move is for that business at that point in time, based on the profile of the workforce. So yeah, we're using it extensively today, but actually I think we can see there's even more to do as we move forwards.
[00:10:17] David Green: Now, really interesting, it's obviously underpinning a lot of the work you're doing from a transformation and a people's strategy element, I think, which is, which is great because, years gone by, and in many organizations, People Analytics was sitting somewhere buried deep within a COE and was just providing reporting and, but it sounds like it's actually having an impact on decisions that are being made about people within the organization, which is.
[00:10:38] David Green: Which is good, which kind of leads to the next point. Obviously, we mentioned at the start that, Phoenix Group is, listed companies on the FTSE 100. It's also, obviously, being in financial services, highly regulated as well. And maybe, this is just my hypothesis, maybe more risk adverse organization than maybe others.
[00:10:56] David Green: I, I wonder, does this environment affect your data driven people decision making? Does it make harder, essentially, to get things over the line?
[00:11:04] Wendy Cunningham: I don't know if it makes it harder. I think it makes us very aware of the rules and regulations within which we've got to adhere. It's something we have very healthy discussions with our data protection colleagues on a, I would say almost daily, certainly very regular basis.
[00:11:20] Wendy Cunningham: I think we recognize that there are roles. is to ensure we fully comply with GDPR and data privacy policies and the legislation. So therefore we totally respect the position. that they take. But I guess our challenge is we want to maximise the data, analytical, reporting technology that we have, use the functionality that we've got in through Vizier and other tools that we've purchased, and therefore actually use that to really understand our workforce, and work out what we need to do differently to be the best place MDs ever worked.
[00:11:50] Wendy Cunningham: And I guess we, we never want to compromise the confidentiality or anonymity. of our colleagues, but at the same time we want to strike a balance where we can make commercial decisions as we go. So I think there's a real recognition between our team and the DPO world that we do need to find that balance.
[00:12:08] Wendy Cunningham: I'd say it's forever shifting sands. We're desperately feeling our way through as we go. I'm not sure. We're more regulated than I've seen in previous organisations, or we're clearly more regulated, but I'm not sure we're more risk averse than I've seen anywhere. But actually it's work in progress, I would say.
[00:12:23] Wendy Cunningham: We certainly haven't quite found that balance yet in terms of making it easy, but I don't think the legislation was put in place to make it easy. I think it's there for the right reasons. So yeah, we've got to be respectful of that.
[00:12:34] David Green: And in some ways, the legislation forces you to think about what data you're collecting, what you're going to use it for.
[00:12:41] David Green: What the benefit is to the organization, but also what the benefit is to the employee as well Which isn't necessarily a bad thing when it comes to, people data because ultimately it's it's some of the most sensitive data We collect as an organization.
[00:12:53] Wendy Cunningham: Exactly It's there for the right reasons. It's working with them working with those rules and requirements rather than against them I think is the is the attack that we're taking.
[00:13:03] David Green: So Peter Turning to you, what about technology? How has the adoption of technology helped both your people analytics and HR function in creating data driven strategies and maybe scaling that across the organization?
[00:13:16] Peter Meyler: Yeah, so technology is vitally important and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I would never say otherwise. But it is part of what you need to do, which I think we'll come on to, but it's really enabled us to turbocharge what we're. What we're trying to do. And I look at technology almost as if almost as a kind of an eco system that we have.
[00:13:37] Peter Meyler: There are a number of things at play that if you manage to develop and bring them together in the right way, potentially, it's very powerful. So we used to have, lots of systems, disparate data sets. You've got, you could look at them in isolation, but it was very difficult to get a really clear picture of what was going on and why.
[00:13:58] Peter Meyler: And just to bring that to life a little bit, we've obviously got our Oracle Cloud HR. system which provides us with all our kind of core people, operational people data. And one of the things we're doing as part of Project Thunderbird is looking at how do we maximize the functionality and benefits of that to support our day to support our day to day operational reporting.
[00:14:24] Peter Meyler: We've also got PECON, which is our monthly employee engagement service, which just tells us so much about the experience of our colleagues, both in a quantitative and qualitative perspective, which is great. to have. So they're not just telling us what they think. They're also giving us their comments type feedback as well.
[00:14:46] Peter Meyler: And that's something that managers can directly interact with through through the reporting system. So not just that they're looking at the data and what's being said, they're actually able to respond to it and feedback and use it. We've got OrgView, which is all around our organizational change programs and mapping and modeling future operational structures and developing our whole focus around organizational effectiveness.
[00:15:12] Peter Meyler: And then the final piece in our jigsaw which is the thing that I think is the major game changer for us is Visio. Because what Visio is enabling us to do is to bring, ingest those data, that data from those different data sources together and allowing us to integrate it and also enabling us to answer some of those really big questions that senior leaders normally have about people that previously we would have struggled to have been able Thank you.
[00:15:44] Peter Meyler: To answer. We're still in the early days of it, but already we're starting to see some significant benefits from that and that will grow as we continue to Take on and use more modules and put more data into the system. And bringing all of that together, as I said, is a major game changer for us.
[00:16:01] Peter Meyler: But also what we're trying to do at the same time as that is, it's also a major game changer in terms of allowing us to create what I describe as a kind of an analytics and insight informed HR function. So we want other people within the function to be using it. using it with their stakeholders. We would always maintain that kind of consultative expertise in the area.
[00:16:25] Peter Meyler: But we want that, some of that to be shared more, more widely across our HR community so that everybody starts to get comfortable with evidence based decision making going forward.
[00:16:37] David Green: Great. And thanks for laying out the technology stack. I think it's really helpful for listeners to understand.
[00:16:42] David Green: What an organization such as yours has got to bring their people data to life. And I'm guessing there's a couple of follow up questions. One, Wendy mentioned, obviously, you're a very acquisitive organization. And I've seen that over the years as the Phoenix Group has grown and bought other companies and into the fold.
[00:16:59] David Green: I'm guessing that something like Visio can really help you during that initial integration. You won't necessarily acquire a company that's on the same technology as you. So how can you provide an early impression to, to, to leaders around? Maybe some data related to that company that you are acquiring as well.
[00:17:15] Peter Meyler: Yeah, a absolutely. And I think the thing with it as well is that we're, we are quite clear that we are using visier for the analytics and the deeper analytics and insight piece. But there is a reporting element within there which we can use. but we're quick clear to distinguish between what's analytics and insight type reporting versus what's day to day operational reporting and the day to day operational reporting we continue to do in Oracle.
[00:17:42] David Green: So you might, again, this is a hypothetical now, again you may acquire another organization in the future. Maybe. They may not be on Oracle. So obviously the first part is to get them onto Oracle. Then you've got the reporting, but in an interim period, at least, you can utilize the reporting functionality in Vizio, so at least leaders have got an understanding of what's happening.
[00:18:00] David Green: So bringing those two strands together, the, enabling your HR professionals and providing them technology and tools that they can use in their day to day work, What else are you doing to build that data driven HR function at Phoenix, Peter?
[00:18:13] Peter Meyler: We're building communities. We're at the moment using Microsoft Teams to build communities, both in the use of Visio, but also in the use of a wider people analytics and insight group. So what we're trying to do is to encourage people to contribute things, start discussions. about, about things, challenges they're facing and really try to bring that whole kind of HR community together to enable them to have the right conversations and share examples with each other and help to build.
[00:18:45] Peter Meyler: And I think there's, I think what I would probably say is they're three groups that I would look at across HR. There will be people who have a massive appetite. And again, great. This is great. How could we do more? We probably got people on the other end of the scale who were saying this kind of gets in the way of what I'm trying to do.
[00:19:04] Peter Meyler: And I'm hoping this is a, there's a very small minority who will be able to convince the benefits of in the future. But I also think there's a group in the middle who are keen, lack confidence. In a way and maybe a bit of capability. So I think our role as a team is how do we build that confidence and capability amongst that group as well.
[00:19:27] Peter Meyler: I think we'll have to accept there'd always be people of different, at different levels on this, but that's absolutely fine. It's how do we bring it together in a way that allows people to share and build their confidence and skill going forward. And that's what we're essentially trying to do.
[00:19:45] David Green: Very good. Very good. And Wendy, obviously measuring the impact of the people's strategy that you outlined can be complex, can you share your approach to evaluating the effectiveness of your people strategy and how you're adapting it as a Phoenix group evolves?
[00:19:59] Wendy Cunningham: Yeah, so I think the honest answer to that is also evolving as we go. We've definitely found it complex partly because we are Integrating three businesses in essence together at the moment. So I guess as you bring three legacy organisations together, strategically, structurally, operationally and culturally in a short period of time, you've got to make some decisions and work out what's important to measure, what that needs to look like as we, we move forward.
[00:20:25] Wendy Cunningham: But also creating a people strategy that, that then binds all that together has clearly been part of our initial focus. I think as is often the case, and I've seen in every organisation, different stakeholders of different requirements. So whilst one would like the macro level view of, what we're achieving, others want an inordinate level of detail.
[00:20:44] Wendy Cunningham: So actually, we've been working quite closely with the teams around actually, what is the people strategy that we measure moving forwards, and at what level do what customers or what stakeholders want. Data to, to prove it, if you like we refreshed our people's strategy earlier this year, and I won't talk to you about all of the detail in it, but actually we pretty much now hang the people's strategy off three key buckets of activity.
[00:21:08] Wendy Cunningham: So one is around organizational effectiveness. One is around culture, evolution, and the other is around talent and capabilities. And having refreshed that people strategy, we're now doing quite a lot of work around how do we measure this and how do we measure outcomes? Because it's really easy to get lots and lots of data points, but what story do they tell?
[00:21:30] Wendy Cunningham: So actually, if we know what we're looking to achieve, how do we make sure that we can measure? that we've achieved it rather than just measure things that look interesting within those buckets of activity. So there's a lot of work going on there and we're using Project Thunderbird, which is this operational transformation that I talked about to really help us work out how much more we can automate.
[00:21:48] Wendy Cunningham: So actually some of that I guess the dashboarding to measure the people's strategy is automated rather than has any manual effort in it. And the plan is as we go into 2024, we go in to that year with a very clear strategy. Very clean, clear means of measuring our outcomes and a very clear way of presenting that to different stakeholders dependent on their needs.
[00:22:09] David Green: No, I really like that because as you said, we can measure a lot, but let's measure the stuff that actually matters. And then start sometimes starting with the outcomes that you're trying to understand and how that impacts on the business and how that impacts on the people within the organization is probably a, it's probably a good place to start there.
[00:22:26] Wendy Cunningham: Do you know, David, I think it is. And I think there's always that caution that very often business leaders want to see everything. But very often all that data doesn't tell them a story. So it's trying to help them work out what they're, what they want to achieve and how the data can gauge whether they're achieving it.
[00:22:40] Wendy Cunningham: Because you can have lots of data points that tell you nothing or could be interesting but not impactful. So we're desperately trying to move that dial to make them really impactful and measuring the right things, as you say.
[00:22:50] Wendy Cunningham: I know, really good. And Peter, obviously, the people strategy, so it's evolving continually and see when do you talk to the three buckets and pretty focusing on outcomes.
[00:23:00] Wendy Cunningham: So as that happens, as the, and also the, obviously the people analytics strategy is maturing as well. How has your people analytics team evolved?
[00:23:08] Peter Meyler: Yeah, that's a a great question and it's something that we we continually keep looking at. And what we have got at the moment is we had split our team into my team into two parts.
[00:23:20] Peter Meyler: So one side is around people, data and reporting. So if I go back to what I was saying earlier they're operationally from a HR
[00:23:33] Peter Meyler: perspective. Perspective on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. So that's very much about the kind of the day to day reporting element. The other side of my team is people analytics and insight. And what those guys do they're effectively a insight consulting. Group who partner the different value centers and functions within our business.
[00:23:56] Peter Meyler: So they spend a lot of time with HRD, senior HR business partners, other subject matter experts, really understanding what are the big people related business challenges and priorities in those part. And then how do they support that by helping those areas to understand what the big challenges are, what their priorities should be.
[00:24:20] Peter Meyler: So helping them to separate some of the vital few from the useful many, as I would describe it. Because sometimes in HR we can spend a lot of time doing rather than taking a step back sometimes and really thinking about what, what creates the most. what creates the most value. But as well as prioritizing that, they're then also prioritizing what they need to focus on.
[00:24:42] Peter Meyler: They're also really then helping them to measure the impact effectiveness and progress of what they're doing. But this once again comes back to Wendy's point, this is all in support of the people strategy. And our vision of wanting to make Phoenix Group the best place any of us has ever worked.
[00:25:01] Peter Meyler: I think that what I've seen is that kind of analytics and insight consulting. piece is incredibly important. And the guys in there are very commercially focused. They're really good storytellers as well. So they're helping to condense that 15 page deck of slides into this is what you need to do.
[00:25:21] Peter Meyler: And this is why and that's really important on the data and reporting side. There's more that we want. There's definitely more that we want. to do there. We're not really maximizing Oracle reporting to quite the degree of functionality and an interactivity in the way that we would want to.
[00:25:40] Peter Meyler: But we do have a plan for dealing for dealing with that. And what we're also trying to do is to reduce a significant kind of ad hoc data and reporting demands placed on that team as well. So be clearer about service standards, reporting what do line managers need for on a day to day basis?
[00:26:00] Peter Meyler: What do business leaders need and what do what do functional specialists need? And giving it to them in very much in a very visual, interactive, intuitive way that makes them want to self serve. And this is where we've got to get to is self serve is not an option. It's something that we're going to need people to do, but we've got to give them the right tools to enable them to do that.
[00:26:25] David Green: No, really interesting, Peter. And I love the way you focused on the insights consultants there. Again, some of the research that we've done, when we looked at leading companies is. The three key roles that we've seen leading companies focusing on in their people analytics teams are those insight consultants, as well as data scientists and behavioral scientists, and I think you really brought to life there why those insight consultants are so important in terms of prioritization, in terms of delivering recommendations and measuring the outcome.
[00:26:53] David Green: And interestingly, Peter, How do you envision the future of people analytics at the Phoenix Group? And, what steps are you considering to take, your analytics capabilities even higher to the next level?
[00:27:06] Peter Meyler: So I think for me, the value is in the value is in data creates.
[00:27:13] Peter Meyler: creates the opportunity for us to really take that analysis and insight to the next level. And this is where I think the value is and this is what I think the business is looking for is. How do we evolve and develop that going forward? So how do we build the skills of the people? How do we build the the appetite within the organization, getting even closer to the business and its priorities?
[00:27:40] Peter Meyler: And I would like teams to be spending much more time in that space and developing that automate as much as possible the whole kind of the...
[00:27:52] Peter Meyler: That's where the value is being is being generated. And I think the other, there are other elements in this where we're starting next year we'll be starting to move much more into areas like, workforce modeling, workforce planning really bringing the strategy to life capability development.
[00:28:12] Peter Meyler: And this is where I see my team playing a much more influential role as these things evolve as. As, as well. I think it's building on what's, it's building on what's already there. So it's very much a kind of an evolution rather than a revolution.
[00:28:27] David Green: Yeah, you certainly, that sounds like you've got a very good foundation on which to build upon.
[00:28:31] David Green: We have a lot of people that listen to this program, H, fellow HR professionals, people, analytics professionals. So before we head to the last question, which is a question of the series, it'd be great to hear from each of you, one piece of advice to those HR and people analytics leaders that are listening.
[00:28:46] David Green: What would it be? So Wendy, if I come to you, what about, what piece of advice would you give to those are maybe at the early stages of their people analytics journey?
[00:28:54] Wendy Cunningham: Yeah, so I would say don't be scared off by the title. I first picked up accountability for analytics, people analytics when I was inexperienced.
[00:29:02] Wendy Cunningham: So that would be probably 10 years ago now, and I was anything but. a statistician. I was probably what would be considered a very traditional HR person through and through. And actually whilst I couldn't even pretend to do what Peter and the team do now with the analysis. I think it would be fair to say that I've learned to love the power of data and the insights that it can bring to an organisation.
[00:29:24] Wendy Cunningham: So my advice would be brave. and get stuck in because actually it's brilliant. I guess the data is brilliant and what you can do with the data is brilliant, but you've got to be brave enough to give it a shot.
[00:29:35] David Green: No, I don't really like that. And Peter, what about a piece of advice from you for maybe those HR and people analytics professionals listening, who are maybe at a slightly more mature level of their.
[00:29:48] Peter Meyler: I think two things I'd actually say specifically so notwithstanding the fact that you really, you do need really good. data and you need to be measuring the right things. The two things I'd say is that be mindful of the fact that the more your analysis and insight creates value for the function and the business, probably the greater the expectation on your team.
[00:30:11] Peter Meyler: Because then that's when people will be coming to you rather than you're necessarily having to push stuff to them which in many ways is a great place to be. But I'd also say as part of that is make time for thinking about innovation, future developments, particularly if your organization is very future focused.
[00:30:31] Peter Meyler: But at the same time, don't lose sight of the here and now because that's also. important. And I think the second thing is don't be afraid to provocate. Provocate where you can and make sure that you can maintain your independence and objectivity based on the data analysis or insight you have.
[00:30:51] Peter Meyler: You're not there necessarily to prove that somebody's hypothesis based on no data is right. You're there to, you're there to, you're there to tell it how it is. Because otherwise it's not evidence and an insight. And I think that's really important from a credibility perspective, it's important to maintain your credibility and all of this.
[00:31:10] David Green: And I totally agree with that. Bust a few myths bust a few myths.
[00:31:13] Peter Meyler: I love myth busting.
[00:31:15] David Green: Get the discussion going by showing that the data doesn't necessarily prove that someone's opinion is correct. I love that. Last question, Peter. This one I think you're taking. So this is a question of the series which all guests in, in the episode of, in the other episodes of covered.
[00:31:29] David Green: And I think it's something you've already covered. So you might want to summarize some of the stuff that you've already said here. How can HR leaders build a data driven and digitally literate culture in HR?
[00:31:38] Peter Meyler: I think I'm gonna be I'm slightly biased here because I've read this excellent book that was produced called Nine Dimensions for Excellence in People Analytics.
[00:31:47] David Green: Check, checks in a, checks in a post, Peter. Thank you.
[00:31:52] Peter Meyler: Do you know what? I'm a massive advocate of it. And I think if you follow that model, obviously we have, but we have developed it and customized it for our particular organization, but I don't think you'll go far wrong. I think commercial and business priority is massively important if it doesn't resonate with senior leaders.
[00:32:15] Peter Meyler: It's not going to be effective. It also needs to be culturally relevant to the organization. I think complete continuing to demonstrate value and return on investment. That's important. And that's where we have been focusing our, some of our attention. And that was what helped us build the business case for getting the business to sign up for Visio we presented a very.
[00:32:40] Peter Meyler: business case. I think one final thing that I'd say is one thing I am mindful of is that what I do and having worked in a retailer is I do see that a lot of the trends in customer analytics and insight tend to be followed at some point later on by the whole area of people analytics. and insight. The point is the organization spend millions and millions of pounds understanding their customers, their lives, what they do, where they live what they enjoy buying, their hobbies, all of that kind of, all of that kind of thing.
[00:33:16] Peter Meyler: But we know many organizations know much more about their customers than they do. about their employees, and I think there is a focus going forward where I think organizations need to spend more time understanding employees as people, as parents, as as so it's like sort of people, parents having lives outside of having lives outside of work really understanding what drives and motivates them why they choose to come to work, why they choose you as an employer, really getting under the skin of some of that, of some of that stuff, because that enables you to help develop a much higher quality employment and a relevant employment proposition but also drives a much higher level of employee experience.
[00:34:01] David Green: That's great, Peter, and that's very kind of you to mention the book. And as I say exactly the same, anyone that's using the book in any way to support roadmap, yeah, definitely take bits of it and apply it within your own organization.
[00:34:15] David Green: I think that's a really good point. Wendy, Peter, thank you so much for being guests on the podcast. How can, before we go back to the studio, how can listeners find you on social media and follow your work at the Phoenix Group? Wendy, I'll come to you first.
[00:34:28] Wendy Cunningham: So through LinkedIn is the best option for me.
[00:34:31] David Green: And Peter?
[00:34:32] Peter Meyler: Yeah definitely LinkedIn. I'm a massive fan of it. I've it's helped. Me in a lot of circumstances, asking questions of my network and sharing feedback. So very definitely anybody who wants to engage with me, please do and then also there's also for the Phoenix group overall there's our our website and particularly our careers site as well, which will tell you a hell of a lot more about us as an organization and what it's like to work here.
[00:34:58] David Green: Brilliant. And that's the phoenixgroup. com forward slash careers for those that are interested. Wendy, Peter, thank you very much for being guests on the show. Thank you.
[00:35:07] Peter Meyler: Thanks very much.