First of all, thank you so much for joining. It's a real pleasure to be here today and to talk um a little bit about um people analytics and this people analytics approach that drives business results.But at the same time, um we can make work meaningful for uh for employees. So, before diving into today's topic, I would love to share a little bit about myself. Uh My name is Raluca Apostol and I'm the chief product officer at Nestor. We at Nestor, we take a data driven approach to helping managers to on how to coach their people for performance. But at the same time on how to enhance the leadership's culture. Um what motivated me today to uh talk about this uh topic and to touch and touch on people analytics is that beside the fact that uh I've been involved in multiple implementations of Nestor and we really work uh very close to the client. Um We identified some um um some learnings that I would love to share today with you. Um And another thing that motivated me today to start and to, to start this um uh this conversation around people analytics and actually how this people analytics approach can also help um employees be meaningful in the workplace are two codes.

Uh The first code that really stood out to me is uh from Henry Ford that and it says that if everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself. Um One year and a half ago when actually the pandemic started, uh we've experienced a crazy situation and some of the companies or most of the companies were really forced to go remote. And what we've seen um were uh some situations where employees were motivated more than ever, they were working really um close together to each o each other to uh purpose that actually helped the company succeed during this pandemic. So once you are really close to the uh to your teammates and you share the same values, you shame the serv uh the shame or the same vision actually helps you a lot into going to, to the success. And at the same time helps you a lot be, be really meaningful. The second code that um stood out to me is regarding to data and this code says like this uh data will talk to you if you are willing to listen. So it's not enough to only collect people data or any other data out there. But it's really important to focus on that data that actually will help you and you um and will help uh the, the people in your company.

So having all this said, I'm um I'm uh really, um I, I strongly believe that managers and employees together commit to the company's purpose and to the company's uh uh culture. But at the same time, they really embrace the mission that the company has in the market and having the system in place. Uh in order to constantly, constantly align role, specific expectations for myself as an employee with actually the business strategic direction for you as an organization helps increase transparency um helps increase autonomy of the people. And at the same time, drives engagement in uh uh in your teams.

Um So collecting data from multiple hr processes, like maybe you collect from performance management, maybe you collect from uh some surveys that you are running. Maybe you collect them from any other processes or that actually means business, uh business, um uh business uh uh achieving like having some objectives that you wanna achieve, you narrow down to three main benefits. The first one is driving employee engagement. Uh The second one, if you are a people leader is that it helps you learn more about um more about your teammates. It helps you understand what high performing teams uh means means for you. But at the same time, if you are an hr professional or a business owner, it helps you understand what business performance means. And there are a lot of data, uh a lot of statistics out there like this one. From Kansian company that actually uh turns all these benefits into actually business numbers. Um And it, if you have a people analytics in place, um a people analytics system in place, it helps you increase recruiting efficiency with 80%. Um It can help you uh increase business pro productivity with 25% or actually, it can help you decrease attrition rates with 50%. So what I would love to also take you today is on how to think at people analytics.

I don't want to enter into too much details, but I want to emphasize four main areas that we need to consider when actually building a people analytics model for our company. So the first one is the strategy. So this strategy is really connected with the business case that we wanna emphasize for this kind of system. At the same time, maybe we want to identify some key job roles in our company. Maybe we want to optimize performance management or any other payments that we uh we have to support. And the second one is this people science that is really important to not forget about this because this is one of the common pitfalls of people analytics. And the last two, which is systems is the support that we need to take from the technology in order to visualize data in order to have reporting, in order to um manipulate data in there and the statistics that we need. And the models that we actually use in order to predict trends or to visualize any other insights and to actually take insights from these kind of systems. And one of those systems, um one of those models could be successfully on A I um uh A algorithms or machine learning models. Uh If you have like hundreds of thousands of data points that you can collect.

But at the same time, you can use like simple mathematical models or any other predictive models. Um in order to um put this kind of system in place. Um Now that we need on how to focus at the same time, let's see how we can structure this kind of um process um uh in our organization. Um We have some steps that we have to consider when we want to build this kind of process. Um And what is really important from all these steps is to identify that da data that is actually really connected to the business outcome. Um I it's very important to have an action plan uh in place. But at the same time, it is important to have everything measured. Um And of course, to embrace technical support in order to help with this uh uh data collection and um data visualization. But at the same time with the trends that we uh we need to um we need to identify there. So now because we, we know what people analytics means in terms of areas and how a process looks like I would love to share some of the learnings that we um uh we have um uh over the past years and, and the first one is to make work meaningful for your employees. And adding this human centered approach to business and combining people with people data with business decision is a really powerful combination that's um definitely goes to uh to business growth. So take a moment to learn more about your people.

Take a learn how they take a moment to learn more about their needs, about their desires, about how your people, um how your people act and why your people do things. Because studying and actually learning only from the past now is a little bit outdated and try to understand what are those motivational drivers that um actually um answers to the why question for your people. So this is the key for the future because identifying motiva motivational drivers of uh for your people will actually help you identify uh identify those habits that will uh be pursued in the future. So why is this happening is because um workplace expectations are shifting and technologies are changing. Um people and generations are changing. So the modern workplace always will bring new challenges for employees and leaders. And if we are looking um at us, us those individuals that are working in um uh in companies, um we don't want to work in a company only to only for money. So we, we don't go to work only to have that paycheck at the end of the month. But we want to, to feel develop to, to feel that we are working with purpose and we are part of a greater thing than us. We want to be developed.

We want to feel that connection uh with um uh with the people that we are working and we need that support maybe from our manager and maybe, or maybe from our coach that would really help us to also grow professionally and personally inside the organization that we are working for.

And of course, we want to also identify that work life balance that is so important. Um uh These days, the second learning that uh we have and I also uh would love to, to share with you is to take a line approach to people analytics. And this is a little bit um uh This is a little bit um uh maybe strange, but you don't have to think of people uh of a people analysis concept from all points of view, just identify a small situation or a particular situation where with a particular group of people. Uh And at the same time with a clear business outcome and try to start from there. And in this way, you can start small, you can start with just um a small model. And at the same time, you can involve your people to be part of the process. And involving your people being part of the process is that you allow leaders to test, but at the same time, you allow people to express their voice. And at the same time, you have the opportunity to, to change it uh quickly if um if this model doesn't work. And after that, once you gain that um uh that validation and the solution fit and it's really working, then you can build it for scale. So I would love to emphasize a little bit this process of line approach to people analytics. Um It is uh a process that actually borrows some information from the lean start.

But at the same time, borrows for some information from a GL project management because these people in people analytics actually is a systematic process to iterate from a set of practices of from a set of uh activities that are not actually connected towards a set of practices that will have the intended impact.

So you don't need to have all the resources um uh at your hand. And you don't need to waste too much time under um uh to, to, to gain some insight because it's really important to run a cycle, to build a very short model. Let's say I want to measure the cohesion of my team, then just identify those three key uh drivers that would actually connect to the to your team cohesion and build that model and try to experiment with your people and measure the impact of the process, but also learn from the data that you gathered so that um by repeating this process, uh will really help you identify uh if the model is working or um you don't have to wait one year or six months in order to identify that is not working.

And you can run it in quarters, let's say if I have a model and I want to test it, then uh I can, um I can run it uh in the first quarter. And after that, at the end of the quarter, I have enough time to identify if the insight is something that would help me if the insight that is, is something that would will, will be really connected to the business output that I'm looking for. But at the same time, will help me optimize the, the resources like reducing wasted resources, not involving all the people, but actually involving a group of people and try to iterate from that. So I like you to call them age l iterations because uh in the first um in the first iteration is like you are learning, but at the same time, you are practicing and you are optimizing and you have to be open to optimize um uh uh this model. Um So now I would love to uh show you one model that we've seen being implemented. And uh it has two main verticals. First one is this part of business results that are really measured and how this business results can be connected with people, motivational drivers, but at the same time with also with behaviors.

So it's really important to, to identify the process, maybe the performance management process that you have to identify the data from there and to visualize and identify the trends. Maybe you need to, to have um a tool in place like a system in order to visualize this data.

And after that, get the learning and act on it. And one thing that um uh that happens like in this business part, we need to fo to focus uh on how to produce this business uh business outcome. And after that, to think from people, data point of view. So from business point of view, um we need to identify where we go and we may set some objectives on there. And after that, to identify how we make those objectives happen, like identifying those KPIS that really take us to uh to the objective itself. And when it comes to people data, then it's really important to listen to your people. It's really important to learn more about your people beside the fact that they are, they may have some objectives and they are working towards them. It's really important to learn more about your people from um how we promote this from uh four points of view. Identify why this person, why I'm coming to work. What is my own uh belief? In here, what are my core values? And after that, identify those capabilities, what are the skills that I have the experience that I have? What is the direction that I wanna go? And at the same time, learn more about the interactions um of this individual with other people in order to understand their willingness um uh to uh to share their willingness to um uh to, to strive.

And at the same time, learn more about the work environment and the combination of all of this go into high performance. And this is one point, this is the point where the balance of all of those is the point where uh the individual achieves high performance. And because we talked about uh business and we talked about people, then we need to connect them in this model. So we have business with metrics and KPIS. At the same time, we have people with emotions and desires and how we connect them. It actually we connect them in um helping them to develop themselves, like maybe having some development objectives or development goals that they are working towards them. But at the same time, connect those development objectives with also operational activities that are connected with business metrics and KPIS.

And in this way through this process, you can measure team dynamics in terms of business performance and actually behavioral drivers and one important role that uh that uh it is uh in this whole model are the leaders and those leaders that actually will help people to um uh to achieve these objectives, to identify those objectives and to um step by step to, to achieve them during um uh during the uh sessions that they may have as uh as managers.

So empowering managers to be coaches for their people is really important because they will be the ones that will learn more about the individual and they will connect with the individual. But at the same time, um they will maintain this balance in delivering the results the organization needs.

So promoting a growth mindset. And at the same time focusing on asking the right questions in order to develop, focus on the uh uh to in order to um focus on the individual to unlock potential, um will uh will be uh a really added value to the old model uh to the to this whole model because managers will be the ones that will promote this.

And of course, uh they will connect with people in these feedbacks for the uh for this regular checks and running feedback loops. And let's say, um at the end of the uh at the end of this iteration, we can see a lot of information that could be helpful for you in order to connect um uh to connect business results with actually um uh people, data trends so that you can measure not only what is achieved but at the same time, how is achieved and this, how is, are the, and identifying this, how is really important because uh you will identify those motivational drivers, th be those behaviors that you wanna propagate in the company.

So now I would have some final thoughts that I would love to um leave you uh with them. Um So the, the main thing and the most important thing is to make work meaningful for your employees, like making fill them uh feeling them that they are valued at work and they contribute to a greater uh to a greater purpose. They are connected to the mission of the company and having this feeling in uh uh in the workplace actually increases motivation and drives the um employee performance at the same time. Um It's very important not only to, not only to um focus on measurable uh op operational part, measuring operational part, but also embed embed this behavioral drivers to individuals performance. And I don't know, identifies just three behaviors that you want to promote in the company that is, is really connected to the company cultures, maybe uh with the company values and actually connect the those behaviors with one operational process. And the last one is be open to embrace experiments and learn. So you don't have to take everything into consideration in building the whole concept, but identify a particular situation and um identify a small model, run it in short cycles and recalibrate for optimization.

Thank you so much for um uh for joining this session. Pleasure to uh to talk about this. Uh I have a, I have a few questions here from Maha. Um It is possible to get access to the slides post meeting. If you send me an email at Raluca at nera pun com. I'm I'm really happy to share the slides with you. Sure, if you uh if you can um uh email me at for look at NRA M com. I'm really happy to share the slides with you. Alice. How ethical do you think is the use of performance data such as monitoring how many minutes an employee spends online? Um From my point of view, from my point of view, I wouldn't encourage um to go into this much detail. Um But uh some of the organizations may, may feel that this is important. I wouldn't personally recommend this um uh this data point to start with. Thank you so much for uh for all the questions. Thank you so much for uh for joining uh this session today. And uh yes, I'm really happy to share the slides if you can um send me an email at um Raluca netra com. Thank you so much.