The short answer is no. The long answer is that it depends on a few factors, such as: Are you currently doing HR Reporting or People Analytics? Are you regurgitating data or interpreting it for insights? Are most of your tasks repetitive, or do you work on a project basis? Are you a consumer of data or an influencer of data? Are you reactive or proactive in your approach?

Just like doing pull-ups at the gym, becoming an HR Tech professional doesn’t happen overnight. We all have to start with knee pushups. While I cannot teach you how to go from knee pushups to full pull-ups, I can summarize the thinking patterns of some HR Tech and People Analytics pros out there so you can use them to become a pro yourself.

You can either agree with something or disagree with it. I think it’s much easier to state your agreement if you agree. If you disagree with it, it’s also relatively easy to state your disagreement, and we can work through it together. To me, the sentence “I don’t disagree” is like burning calories to say the words but not really convey anything in the process—it’s inefficient.

As I told someone a few weeks ago, while I can write a whole playbook with tools and templates on how to start and scale a People Analytics function from nothing, it doesn’t guarantee success at another organization because no two organizations and no two stakeholders are the same. This is also precisely why I advocate hiring HR, HR Tech, and People Analytics resources with zero experience in the field.

HR shouldn’t only think about how it needs to function like a business unit; it also needs to think about its brand in the organization as a business. The simplest way to get there is with its People Analytics teams.

As we near the start of 2024, this is the time of the year when New Year’s resolutions are made, and goals for the next twelve months are often set. Inspired by an overheard conversation this weekend, I want to share why driving the People Analytics agenda in a modern-day organization is like going to the gym and exercising.

As a result of all the 1:1 conversations I have had, I had a chance to reflect on what advice I would give myself when I first started in People Analytics. This article is dedicated to the top 5 things I know now that I would like to be able to tell myself back then.

I decided to sit with the file and go through it line by line with them. I am sharing my train of thought during parts of last night’s conversation in hopes that it will help someone else think about how to design their system to better facilitate data collection and analytical insights in the future.

With HR being a creature of habit, we often do things just because we feel like we must and because everyone else around us is doing it. It’s like putting on a performance and acting in the HR Theatre; we don’t quite know what our actions mean, but we are working from the script that’s been handed to us, and we are making our organizations go through the dance with us.

So, we have some great news and some quirky news in People Analytics. The great news is that more and more organizations are adopting People Analytics and hiring dedicated resources. The quirky news is that if you ask ten organizations where People Analytics belongs on the org chart, you will probably get ten different answers.

Humans are wired to detect patterns. This exact pattern-detecting ability can also be applied professionally—especially in HR—because this profession relies not only on textbook knowledge but also on experience and contextual knowledge.

Please don’t make your users equate your great People Analytics solution to mean that they have to do extra work to use it.

I have worked in People Analytics across multiple organizations for over seven years. Here are ten things I learned the hard way.

When I started my career in People Analytics, never did I imagine that one day I would become an expert resource on the topic, let alone be able to advise those who are starting their journey in this field. Having had numerous conversations with folks who are starting out in this field and reflecting on my own journey to date, here are the seven lessons I have learned that I would share with my younger self in no particular order