Next month features the Human Capital Institute 2013 Workforce Planning and Analytics Conference, which, for me, is one of the best events of the year for HR metrics practitioners.
With SuccessFactors serving as the premier underwriter, I am delighted to be participating fully across the 3 days (pre-conference workshops and the main event), alongside many of my colleagues (Steve Schnoll, Kouros Behzad, Duncan Scott, Frank Long, Dave Ryan, Keith Armstrong, Peter Howes, Marcus Joseph, and Jaye Tanner, to name but a few!).
I always love the opportunity to hear different points of view of how workforce planning and analytics are helping to improve talent management decisions (coincidentally, I just picked up a copy of “Positioned”, Dan Ward and Rob Tripp’s new book on workforce planning, and will read it while traveling for business next week).
Having been involved in the measurement arena for a number of years (with CLC Metrics, Infohrm and now SuccessFactors, an SAP Company), I’ve seen many organizations reap outstanding results from their investments in workforce planning and analytics, and also several that have faced insurmountable hurdles.
That’s why conferences like these are so useful to practitioners – in a single setting, you can build a wish-list of opportunities to better utilize your workforce data while also hearing about lessons learned, often in the form of “if we were to do this again, here’s what we would do differently”.
Across the board, the agenda is outstanding, with speakers from a wide range of industries, including Oil and Gas, Retail, FMCG, Healthcare, and Technology. However, rather than listing the presentations of most interest to me, I thought I would suggest some questions to be thinking about as you listen to the speakers:
• Robert Gibby (Procter & Gamble, “How Procter & Gamble Uses HR Analytics to Transform Business”) on how P&G’s HR analytics are built on integrated data and simpler visualizations:
1. Do you have a solid strategy for managing data integration (to support high-value workforce analytics) and maintaining data quality?
2. Through data visualization, how can you convey what might be a complex message in a simple graphic?
• Lisa Sullivan and Liz Almeida (Pearson, “Going Global With Workforce Analytics & Planning”) discussing how to move towards a global center of excellence for workforce planning and analytics, creating excitement and engagement along the way:
1. As you look to extend your workforce planning and analytics capability into other regions, how should you prioritize where to start?
2. What’s the best way of maintaining global standards while customizing your approach for individual regions?
• David Eberhardt and Jason George (Devon Energy, “Align Human Capital Measurement With Strategy”) sharing ideas on how to “execute” workforce analytics – changing the behavior of colleagues by delivering strategy-aligned metrics:
1. For how many key performance indicators can you realistically set targets, establish accountability for managing, and monitor performance?
2. What 2-3 talent investments will have the biggest payoff for your organization, and what combination of metrics will measure those investments?
Overall, the conference offers a great opportunity to identify the speakers whose stories parallel your next 12 months, borrow frameworks and scorecards, and compare vendors.
I hope to see you there.
