People Analytics – Industry Expert Insights: with Andrew Bamber

Frazer Jones have been placing HR analytics professionals for over 10 years and are market leading experts in sourcing the best people analytics talent in the UK and globally. Due to the continued progression and demand of the HR analytics field, we launched our specialist HR technology and analytics practice that purely focuses on securing organisations the best HR technology and people/HR analytics talent in the market.

We’ve been busy meeting market leading professionals in this space and wanted to share some of their insights.

This month, Nick Arnold had the pleasure of meeting Andrew Bamber, an inspirational people analytics leader. Andrew has over 10 years’ experience in a variety of specific roles, from reporting and business intelligence development, to setting up new people analytics functions and, most recently, transforming a large people analyics function at KPMG UK. He brings experience from HR analytics roles in a variety of sectors, leading teams, completing standalone roles and delivering on various projects.

Creative analytics functions – what are your biggest learnings and what advice you can give?

„Firstly, an organisation needs to look at their people analytics function as a potential long-term investment. You need to work closely with the people leadership team to consider their immediate and medium term people challenges, and how an analytics function can start to help to address these issues. Often this is just agreeing and defining the basic people measures and KPIs the organisation requires, and then operationalising that into simple, but well thought out dashboards. Sounds easy doesn’t it? In reality it can be surprisingly tricky. Getting that agreement, ensuring you have good quality data, and then having access to resources to turn this into reality…well, I’ve been there, a good few times!

Listen to, and advise your people leadership team…

Once you have the basics embedded, and these days the basics almost certainly includes accessible data and insights delivered through a business intelligence reporting tool of some description (if you use HR products such as SuccessFactors, Workday or Cornerstone, they have some pretty good inbuilt reporting tools and add-ons so make the most of these!). You then have the opportunity to move your people analytics team toward more interesting work…and I’m not necessarily jumping to AI/machine learning at this point! Providing deep insight into specific issues the organisation is seeing can start to be provided using people with good statistical and/or analysis skills, they can correlate data across multiple points, and then provide that insight in a digestible summary with some recommendations for action.”

What are your experiences of HR analytics approaches in different sectors and geographies?

“I’ve worked in both global, and ‘in country’ people analytics team/roles. Quite often in a global organisation the popular ‘hub and spoke’ model is employed. This can work to great effect, with a central team setting standards, providing overall direction etc. and the spokes providing the country specific support and subject matter expertise. This helps enormously with country specific data privacy requirements and regulatory reporting. The majority of UK based organisations I have worked with have tended to go with a central approach where everything is controlled and defined within the function; helps with standardisation of reporting, KPIs, measures etc. and should cut down on the nightmare ‘dark data and reporting market’!”

How have you found navigating matrix and hierarchical structures from analytics perspective?

“From a purely reporting standpoint, whether an organisation chooses a matrix or hierarchical structure, as long as the HRIS that holds the structure is correctly maintained then there should be few issues. Where we do start to have issues with reporting is where an organisation effectively implements both. HRIS may be configured to a hierarchical structure but, in reality, parts of the business may wish to organise themselves in a matrix style ‘off the books’ so to speak. This then leads to an inevitable clash with reporting, with parts of the business wanting their data and reports based on the hierarchical structure and then others wanting a matrix view. Unfortunately, as much as my mantra in life is to ‘give the customer what they need’ this is where I do have to be firm and say “no, we cannot support reporting against alternative or shadow structures”. These are the sort of conversations where you most certainly require diplomatic skills and the backing of your CHRO/CPO in setting levels of expectation.“

Attrition rates – what are the latest trends and best approaches you’ve found from a people analytics perspective?

“At the end of 2023, according to the ONS, average attrition [JW1] in the UK stood at 15%, but the minimum and maximum does vary significantly, with accommodation and food services at nearly 23%, whilst at the other end of the scale it’s as low as 10% in public administration and defence.

Attrition and retention, and how to predict and solve…it’s the holy grail! A lot of work is going on in this area, and probably not surprisingly AI and machine learning is playing a big part in this. Companies such as IBM, Hilton and Starbucks have implemented various machine learning solutions to try and crack this nut…Starbucks for instance had an attrition rate of around 150%. After implementing a machine learning solution in 2017 this dropped to 70%! But is AI and machine learning the only way to create tangible improvements in attrition rates? No, you can do it without, at the end of the day it’s about the application of data science and statistical methods to a defined data set, slower yes, but certainly possible.”

What is the best advice you could give to a people analytics professionals looking to grow their career?

“Be curious about people data, don’t be afraid to investigate and test a hypothesis…if you see some potential interesting trends and correlation in your data, explore it! The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t lead anywhere, whereas it could take you somewhere and have the potential to influence HR policy and help the organisation make significant savings.

What if you spotted a potential trend in relation to a learning undertaken and potential employee performance? And then through further analysis confirmed that potential correlation, you look further and there also seem to be correlations with speed of promotion and exit from the organisation. Could this correct? It could be that employees could be gaining new skills to make them more efficient in their role, they could be upskilling themselves specifically to gain skills for promotion to the next level, they could be gorging themselves on learning to add skills to their portfolio with a view to leaving…and then you look at the type of training employees are undertaking. Can you see a correlation between the new skills being gained and the employees job role? Disappointingly, no, potentially suggests there isn’t a correlation between learning and performance, so you move to the next hypothesis, and so on, it can become quite consuming, exhilarating and disappointing. You also need to know when to stop and acknowledge that your analysis is no longer adding value to the organisation.

The other aspect, which is often forgotten, is linking people data with other data – finance and sales for instance. Combining these sets really unleashes the power of analytics, being able to look at the entire value chain and reporting on its value, that’s truly powerful stuff.”

What do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the HR analytics market?

„Emerging technologies vs. investment in human resources with analytical skills…and that’s actually both the challenge and the opportunity. There are a considerable number of companies now offering people analytics specific products, offering integrations into HR systems. They all have their USP, and to a large degree the suitability of one or many of these products does inherently rely on whether your organisation has the specific needs or issues which these tools could help ‘solve’. I quote the word solve, because they don’t. They do provide insight and data which highlight and help with root cause analysis, but ultimately the organisation has to read and interpret this data and then develop and implement the necessary policies to correct. Once completed does this tool then have relevance anymore? Do we then buy something new which ‘solves’ the next issue we have? Or could you have spent more wisely by investing in people with top flight analytics skills, data scientists etc. who could solve multiple challenges over many years…something to consider I think…often it will be an return on investment calculation, human capital expenditure for people with these skills over, say, a five year period, will most likely work out more costly on finance’s spreadsheet than the initial technology investment and associated year-on-year costs. It’s finding that balance. Ultimately, tools that can take the grunt out of analysis of large data sets vs. the value skilled analysts can bring in driving insight from the data.”

A big thank you to Andrew for sharing his insights on this topic.

If you’re keen to share your own insights in the people analytics and HRIS space, then please contact Nick Arnold.

About Andrew

A highly accomplished Business Analysis expert with over 20 years of experience in developing and managing advanced technical infrastructures across diverse industries, with a particular focus on human resources. Demonstrated success in delivering high-impact solutions for major organisations, including BP, Global Media, and Mitie. Combining expertise in business analysis, technical strategy, and project management, consistently providing technical solutions that align with organisational goals in areas such as reporting, data management, and resource allocation. Possesses a proven track record of contributing to the achievement of complex objectives within both the private and public sectors.