We competed in the Wharton People Analytics Startup Competition in Philadelphia last week and are pleased to announce we placed second overall! Congratulations to PayAnalytics for winning and to all the other 30 startups who participated. There were also some incredible speakers this year and we found the various sessions to be extremely insightful. Here are my top takeaways from the event.
Markus Buckingham: We are not data fluent in HR today. A discipline has respect based on the quality of its data. In order to really help people learn and grow we need to break our people data down into a few reliably measurable things. Organizations are missing out on a ton of reliable and countable people data today. Countable things are good.
Intelligent Nudges are the future of the workplace. Nudges inspire action and help to activate everyone. However, nudges need to be both personalized and done in a positive way.
For example, nudging managers to schedule recurring 1-on-1s with their reports can increase retention of key employees and reduce the chance of morale issues by as much as 2 to 6 times.
Cathy Engelbert: Perception is reality. Our employees at Deloitte know that we strongly prioritize work-life balance. If your team does not know that you want them to put work on hold to go coach their daughters basketball team then they won’t feel comfortable asking to do so.
Richard Thaler: “If you want to get people to do something, you need to make it easy.” You can help people change their behavior if you nudge them in the right way. You need to test and iterate on what the right nudges are for your team or organization.
Richard Thaler: “Whenever someone says that’s not the way we do things around here, don’t stop. I think people are way too risk averse with their careers. People way over estimate how bad bad outcomes will be. What’s the lesson from that? Take risks!”
Adam Grant: Leaders and organizations should promote critical attention not critical feedback to help employees learn and grow the most. Help employees learn and step into their own intelligence by removing the issues affecting their employee experience by breaking their experience down into a few reliably measurable things.
Adam Grant: “Sustained excellence comes from somebody who’s motivated.” A great manager understands whether someone is either promotion focused (loves to win) or prevention focused (hates to lose) and aims to motivate them accordingly. For example, when your employee hits their goal are they happy or relieved to have won?
Image: Adam Grant & Marcus Buckingham fireside chat
Image: Uber presenting their fascinating work on inclusion
Image: PayAnalytics, winners of the startup competition
Image: Worklytics presenting our Employee Experience Index
Image: Fascinating fireside with Richard Thaler
Image: All of the WhartonPAC 2019 speakers on stage
