People analytics

More recently, She has been exploring how data automation and AI can modernize the HR profession, including building tools and dashboards that turn complex workforce metrics into actionable insights for boards and leadership teams.

So today, listeners, we're going to talk about how HR leadership has changed, building great cultures, employee well-being, the people challenges facing the housing sector, pay transparency, people analytics, and how AI could reshape the role of HR.

Or at least that is the hope.

That's a lot of topics to get through in 20 minutes.

We are about culture.

We're about the people.

agility and people analytics.

What doesn't change for me is there's always a person behind every policy, there's a person behind every contract, there's a person behind every interaction that we do.

as a psychometrician, but was a measurement heavy statistician.

So I, you know, they said, we had no real people analytics in any sense of the term.

The company hadn't gone public yet.

We were only about 900 people.

And partly I have to entirely credit my predecessor for that because looking back, he was masterful at succession planning by exposing me to everything I needed to know along the way.

I mean, I'll say this, what you're also doing is serving as a data point.

One of the things I've been talking about this year, and you're unintentionally doing this, is showing how do you move from leading like a people analytics team to becoming a CHRO someday.

And it sounds like you had to go around and get some critical experiences throughout the department and have somebody, frankly, who has things like succession planning in mind in the process of doing so.

We'll have the link in the show notes.

He's the author of the book, People Analytics, Using Data-Driven HR and AI as a Business Asset.

He is the host of the Directionally Correct podcast and principal owner of the firm of the same name.

Founder and instructor at the Data Driven HR Academy.

If you aren't noticing a trend yet, these are all things on brand for Cole.

People analytics, data, applying it within the HR space.

And the newest hat that Cole is wearing, great, great fit, by the way, Chief People Intelligence Officer at HR Bench.

Cole, he's the kind of person that you want as a friend because when you go to a conference, he's going to say nice things to strangers about you.

I love that.

Um, if you were a character in any book, TV show, or movie, who would you be and why?

Hmm.

A character.

And today's guest, Sasha Arjenkova, director of analytics business partnering at Adobe.

In this episode, we will cover how to build a people analytics function that genuinely partners with the business.

Bringing the, um, stuff that people analytics team works on back to the business and-

How to earn the trust as a data SME and make your insights drive decisions.

How do you navigate the subject matter expertise part of it? How Sasha went from herding cows and modeling on TV to becoming one of the most people-centered analytics leaders in the industry.

It's all volunteer-led.

And what really got me excited is the opportunity to create something that doesn't currently exist.

So a lot of practitioners today in HR and people analytics just across the board are trying to figure out what is happening, how we respond, how do we get ahead.