Elena Petrova's Profile

Hey Meghna – Great blog about a truly important topic. Similarly to the popular opinion, I am also convinced that utilizing the power of mobility data is part of future-state public health practices for sure. It would be interesting to see how mobility data could be used in conjunction with – let’s say health data from smart devices – to detect and contain the spread of communicable diseases. Imagine a world in which your smart watch monitors heart rate and body temperature that could detect a viral infection before one feels the symptoms. Simultaneously these devices could send anonymous signals to a national data base that links location of subjects experiencing such symptoms with trends in the area. As a result, in the future we could use such data to detect, contain, and respond to disease outbreaks much more efficiently and effectively. This could be the key to preventing the next pandemic and/or epidemic.

However, such practices are not without danger as gathering health and mobility data opens the door for misuse and abuse of such data. Your blog raises important questions about who, how, and when such data could and should be used. Questions that I ponder myself and hope to find answers to in the future as well. Great post, providing a lot of food for thought.

Hey Mannix – I totally agree with your point of view on how People Analytics could be used to curtail the impact of the Great Resignation for employers. As Meghna has mentioned above, one challenge is to be able to “listen” to what the employees need and want – which in fact is a big one. Perhaps one thing companies could do in order to enable “listening” to employees is implementing the role of an “analytics translator”. As the below-attached McKinsey article describes it, this is someone who helps bridge the gap between organizational needs and data scientists. The article then goes on to how an analytics translator can draw on their domain knowledge and help business leaders identify and prioritize their business problems with the highest value. I imagine a role like this, could help an organization utilize the power of data and analytics to increase retention and resolve – at least internally – the great resignation problem experienced by so many organizations.

McK Article: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/analytics-translator

Hey Georgiy – Amazing piece! As a football fan myself, I found your piece insightful and amusing. I have never thought of sports teams as a good fit for People Analytics but it seems quite a good fit indeed. I must agree with the notion that it is in fact a lot more complicated to apply people analytics to sports than it is to HR departments. However, the teams that do seem to benefit greatly (if er are to use the examples you provide in your blog). Perhaps what we need in sports to truly spearhead the use of PA is an analytics translator. What I mean by this is a person who does not necessarily have a data science background but can act as a bridge between the sports team and the data scientists. This McKinsey article – https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/analytics-translator – explains the concept very well.