BRolan's Profile

This is a very interesting topic to think about! Many companies have wellness programs that try to get employees to be healthier (whether to lower insurance premiums or improve productivity), but I haven’t heard of the type of gamified app you are talking about for healthy micro habits. It made me think of some initiatives that my university was putting into place when I was in undergrad. There is a lot of research that talks about the effectiveness of gamification on motivating millennials. As Gen Z enters the workforce, I wonder if the idea you are talking about would become more or less effective over time. Would people be motivated by the achievement of some app or tracker? Or would the idea of having yet another to-do list item for work turn people off? I’m not sure I know the answer but this definitely has me thinking!

Eliza, I completely agree with your points that people should think holistically about what drives performance, satisfaction, and retention rather than collecting data that is “easy” to get and assuming it will tell you about drivers. However, I wonder if the sources you mention might be assuming that when we over-rely on data, we are over-relying on passively collected data. Even the “squishier” drivers that you mention (time management, motivations, and innovations) can be captured through data like survey output, ratings based on qualitative factors, coded interviews, etc. Your post provoked a lot of thinking for me about how to capture data on important topics! Thanks!

This is a topic that is personally very interesting to me, as someone who wants to be a DEI practitioner. You have made great points about the moments in the people analytics that require employee trust, and I completely agree that trust must be part of the people analytics playbook. However, this made me wonder about the tactics of building trust. Francis Frei would posit that trust comes from having all 3 sides of the “trust triangle”–logos (logic), ethos (empathy), and pathos (authenticity). It seems easiest for people analytics teams to show their employee logic–that they have a sound and reasonable plan for how to collect, use, and analyze data. But I’m left wondering what organizations at an institutional level can do to show employees that they understand their concerns and that they care about their success and wellbeing? How can employees be assured that data will be used to improve their experience and not in a way that will negatively impact them?