Smart Software, Humans, and Personnel: The Ingredients for Management Success
July 2, 2021
I thought this paragraph was thought provoking:
A Deloitte survey found that while 71 percent of companies see people analytics as a high priority in their organizations (31 percent rate it very important), progress has been slow. After years of discussing this issue, only 8 percent report they have usable data; only 9 percent believe they have a good understanding of which talent dimensions drive performance in their organizations; and only 15 percent have broadly deployed HR and talent scorecards for line managers. One of the reasons for the low adoption of people analytics is that companies have a closed approach to analytics in HR, and readiness remains a serious issue.
This passage appears in “How People Analytics Can Create a Culture of Care and Success.” Let’s consider two organizations with smart software, oodles of data, and a pristine track record for making big bucks. The two outfits are Amazon and Google. Both of these exemplary institutions have done an outstanding job with their people management. As I recall, there were some distasteful blog posts about warehouse workers and plastic bottles, comments about smart cameras and GPS systems monitoring delivery truck drivers, and the phone booth in which an employee can lock away the world. Peace, calm, and care.
And the Google? Staff flips at DeepMind, the outfit which has some type of smart software supremacy. Then there is the trivial ethics thing and the textbook handling of the Timnit Gebru situation. And, lest I forget, the yacht death, the diploid cell assembly in the legal department, and the fumbled suicide attempt by a big wheel’s marketing associate. Protests? I could name a few. Petitions? Well, that Maven thing. Sigh.
It seems to me that the article, including the “hire us because we are HR experts” in the Deloitte PR set up are describing a future which sells consulting. It seems that employees are forcing change upon employers. Others are quitting. Another group is happy to collect government “pay for being alive” checks. Smart software to the rescue? Give me a break.
When two outfits equipped to create cultures of care and success cannot do basic personnel, reality is different from the silliness of surveys chock full of buzzwords. Don’t believe me? Ask an Amazon truck driver. Better yet, pose a question to Dr. Gebru.
Stephen E Arnold, July 2, 2021
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