Dabbling in Data

If you haven’t read the first two articles in this series, you can find them here in Getting to the Heart of Performance Data Series: Part 1 & Part 2. If you’ve followed the series, you’re most likely ready to explore the world of HR data. To do that though, let’s take a step back to have a better grasp on how to begin dabbling in data.

On the ride home from work today, I came across one of the most powerful images I’ve seen in a while. It was a National Geographic cover on the massive problem of plastics in our oceans. At first glance, I thought it was the usual picture of the iceberg with the tip showing above the waterline. However, I quickly realised what looked like an iceberg was actually a plastic bag (read more about this amazing image here.

Having spoken to many HR folk (by virtue of my work at Peoplewave), their experiences of trying to be more data-driven in their work is somewhat like that National Geographic cover. They know they need to be more data-driven. They also know that there is a lot about data and analytics that they do not fully understand. However, as they begin to dabble beyond the proverbial tip of the iceberg and attempt to become more data-driven, they find themselves getting lost in the rabbit hole of excel spreadsheets, incomplete information, and most critically, trying to deal with fallible human beings who do not like their lives to be disrupted by your efforts.

Is this your experience too? If you’re a dabbler (instead of a expert deep-diver) into data, here are some suggestions on how to get your feet wet.

Picking your battles

Interestingly, becoming more data-driven does not begin with data. It does not begin with plunging headlong into an analysis of every piece of data you can find in your organisation. Instead, to have any success at being data-driven, you have to get to the right problem.

In any organisation, there are a million and one problems to be solved. Some problems are relatively well-defined while others fall into the category known as the “wicked problem” which may cause greater disharmony amongst various parties. Another dimension to consider is the impact that solving that problem would have. The no-brainer selection would of course to work on a well-defined problem with huge impact.

However, the reality is that those kinds of problems are usually complex and multi-dimensional. So if you’re just starting out on your data journey, pick a generally well-defined problem that has some degree of impact.

Getting the right data and getting the data right

Once you’ve identified the problem, you’ll need to decide what kinds of data you need. If it’s not obvious to you, do a bit of digging around. Read some research papers and professional articles from respected writers within your industry on the topic. Speak with stakeholders in that area. Do a data stock-take; what types of data sources do you have on this problem? Are they structured or unstructured data? If possible, observe the problem for yourself and see what people are doing about it. Figure out what data sources are available to you and assess if they are useful.

You may ask the following questions to decide if the data is useful:

• Where is the data from? Is the data still relevant? What was the context in which they were collected?

• Are the structured data complete? Are there missing entries?

• Are you able to join different sets of structured data together? Do they have a common identifier?

• Is there a consistency to the format in which the data was captured?

• Is the unstructured data in a digital format? Are you able to extract patterns from it?

Presenting your findings

From here, it’s all about analysing the data on hand and how it can help to provide an answer to the problem. Assuming you have managed to derive insights from the data, the most important thing is being able to get the message and findings across to the relevant stakeholders. This is where storytelling is a critical final piece of the data journey.

There are many good tools out there (e.g. Tableau, Power BI, etc.) that you could use to build a story around the insights from the data and how it brings clarity and solution to the problem. While there is much to discuss around these data visualisation tools (they deserve an entire post by themselves), the important takeaway here is being able to communicate the actionable insights so that the stakeholders have tangible outcomes that they may be able to work on.

Hopefully, this is enough to get you started thinking or embarking on your data journey. If you have questions or thoughts, do leave them in the comments below!

Yeng Wai Leong

Vice President, Product Management

About Yeng Wai

Yeng Wai lives at the intersection of digital, data, and the behavioural
sciences. A digital thinker and lifelong learner with wide-ranging interests,
he embraces the power (and limitations) of data in making sense of the
world around him, both offline and online. An educator and trainer with the
Singapore Ministry of Education for over 10 years, Yeng Wai is currently
Vice President, Product Management at Peoplewave and leads product
vision, strategy, research, and development across all of Peoplewave’s
products.

Yeng Wai’s educational background includes a Masters of Arts (Distinction)
in Digital Management from Hyper Island / Teesside University and a B.Soc.
Sci (Honours) in Psychology and Geography from the National University
of Singapore, where he was awarded the Ooi Jin Bee scholarship. He also
holds a Postgraduate Diploma (Distinction) in Education from Nanyang
Technological University

About Peoplewave

Peoplewave is Asia’s leading blockchain-ready HR software company. It is revolutionising people management with data-driven, transparent feedback and verified performance

data. Peoplewave offers 3 key products — the “First 100 Days”: a new hire onboarding tool; “Performance Wave”: continuous 360-degree performance appraisals; And the “HR Command Centre” analytics suite, which unlocks employee data and insights.

Peoplewave’s software suite is blockchain-ready — its blockchain platform is called “Wavebase”. Wavebase is a revolutionary platform that provides ongoing verified employee performance information that will change the face of hiring and managing workplace talent.