Using Analytics to Build a Better Culture — and Company

At Thumbtack, we believe the strength of our team makes or breaks us. Our people are our greatest asset, and the health of our organization is inextricably linked to the health of our business.

To us, the calculus is simple: If we don’t attract, engage and retain incredible people, our business won’t thrive. That’s why we invest in — and insist upon — best-in-class People Analytics. By bringing quantitative and qualitative insights into the conversation and identify data-based trends to make decisions that build a better culture and improve the health of our organization.

We made our first dedicated People Analytics hire when our team crossed the 500-person mark about three years ago. From the beginning, our intention was for this team to act as essential partners to our People Leadership Team, Executive Team and all employees — looking unflinchingly for objective insights and pushing all of us to question our assumptions and constantly challenge the status quo. Since then, our People Analytics team has grown to four team members and continues to expand, playing a crucial role in gathering the data we need to pressure test our philosophies and decisions over time.

Establishing Rituals to Understand and Improve
From quarterly reporting to predictive modeling, companies have long relied upon analytical methods to understand the financial and operational health of a business. We believe in applying the same level of rigor and a similar cadence of rituals to understand if our team is thriving.

While our People Analytics team regularly bring insights to bear across numerous strategic initiatives, such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Future of Work, we have established several invaluable rituals to ensure that the Executive Team and People Leadership Team has a strong pulse on the health of the team, including:

1. Biannual Engagement Surveys. Every six months, we dig deep into nearly 40 questions to understand employee engagement by function, level and demographic group. We review and share results at a company level, empower managers to analyze and act on their own team results and transparently share functional action plans.
2. Monthly Pulse Checks. Each month, we survey employees on a small set of core engagement metrics in addition to ad hoc themes we want to quickly pulse check (e.g., remote working needs, benefits and perks, compensation). The majority of our company regularly participates in each survey, which helps contribute to our culture of transparency and feedback.
3. Recruiting Quarterly Business Reviews. On a quarterly basis, we review the company’s recruiting funnel — from application to start date — to understand our capacity to hit hiring goals as well as where we may need to focus our attention to ensure we are hiring well by attracting high-quality and diverse talent.
4. Quarterly Attrition Reviews. In partnership with our HR Business Partners — who are the ears to the ground on employee sentiment — we analyze quantitative attrition metrics in tandem with qualitative exit interview and survey feedback.
5. Quarterly Board Reviews. Each quarter, we review company-level people metrics with our Board of Directors, across recruiting, attrition, engagement, DEI and strategic initiatives. This is often a setting where we can validate internal findings with the external expertise of our Board.

How People Insights Drive Change at Thumbtack

I’ve been asked before if all this data takes the human element out of the equation. Actually, I argue the opposite. We’ve found that the more sophisticated our analytics capabilities become, the better we can understand our team’s experience and validate feedback we are hearing on the ground — and the more quickly we can enact systemic changes for the better.

Here’s just one example: In the spring of 2021, we saw an increase in burnout and mental health challenges through our quarterly attrition review and monthly pulse checks. The Leadership Team immediately leaned in, deciding to institute a week long summer shut down, working actively to destigmatize mental health and doubling down on our partnerships with Modern Health and Therify.

Taking People Analytics Beyond the People Team

Another core belief we have at Thumbtack is that accountability for the health of our team doesn’t begin and end with HR. Whether you’re a CEO or a leader of a department, you cannot build a great business if you’re not building a great team, nurturing it, and designing your organization effectively. We call this “Leader Led” accountability for People outcomes, whether it be DEI, recruiting or retention.

When new leaders join our company, they’re often pleasantly surprised and relieved to experience our approach to People Analytics. For a marketing leader accustomed to analyzing customer acquisition costs or a product leader who obsesses over behavioral data to build a roadmap, having access to data-driven insights to understand and guide their teams feels like second nature — and quickly becomes indispensable.

Constantly Learning, Adjusting, and Improving

Thumbtack is scaling rapidly, with ambitious plans for growth. Our People Analytics function is an essential underpinning of our approach to growing thoughtfully and intentionally in the coming years.

We will continue to build our People Analytics team and capabilities in order to ensure that we become increasingly sophisticated in our ability to understand the health of our organization. Just as we are committed to using technology to build a transformational experience for our customers and pros, we are committed to using data and analytics to build an always-evolving, always-improving work environment for our team.

Originally published at https://blog.thumbtack.com on August 8, 2022.