Book review: Presence, by Amy Cuddy
Amy Cuddy’s “Presence” explores how believing in and trusting yourself—through synchrony of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors—enables authentic self-expression and confidence. Drawing on neuroscience and real-life stories, Cuddy shows that presence is a learnable state essential for effective leadership and navigating life’s biggest challenges.
Investing in people: what comes first – the chicken or the egg?
Organizations struggle to demonstrate the value of human capital to investors because of inconsistent people data and lack of investor demand. However, growing investor interest in workforce quality, behavior, and long-term impacts—especially from ESG-focused funds—is breaking this cycle and forcing companies to report more transparently on human capital.
Taking action on diversity: the role of data
Despite abundant evidence supporting workplace diversity, progress remains slow due to lack of common measurement frameworks. Using data and analytics to track diversity and inclusion metrics helps organizations build fairer, more inclusive workplaces that benefit from diverse perspectives and improved innovation.
Brexit and business planning: do you know who your workers are?
Brexit creates urgency for organizations to understand their workforce composition and skills gaps. HR professionals must leverage data analytics to identify labor dependencies, particularly regarding migrant workers, and make informed business decisions amid regulatory uncertainty.
Putting people first creates better businesses, but this requires investing in measuring human capital
Organizations must invest in measuring human capital to put people first and build sustainable businesses. This requires understanding workforce health, wellbeing, and performance capabilities—ensuring operational demands don’t compromise employee capacity or growth potential.
The need for people – vs just business – analytics
Workforce analytics should extend beyond HR and business metrics to include people analytics—measuring employee capabilities, engagement, wellbeing, organizational structure, and social relationships. This three-part approach captures the true value people bring to organizations.
Workplace engagement and performance – how do you unpack its mysteries?
Modern workforce engagement measurement is shifting from annual surveys to sophisticated automation and analytics tools, including natural language processing that analyzes free text responses to uncover thematic patterns and sentiment. These advanced approaches provide HR and operations leaders with deeper insights into employee perceptions across key workplace issues like management support, problem-solving, and resource constraints.
HR analytics: what does the landscape look like?
HR analytics lags behind other business functions, with many organizations stuck at basic reporting. The four maturity stages—basic reporting, advanced reporting, strategic analytics, and predictive analytics—reveal barriers including poor data quality, inconsistent databases across units, and managers requesting data to confirm rather than inform decisions.
Is HR really ready for automation?
HR departments risk falling behind in automation adoption despite having the most to gain from automating routine tasks. The industry has a poor track record with technology investment, yet automating payroll, recruitment, and onboarding could free HR professionals to focus on strategic work.
What are the opportunities for automation in HR?
HR automation has evolved from manual CV filing to cloud-based systems that streamline hiring, onboarding, and employee management. Cloud adoption has reduced HR transactional work by around 20%, while robotic process automation and AI offer further opportunities to automate rule-based, repetitive tasks like payroll and exits.
“When you automate a process, don’t lose the process’s purpose and essence,” says Metro Bank’s Chief People Officer
Metro Bank’s Chief People Officer emphasizes balancing data analytics with human judgment in HR decisions. She explains how the bank uses analytics to validate hypotheses and identify workplace issues, while applying contextual understanding to ensure automation doesn’t undermine the purpose behind HR processes.
Companies must create social value – or lose stakeholders
Companies must create social value beyond profits or risk losing customers, employees, and stakeholders. Modern businesses integrating sustainability and social responsibility into their operations attract talent and build meaningful legacies, while those ignoring these demands will fall behind.
The business case for diversity: tackling the inconvenient truth
Recent government reports highlight the economic potential of workplace diversity, with the UK economy potentially boosted by £24 billion through fuller utilization of BAME talent. However, organizations must develop tailored diversity strategies embedded in business strategy rather than expecting automatic benefits from simply becoming “more diverse.”
“I’ve experienced a shift in how I like to learn; to what I want to learn and not what others feel I need.”
An HR manager shares how he’s shifted from learning what others think he needs to what he actually wants to learn, leveraging podcasts, audiobooks, and intentional daily habits to stay current with emerging HR practices and leadership development.
Data mastery: a key global mobility challenge
Global mobility professionals face a critical challenge in leveraging data analytics to improve decision-making and reduce costs. While 87% of companies plan to prioritize data analytics in the next three years, only 15% are currently satisfied with their assignment software, leaving significant opportunity for improved IT integration and strategic insights.
Talent management: why your approach can destroy employee mojo
Flawed talent management approaches can undermine employee engagement by disconnecting workers from their values, taking them for granted, and assigning pointless tasks. Understanding how organizations destroy meaningfulness at work is essential for HR leaders seeking to foster genuine employee motivation and discretionary effort.
Talent acquisition, technology and where this leaves you
Modern talent acquisition extends far beyond job filling, now encompassing longer-term strategic practices supported by HR technology. Today’s technology tools—from AI-powered candidate search to video interviewing and predictive analytics—are reshaping recruitment, selection, and onboarding while intensifying the ongoing competition for top talent.
Don’t get overwhelmed into inaction – analytics success can come to every company
Most companies recognize the need for HR analytics but struggle to act due to unrealistic expectations and fragmented data systems. Rather than pursuing expensive enterprise solutions, start by identifying your most pressing business problems and build targeted analytics solutions that address those specific needs cost-effectively.
Is there a need for HR to form a strategic partnership with IT to get value from big data?
There is an argument – sometimes called the ‘law of requisite variety’ – that if the technological changes going on outside organisations are relatively complex, then the internal environments of those organisations need to be equally complex to keep up, matching and engaging the outside with the proper degree of internal sophistication. In short, external […]
What there is to fear with HR Data Analytics
HR data analytics implementations often trigger fear in employees who worry about job security and organizational change. This article explores how organizations must address the psychological impact of analytics insights—beyond just presenting data—to successfully gain employee buy-in and navigate the natural anxiety surrounding potential workforce decisions.
