People Analytics Part 2

People analytics is using data from a variety of sources like email records, web browsing behavior, instant messaging etc. and is also making use of technology such as wearable sensing technology. Theses sensors provide data on interaction patterns between employees and their motion and location among other things. By combining data such as these it becomes easier to understand and manipulate organizational behavior to increase productivity. One big disadvantage of this, however, is that it intrudes on privacy. So it becomes important to ensure that data is treated as coming from anonymous source to be used only for analytics purposes. Some companies like the Cubist Pharmaceuticals are implementing some of the findings in their workplace to boost productivity. Their observation was that they had too many coffee machines and therefore they introduced centralized coffee areas so as to foster interaction among employees. This is just an example. People analytics in reality has the ability to revolutionize the workplace set up.

Seattle based VoloMetrix recently announced that it has raised $12 million for its people analytics service. The service lets the organization understand how their employees allocates time to different activities at work. For instance for employees working in the sales department the organization will learn about how long the employees spend time interacting with the customers or how long they spend by working as a part of a team. The service aims to give a deeper understanding on employee functioning. However, it does not focus on any one employee. Some of the clients of this company are Fortune 100 companies. With increasing number of companies resorting to people analytics as a reliable means of understanding their workforce the CEO VoloMetrix is expecting a jump in the number of clients. People analytics is clearly the future of understanding people within an organization and will go a long way in bridging the gap that sometimes exists between the top management and its workforce.