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Managers are busy. Too busy.
At least, Gen Z seems to think so. Almost half of Gen Z workers even say they’d rather turn to AI than their managers for advice, according to a report by INTOO and Workplace Intelligence.
Research from Gartner tells a similar story, finding 77% of employees are placing an increased importance on manager support while managers have 51% more responsibilities than they can effectively manage.
Many HR teams are turning to people analytics to fix this. To make employees and managers more productive. To free up time for more meaningful conversations. But for most organizations, the primary consumers of people analytics data continue to be HR professionals rather than managers.
Why? Because in most cases, the people analytics practice is not mature enough. The data they present is too convoluted and the dashboards too complicated. The visualization of insights that could help managers truly improve team effectiveness and support individual careers is still not designed with the right target audience in mind.
Create better dashboarding with the ‘three-click’ rule
HR and people analytics teams love people data. They see value in the visualization. Dashboards speak their language. However, people managers are more focused on achieving team and business results.
In many cases, argues Dr Shane Asmus, Global Head of People Analytics at The Royal Caribbean Group, HR teams still present data that appeals to them, rather than their company’s managers.
“Until we show the value and deliver a product that easily provides the manager with what they need when they need it, our dashboards will never deliver their true value,” he argues.
Asmus recommends two main rules that HR teams should follow to improve the design of their dashboards and show the managers the insights they need.
“Firstly, the three-click rule means business users need to be able to get to the answer in under three clicks,” Asmus explains. “If not, we need to redesign.”
Secondly, he continues, each dashboard or deliverable must focus on a specific area that is linked to an action a front-line manager needs to act on. “For example, on an L&D dashboard, the first page should provide some high-level metrics but the predominant metric visual should focus on the team's performance of required (compliance) training as this will be the number one thing they come for.”
To get managers to pay attention, listen to them first!
This part shouldn’t be rocket science. But for all the progress in the sophistication of employee listening through surveys and feedback, managers still aren’t heard enough within the business.
HR teams have to get to grips with what their managers want and need to see. Data is a powerful tool, but not without direction.
“Go out and talk to the HR business partners and the business,” Asmus advocates. “Most dashboard tools provide us with insights into user utilization. Speak to those that have used it and those that haven’t but should have. Listen to what they say and act on that!”
Besides, most managers would love to tell you how their lives could be made easier. “You’d be surprised at how willing people are to give you feedback when you approach it from the standpoint of making their job easier and more effective,” he continues. “People want to be helped, show them how you’re trying to help them, not speak at them or make more work for them.”
Having listened to what managers want and reflected their needs in clear, simple, and visually appealing dashboard design, validity and credibility are key.
Asmus acknowledges that we all have to deal with some form of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ (GIGO) but asserts that there is nothing more debilitating for a people analytics team than errors caused by bad data integrity, unwelcome assumptions, or unforgivable miscalculations.
Clear data visualization is a journey, not a destination
Finally, HR teams must remember that people analytics teams, including dashboard design, is a continuous exercise as organizational goals shift.
This means constantly evaluating how deliverables and dashboards stack up against these goals and refactoring them if there is misalignment. “If you ensure that your deliverables directly correlate to goal achievement and measurement you’ll find user adoption and senior leader buy-in significantly greater!” Asmus finishes.
Given the consistent pivots organizations are making as the pace of change accelerates, consistently revisiting dashboards is the only way to make sure they reflect the information that is most useful to our busier-than-ever managers.
