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Modeling Employee Behavior
A sophisticated data-analysis tool that purports to pinpoint employee productivity and job satisfaction may have some use in the workplace, but some HR experts expressed wariness about the use of such techniques. Even if doubts about the ability to craft a sophisticated enough computer model could be overcome, worries about employee reaction to such a toll were high.
The concept of using workforce analytics within performance management is not all that new to savvy human resource professionals. Companies such as SAS, IBM and SAP -- to name just a few -- offer data-analysis tools to manage human capital. Yet, while workforce-analytics strategies are still in their infancy, an even more granular approach tying workforce or employee "profiling" to performance management may be on the horizon. And, according to at least a couple of HR experts, it could be a slippery slope, if not done correctly. Cataphora, a litigation-support company based in Redwood City, Calif., offers complex numbers-crunching and analysis techniques -- some patented -- to try to figure out ways organizations identify their most-effective or, on the flip side, least-productive workers. CEO Elizabeth Charnock says it's a much more quantitative approach than traditional performance reviews and other strategies HR uses to find out who are really helping their companies succeed. Cataphora didn't launch eight years ago with HR even on its radar screen. The firm's primary mission is working with client law firms in the field of "e-discovery," which means sifting through voluminous corporate databases to determine if there is any damaging data that could hurt a law firm's client in the courtroom. "Keyword searches won't do it," says Charnock, noting that Cataphora's data detectives are linguists and programmers who are expert at wading through electronic records -- e-mails, instant messages, collaboration software, Web surfing, etc. -- to uncover what matters most. Over the past few years, however, Cataphora's efforts began to move "organically" into HR -- mainly in the realm of determining whether an employee is happy and likely to be a cooperative witness in litigation proceedings, she says. Or, as Charnock says, while it's illegal to uncover and fire a whistleblower, it's good to know who the whistleblowers might be, and if he or she can hurt the client in court. This is not classic HR, she says, but notes Cataphora's analytics can offer a direct connection to employee performance, good and bad. She cautions, however, that a company would probably only use Cataphora for HR as part of overall compliance monitoring, including threat detection. "I just saw a statistic last week that 70 percent of U.S. corporations currently have some kind of monitoring software in place that 'reads' all of their e-communication," she says. "So even if HR is not driving the bus, that ship has already sailed, if you'll forgive the mixed metaphor. "We're not trying to say what we deliver is a complete picture of an employee," she says. "What we are saying is here is one objective metric with which to make important decisions about your people." One metric the company can discern, she says, is the extent to which one's colleagues re-use pieces of one's work product. That can be used to "level the playing field" and determine whether an individual's output and his or her manager's evaluation of that individual line-up, she says. It may also be useful in lay-off decisions. Employers taking this digital-sleuthing path should tread very carefully, say experts. "Human beings are far too complex to model effectively," says Stephen Balzac, president of 7 Steps Ahead, an HR and business consulting firm in Stow, Mass. "I am concerned that using modeling software would force people into a mold representing the programmers' beliefs about what makes an 'effective' employee." Balzac adds he also is concerned that using this type of software would make employees feel increased pressure to conform to behavior and work patterns that might not make sense for them, reducing creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. While sifting through data created while an employee is on the job can prove valuable, he says, many people do their most creative and critical thinking when they are away from the job. And with today's technologies, the boundary between business and personal time has been erased. "If what you are trying to do is identify broad patterns of behavior, it's certainly possible to capture a gestalt of what people are doing," Balzac says, "Once captured, if something changes suddenly, you will see it. At that broad level, it's do-able. Used to identify causes of unhappiness and obstacles from enjoying work, it's a very valuable tool." Sue Oliver, a consultant and former HR executive at Wal-Mart and American Airlines, says she agrees that employees don't have an expectation of privacy with e-mail or instant messaging on company systems -- and engaging in prohibited behaviors at work is at their own risk -- but that this sort of monitoring has one major flaw in her eyes. "I don't have a sense that this type of work and the way in which it can be used creates a level playing field," she says. "An employee's use of e-mail or IM is only one data point, and not all employees use e-mail in the same way." Whether or not someone is seen as influential using e-mail or IM usage patterns, there are certainly other factors, including verbal communications, Oliver says. "I don't think it should be the end all and be all," she says. "If an employer decided to use this type of analysis in addition to compliance monitoring, direct conversation and other data points need to be taken into account on an equal basis." Also, she says, she is concerned about using these tools as a potential layoff rationale. "If this is going to be considered as a reason for a layoff, it would run counter to being the kind of employer people want to work for," she says. She adds that this type of monitoring only works when it's in "stealth" mode, and that is also problematic. Oliver says the second employees understand their e-mails are being evaluated for workplace decisions such as layoffs or performance evaluations, the number of useful e-mails would dry up fast. "Employers only get one chance, and if an employer breaches the trust and goodwill of its employees, that's not good," Oliver says. "I can't imagine anyone understanding that their e-mail or instant messages are being evaluated for purposes like these." Oliver actually is an advocate for employers using workforce analytics, but more to uncover a common ground or widespread issue -- much the same as consumer research is used. "If this can be used to improve engagement and optimize performance, then that's good," she says. "It's only electronic data, and it can be important and can be revealing." She says the uniqueness of ways employees get work done has many measurements, and this approach has the potential to be misleading. "The challenge is for this type of data analysis moving into HR is what's in it for the employee?" Oliver says. "If a system like this system is going to ferret out the initial draft of a performance review that is not the final review, and give it credibility, it would crush the performance-review process." Charnock understands those concerns, and says Cataphora has promoted the idea that large-scale data analysis without context completely misses the boat. If the analytics pinpointed "the same people ...getting hot under the collar, [that] isn't an exceptional event; a monitoring system which continually flagged such occurrences would not only be useless, but very quickly become tiresome," she says. On the other hand, she says, if it pinpointed a worker who has always been "calm and restrained, but who suddenly starts to lose it left and right, this may be worth someone knowing about before there is any chance of them causing a problem in the workplace." "Better, more context-oriented, behaviorally sophisticated monitoring isn't Big Brother," she says. "It is just more effective. We can help employers find what their culture really is about."
September 23, 2009 Copyright 2009© LRP Publications |
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