Ad industry HR pros are missing the ‘whole person’ view by not leveraging data

Whether it’s length of employment, turnover and churn figures, mental and physical health check-ins or the DE&I ratios of the employee base, all of these facts and figures are essential.

“It’s not just to inform the leadership as decision makers how our people are feeling and what they need from us,“ says Michelle Joseph, head of people for Europe at Iris. “We also use it to be able to show our people that we are listening and to give real context to the decisions we make when introducing or adapting policies.“

But, she stresses, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to using data to shape policy. “One policy might be very aligned to one employee’s needs and not at all to another, so it’s important that we understand the whole picture and how we are looking after everyone.”

Paula Joannou, the chief people officer at Wunderman Thompson UK, agrees that when it comes to working policies it’s important to take a ”whole person” view – something she says helps her agency ensure it really understands the people who work for it and what they need. ”Working policies are a waste of time if they don’t benefit our staff, so everything we do is rooted in data and created as bespoke to fit their needs. It’s important to consider both the bigger picture and each team.”

Wunderman Thompson runs an annual ‘All In’ survey, which, Joannou says, helps it to get a picture of the agency as a whole, of how people are feeling and what their priorities are. “We ultimately translate this into both all-agency and department-specific plans. We also meet regularly with department leads for performance and inclusion meetings, helping them to understand the demographics of their teams and their key focus areas.”

Putting data into people-based action

But once data is gathered, how can employers go about actually implementing changes based on their findings? At Iris, Joseph says the biggest change has come since the introduction of its “participation board“ – a shadow board made up of “a cross-section of future leaders across every department and life stage“ that she says provides that agency with real-time, detailed feedback and qualitative data.

“They are our filter before policies, benefits or initiatives are launched or altered – they feed into the process. These are people who are highly visible in their departments and able to look at the nuances of individual needs. It has made a big difference to the direction of the company and our culture and, as a people-centric approach, we can understand how our people feel about anything from the cost of living crisis to how people should be rewarded and recognized.”

Over at Accenture, Lisa Rose, the HR lead for UK and Ireland, says: “We use data insights to regularly review working policies, which include information gleaned from surveys as well as feedback from our internally elected employee forums and networks. The data allows us to measure current levels of employee engagement and can provide us with practical indicators of a policy provision that may need adapting.

”For example, we reviewed our flexible working policy and practices during Covid-19 to better enable people to work in a healthy and safe way. This meant providing better links to wellbeing and support for everyone who worked at home and enabled better access to assessments to ensure employees had the equipment to work productively and in a healthy remote working environment.”

Not all data is created equal

The issue with using data to implement changes is that every company has different metrics and measurement tools for their practices and models, says Ben Gallagher, co-founder of research and strategy partners B+A.

“There is not one unifying tool or metric for the business world,” he says. “With everyone measuring their culture and working practices differently, it’s difficult for businesses to learn from each other. It’s also harder for workers to judge how effectively a company is tackling practices and processes.

“Business culture is considered key to business success and softer measurements of cultural health such as happiness and communication are incredibly important. But organizations still under-invest in this area because it’s perceived to be expensive and less of a priority. Also, if a business leader isn’t fully committed to advancing culture and working processes then progress simply won’t happen – it always starts at the top.”

For more on how the world of data-driven advertising and marketing is evolving, check out our latest Deep Dive.