I need help with a Case Study assignment

USING DATA TO BUILD A STRONGER WORKFORCE 1

USING DATA TO BUILD A STRONGER WORKFORCE 10

Using Data to Build a Stronger Work November 3, 2019 Jack Welch Management Institute JWI 522: Strategic Partnering with the C-Suite Dr. Richard Wallace

The executive summary need not be long, but it should engage the reader and compel them to want to delve deeper into the paper. It lays out a roadmap for what comes next.

Executive Summary

Robert Rosenstein, CEO of Agoda, is a visionary overseeing an organization that has grown in its innovation and influence in the travel industry. The company has survived decades without the influence of a traditional HR culture that, according to Rosenstein, that impedes on the manager/employee relationship, and could also interfere with managerial decisions concerning the business health of the organization. Therefore, he hired a man after his own heart, who was sympathetic to his concerns and whom he believed can convert the HR function in a way that would develop a department that encourages the manager/employee relationship without the pitfalls of antiquated HR bureaucracy. That man was Peter Allen, a Wharton School of Business MBA graduate and Ph.D. in Humanities. His experience with companies like Google was impressive and seemed the perfect fit for Agoda. Although Allen started with positive changes such as converting the name of his department from Human Resources to The People Team and redirecting its focus to consultancy arm for department managers, he had quite a few challenges ahead of him. Those challenges included the justification of incremental investments, effective talent management, management ownership of their outcomes and employee relationships, keeping with industry innovation and changes, acquiring star talent, avoiding HR bureaucracy while centralizing the data needed to make more informed talent management, and recruitment decisions.

Give some background into Agoda and why they are pursuing the path that they are taking.

Introduction

Agoda is a continuously growing business. Rosenstein is sharp in keeping with the latest technologies to advance the organization, acquiring smaller organizations and growing them rapidly, and fully understanding the strengths of the competition and areas in which Agoda should improve (Mark, 1). Rosenstein also knew a change was constant and inevitable and that he needed to build traditional HR functions that included recruitment, training, and compensation. Yet he and Jack Welch have very similar philosophies such as attracting top talent possessing “natural intelligence, competitiveness,” a willingness to learn, candor, and strong ethics (Welch, 2)—managers should ensure these candidates get recruited by making the necessary sacrifices to acquire the talent.

Therefore, he hired Peter Allen because he shared the same understanding of talent acquisition and respected Rosenstein’s vision for the organization. Allen will work closely with Rosenstein to acquire a deeper understanding of the mission and behaviors expected to support his decisions, as he works with other managers like Jeff Lee, Director of Operations and Compensation, to test their current platforms that include Workday and Greenhouse to track applicants and recruitment data. Additionally, Workday is customizable to suit the needs of the organization. Allen plans to test these data collection tools for efficiency and accuracy, furthermore to make changes if needed. Agoda collects a wealth of data. Therefore the collection of data is not the issue; for Allen, the issue is how to collect relevant data to help the People Team “lead the rest of the organization in creating an open, honest and high performing workplace” (Peterson, 3). Allen has to work with a designated group of managers to implement a combination of systems that include: talent management, application tracking, and learning management.

The data and culture section should address the path that Agoda is taking in some detail. What issues are they trying to solve? What are the impediments? What should the leadership need to think about in the transformation? What about dtat security? What questions are they trying to answer with the data?

Data and Culture

According to Peterson, there are separate tools that manage various processes: HRIS, HCM, and HRMS tools (3) as shown in the diagram below:

The data collection tools used by Agoda Workday and Greenhouse. Workday can be customized to accommodate the specific needs of the organization. Greenhouse is an applicant tracking system that aggregates recruitment data to gauge best practices and strategies useful to Agoda’s talent mission.

Allen discovered that much of the data needed to help the managers with talent management decision was entered on spreadsheets and kept separate on different HR personnel computers. Consequently, performance reviews were handwritten, hard copies housed in files. There was no way to efficiently and securely aggregate this data. He began a request for transformation, which led to the implementation of Workday and Greenhouse.

Allen also recruited a highly-qualified colleague from Wharton, Jeffrey Lee. Lee saw the need to address issues of security and data collection right away. He saw large amounts of data stored on spreadsheets that were shared worldwide. This was alarming to him as he also had to persuade managers to rethink the way they stored and shared data. Allen and Lee worked together by focusing on compensation and benefits, performance evaluation and promotion, and recruitment—which aligned with Rosenstein’s vision to recruit the best talent, pay them well, and make sacrifices to keep the talent.

Data breaches are real and can cost the company millions of dollars. Allen and Lee should consider this as they move forward. Although they do not wish to bureaucratic, there are some overarching themes to consider that are necessary. Frankenmuth states there are at least ten questions all companies, big or small should ask that include (4):

1. Industry regulations

2. Authorized accessibility

3. Employee information safeguard standards

4. Internet governance and cybersecurity precautions

5. Company-owned mobile devices, PC’s, and laptops

6. Email management

7. Social media guidelines

8. Password regulations and standards

9. Security policy management personnel

10. Data breach procedures

Cybersecurity is extremely important, especially in industries that serve consumers and employees worldwide. Lee and Allen will need to make this a priority, as well.

Data Analysis

According to Peterson, the key benefits of a system is that data is collected and made accessible from a single source. This ensures security and compliance; it saves time, its convenient, and allows time for people management strategies (3). Also, these tools aid in payroll benefits planning and reward systems. Therefore, Lee used the analytics tools to:

· Eliminate subjective salary limits to improve flexibility, collect salary data based on actual market rates, and

· Provide salary data to managers who will make the final decision based on department budget and employee performance metrics

· Track employee travel benefits that would prevent abuse

· Track employee behaviors, examining the data with managers for the managers to decide a plan of action

· Provide managers the data for them to take ownership

· Track on the job performance using data from peer evaluations and cus

· Track developmental needs for training opportunities

· Track KPI’s for promotions and rewards

Allen and Lee are optimistic, having transformed the People Team into a resource useful to managers. By making definitive use of their people management tools, they were also able to gauge if “operating managers own evaluations, development plans, and promotions” to successfully nurture and develop their teams (Cohn et al., 4). However, there was a glitch in the metrics.

In the data analysis section, there are two exhibits that you need to look at. Look for the correlations in the tables and what they mean in exhibit one. What does it tell you and what are you going to do with the information. In exhibit three there is a different layout of data. Again, what does the data tell you about what is going on? What are you going to use the data for?

Data Analysis

Exhibit Two

The data in Exhibit 2 should demonstrate a non-subjective correlation between employee performance and bonuses. At first glance Team 1 bonus is closely aligned with performance: as performance improves bonuses are rewarded. However, as stated in the case study, the other diagrams did not show a correlation between performance and bonuses, as with teams 2, 4, and 6—which show some high performance that has not received bonuses at all due to unforeseeable circumstances and market changes. Allen states that this is a red flag for change in compensation determination across the board, yet the option will still be in the hands of managers.

However, if managers do not compensate high performers who deserve bonuses, this may be considered unethical, and Agoda stands the chance of losing star performers, an issue Rosenstein would rather circumvent, as he believes this will likely interfere with management and employee relationships and further compromise the success of the organization.

Exhibit Three

After examining Exhibit 3, the areas that need the most focus are those that both mirrored development and strength plus exceeded the number for development such as “giving feedback” with a deficit of 15 extra people and “instills a sense of ownership in team” with a deficit of 10 extra people aside the mirrored 20. Overall, there are additional areas for improvement, such as “Strategic and big-picture Thinking” and “Creative Problem Solving, Welch encourages “all brains in the game” (2). Employees can become discouraged when they feel they do not have a voice; valuable insights are overlooked or thwarted which gives way to dysfunction (Lencioni, 5).

When companies fail to develop their star talents and leadership, they will experience “steady attrition” and become vulnerable when experiencing a restructure, merger, or acquisition, as the incoming company may have a stronger culture that supersedes the former (Cohn et al., 4),

The recommendations should be supported by the analysis in the rest of the paper. The recommendations should contain some concrete steps as well. Timelines, specific actions, and/or specific steps are all useful. Saying that “we need to get better” is pretty meaningless. Don’t just recast the issues. Tell me how you want to solve them. Leaders are confronted with issues every day. What they want is solutions.

Recommendations

A notable issue both Allen and Rosenstein understood is the continual balancing act between talent recruitment and the investment in tools that would make this process both time and cost-efficient. There were immeasurable issues such as: acquiring the best talents with notable education and training, the efficiency of interviews, which managers can consistently recognize star performers, how effective are internal references.

XB Insights is a leader in the industry of talent acquisition, recruitment, training, development, and placement (6). This organization has the software capabilities and a talented team of experts who specialize in assessing, predicting, and maximizing performance outcomes. Additionally, they can help improve hiring practices, reduce turnover, and increase revenue—which is all measurable and needed in Agoda according to Allen. Lastly, they provide access to partnerships that provide integration options, along with content and technology.

Although Allen hired Lee, they need to outsource for experts in assessing talent in a smart, unique, and innovative way. I would advise Allen to invest in a partnership with XB Insights. They have worked with large data-driven organizations such as Nielsen Research, Acxiom, Experian, and other people analytical organizations. Allen is on the right track, being open to innovations and ideas that work.

The plan of action simple: use what works but also invest in a partnership that will remedy the recruitment issue. As stated earlier, data security is also an issue, and I would advise Allen to invest in a partnership that specializes in AI and Cloud management. Plan of action:

1. Use current people management tools that work best for the organization

2. Invest in a cybersecurity partnership to secure all data

3. Invest in a partnership specializing in total talent management for data-driven organizations.

References:

1. Ken Mark. July 19, 2017. Agoda People Analytics and Business Culture (A). W17429. Richard Ivey School of Business. Ivey Publishing

2. Jack Welch. 2005. Winning. Harper Business

3. Oliver Peterson. June 5, 2019. What is HRIS? The Best Software for a Human Resources Information System. Process.st. We’re Hiring. Retrieved from https://www.process.st/hris/

4. Jeffrey M. Cohn, Rakesh Khurana, and Laura Reeves. October 2005. Growing Talent as if Your Business Depended on It. JWMI Strayer University. Retrieved from https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/lti/links/content-launch

5. Patrick Lencioni. 2002. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. Jossey-Bass

6. Frankenmuth Insurance. 2019. 10 questions to ask before creating a data security policy for your company. Commercial Insurance. Cyber Security. Retrieved from https://www.fmins.com/blog/10-questions-ask-creating-data-security-policy-company/

7. XB Insights. 2019. About Us. A Talent Assessment Company Like None Other. Retrieved from https://www.xbinsight.com/about-us/