How Dell's People Analytics Leader Uses Data to Tell Stories
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Dr. Stephanie Murphy, Head of People Insights & Assessments at Dell Technologies, is passionate about people analytics. She will make a believer of anyone who will listen. What she appreciates about the numbers is how Human Resources leaders can connect them to human stories. By empowering colleagues to make data-driven decisions in talent management and more, Murphy's work is contributing to the workplace transformation happening post-pandemic.
Recently, Murphy was recognized as a 2022 Top 10 Data & Analytics Professional by Oncon Icon Awards and among the Diversity MBA Top 100 Under 50 Executives and Emerging Leaders. She is also the newest member of HR Exchange Network's Advisory Board. She recently spoke with HREN about storytelling with data and how to ensure a people-first approach to analytics.
HREN: You are always looking at data. What are some of the things about people problems that we’re all getting wrong?
SM: One myth is that you're going to lose the culture if you're not in the office. We found that over 90% of our team members, including those fully remote, say that they experience our culture and see our culture code behaviors being exemplified in our team members and our leadership. We also found that we’ve been able to maintain an inclusive culture regardless of where our team members work. More than 90% of team members believe Dell Technologies has an inclusive culture for all and feel they belong. You can read the full article from our CHRO to learn more.
HREN: People are fascinated by people analytics, but they worry that our reliance on data risks our humanity or any focus on people. What do you think?
SM: One thing that we do is ensure our analytics are always centered around our values and principles, which we call our culture code. These include winning together and maintaining integrity, building relationships, and using judgment. So, when we center our data around those already human values, we are already telling a story that is more human.
We don't simply produce numbers. One of the big things we do is tell a story. We provide personas. We will say, 'Okay, here's Jane. Even if 75% of team members feel like this, Jane doesn't feel this way.' We add a personal component to the numbers. There's never going to be a time when we take data and just put it on slides.
I'm always going to say, 'What's the trend? What's the action?' I always tell my team, 'We're creating something like a children's book. What are the pictures? What’s the story?' So, someone who doesn't understand the numbers can understand how people are feeling and how that connects to how they can take action. It’s really about telling a story, building a storyboard with the data that shows the human element. It's not just putting numbers up on a slide and calling it a day.
We also follow up our surveys with focus groups and listening sessions. We might say, 'Hey, it looks like 75% of you said that you feel this way? What does that actually mean for you?'
HREN: What about bias?
SM: Bias is a big piece of it, right? If you look at numbers just by themselves, and you don't do those deeper cuts and deeper analysis, you miss some key things. We end up doing thousands of slices of data. They might not make it into our storyboard. But we look at it anyway to make sure that there's no biases and that we're not missing any hotspots we need to address. Looking at all of the data, doing all the statistical analysis, and the regressions is key. That's the fun part of people analytics. We then provide overview slides with summaries of what the findings are that reflect hours of detailed analysis to make sure biases weren't showing up. And if biases were found, then those would be highlighted within that story.
REPORT: The Business Case for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
HREN: What would you say has been your biggest highlight or win?
SM: I feel the most impactful and my biggest contribution is when I see company-wide decisions being made at Dell that are informed by the work that my team has accomplished. For example, the hybrid work strategy was huge for us. The fact that all of the work, including the surveys and research that my team did, informed the hybrid work strategy for how we went forward during the pandemic and how we continued to support 130,000 team members was huge. Our employee engagement survey that we conduct every year is also another big win.
READ: Hybrid Work Schedule: Pros and Cons of Each Weekday in the Office
All 12,000 of our leaders receive reports and are held accountable for those results. We are also always evolving our surveys to make sure we’re getting feedback that is highly relevant. For instance, we expanded our focus on gathering feedback on inclusion and even formalized it as a separate category after the murder of George Floyd and other tragic events that happened in 2020.
Now all leaders talk through those results and have conversations with their team members about fostering inclusive environments. The things that impact the people in my organization are what make me the proudest because I realized I can touch the lives of 130,000 people and make them better in the place we spend most of our time, at work.
HREN: What else would you like our readers to know?
SM: I've enjoyed every bit of my career, and people analytics has been my passion since grad school. I also teach at the University of Texas, in Austin. So I've been able to teach people analytics to our executive MBAs. I also teach diversity to our full-time MBA students. Being able to teach diversity, inclusion, and also then spin around and go practice it in the workplace has been really rewarding. And so being able to do the work, and then feed into others and instill some of what I learn into our future and emerging leaders has been really amazing.
I think the emphasis on people analytics is only going to continue to grow. I think the more people realize the importance of making data-based and science-based decisions, the more we'll see this space grow over time.
