While I never set out to be an HR entrepreneur, here I am 14 years into a role I created from scratch to give me flexibility in my career while I raised my children.
This career path has helped catapult my HR knowledge forward learning new skills and lessons from every client which, in turn, become a value add on new projects. These changes have pushed me far outside of my introverted comfort zone – I’ve learnt how big my brave is.
My passion for analysis and visual data started during my formal HR training in an HR Planning course almost 20 years ago. Demographic analysis and workforce flows put data into pictures and put a twinkle in my eye. I learnt I was able to see patterns where others only saw confusion. Data, when converted to visual form, also gave me a picture to help others understand the big picture – the progress along with the risk.
In my early days of consulting, I was subcontracted to undertake an HR audit project through Grant Thornton and my colleague needed objective data in addition to my HR intuition. You know how accountants are. Facts over gut feel and rightly so. This simple request became a set of tools which I have used in every HR audit and M&A due diligence since. Once again, I was able to use data to tell stories, to uncover patterns, and to demonstrate the risk associated with a status quo approach to business practices.
But the world of data and analytics is being flipped on its head, at least in the field of HR. Instead of using data to look for trends in groups of people, technology and algorithms are allowing us to see the variability, the outliers, the exception to the rule. Analytics allows us to segment people data and combine it with operations data to answer real business questions which can be quantified in terms of the impact on the bottom line.
So as I head into my 15th year of consulting, I have decided to specialize in the area of analytics – human capital analytics and predictive analytics. I am intrigued by the numbers and possibilities which are not often embraced by my colleagues working in senior HR roles. I perform at my best when challenged with complex problems in industries where I have little prior experience. So while HR departments get their heads around analytics and look at building internal capabilities, I’m ready to go. Where they may hesitate, I’m ready to jump in off the high dive.
Welcome to www.analyticperspectives.com This is where HR starts getting serious about moving from a cost centre to revenue generation, from intuition to insight, and from hindsight to foresight. I’m all in!
As Chief Strategist of Analytic Perspectives, Audrey Ciccone consults in the area of workforce analytics partnering with companies to develop their HR analytics game plan. More about Audrey. Contact Audrey.
As Chief Strategist of Analytic Perspectives, Audrey Ciccone consults in the area of workforce analytics partnering with companies to develop their HR analytics game plan.