Customer Stories Archives - AIHR https://www.aihr.com/blog/category/customer-stories/ Online HR Training Courses For Your HR Future Wed, 01 Nov 2023 14:02:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 Unleashing Intentional Success With Continuous Learning https://www.aihr.com/blog/customer-success-stories-xavier-smith/ Fri, 27 Oct 2023 11:39:44 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=178427 Xavier Smith is someone who embraces change not as a one-time decision, but a commitment to ongoing growth: “As a team of one in the U.S. region, I utilize my network as a sounding board, but it’s critical to back decisions with knowledge and data.” And that is exactly what he found at AIHR. Aligning…

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Xavier Smith is someone who embraces change not as a one-time decision, but a commitment to ongoing growth: “As a team of one in the U.S. region, I utilize my network as a sounding board, but it’s critical to back decisions with knowledge and data.” And that is exactly what he found at AIHR.

Aligning Actions to Values

Like many, Xavier entered college without a clear direction. His disposition was toward people-centered careers – something a Myers-Briggs personality test confirmed when it pointed him toward a career in human resources. 

Xavier solidified his direction, but realized that he wasn’t learning specifically about HR in his college coursework. He began looking for ways to gain HR skills and experience both pre- and post-graduation, “I needed something more specialized, something with continuous learning.”

This is where AIHR was able to support Xavier in his journey: “You don’t have to know everything, but you do have to know where to get the information. Having the right network, resources, and continuing education is super important.”

Creating a Future-Focused Plan

Xavier took an intentional approach to his career aspirations: “I’ve always prioritized growth over compensation, because continued growth will naturally get me to the next level.” 

He’s clear that he’s in control of his own career development, for both himself and to better equip organizations for the future: “We talk about developing our people, but we’re also our people as well. And we need to prioritize upskilling.” 

Today, Xavier is pivoting into a different kind of HR. He’s completed a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in business – and risen through the ranks as an HR professional – but understands that continuous learning is needed to reach the next level: “One thing that attracted me to AIHR is that there isn’t a focus on one HR silo, or at one stage of career progression.

There is content that helps you plan your path from early on through leadership development. They want to help you get there.”

Practical Application and Showcasing Value

As HR develops more rapidly than ever, Xavier strikes the balance of knowledge application and continuous learning in many ways. He sets aside time at the end of the week to spend time in the HR Business Partner Certification Program, and is quick to reach for other resources available in the academy. “The Resource Library is my favorite tab on the AIHR platform,” he says.

“Once I’m done with a class, I’ll do one of the mini courses or download materials. Recently, I’ve used the templates for exit interviews. I’ll definitely be using it more because the scope of my role will expand. One of my strategic pillars is around culture and talent development.  I’ll be working on our talent framework, which is something I have not gotten into yet. Having AIHR support is going to be very helpful, from knowledge to assets.”

Upskill Alongside Your HR Peers

Are you ready to take the next step in your career? Join 15,000 of your peers who are taking advantage of highly recommended content in upskilling, continuous learning, and development support. Browse the course catalog today. 

Connect with Xavier on LinkedIn.

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Leah Clarke
Becoming a Valued Business Partner https://www.aihr.com/blog/customer-success-stories-diego-ferragutti/ Wed, 18 Oct 2023 09:55:12 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=176721 Diego Ferragutti was looking for a way to take his HR career to new heights. He turned to AIHR to learn more about People Analytics. But once he enrolled, he saw that there was an even greater opportunity for him.  Flexible and comprehensive HR upskilling Meet Diego: a dedicated HR professional with an eagle eye…

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Diego Ferragutti was looking for a way to take his HR career to new heights. He turned to AIHR to learn more about People Analytics. But once he enrolled, he saw that there was an even greater opportunity for him. 

Flexible and comprehensive HR upskilling

Meet Diego: a dedicated HR professional with an eagle eye for progress. Being well-versed in HR, he noticed the rising value of HR analytics and decided to develop his skills in order to deliver better and faster results.

AIHR was offering exactly what Diego was looking for: a data analytics course designed specifically for HR professionals, and a flexible learning experience he could tailor to his own pace and schedule.

“The learning experience was great. It’s down to being persistent when you take self-paced courses. So I always try to set aside time to study and to make progress.”

Once he started following the People Analytics course, Diego found out that AIHR was offering more value than he’d realized.

Bringing value to the business

Within the AIHR platform, Diego spotted new opportunities to develop his skills as an HR Professional. Not only did he learn about HR Analytics and how to make impactful, data-driven decisions, but he also discovered the power of connecting HR processes, models, and activities to tangible business outcomes. 

By applying his new knowledge to the challenges in his work and proactively thinking about how to contribute to his company’s success, he became an invaluable member of his team.

“It’s not always an easy task trying to link your processes with the business, but I think it’s a key factor to success as an HR professional.”

And there was still more for Diego to discover.

Fast impact thanks to templates

Armed with a new perspective on HR, Diego was ready to implement new frameworks and processes within his HR team. To hit the ground running, he took advantage of the Resource Library, a collection of readily available resources, playbooks, and tools. 

With pre-existing frameworks at his fingertips, Diego no longer had to build from the ground up. This enabled him to focus on delivering faster and better results.

“With the [existing] framework you’re not going in blind: you know how to begin, what to do next, and when to finish.”

Community was key

Yet, what surprised Diego the most was the value of an engaged and global HR community and live events that provided him with current insights on pressing matters. Witnessing how HR professionals worldwide navigated local challenges and embraced global trends proved invaluable. 

This helped empower Diego to foresee his company’s needs, positioning him as an HR expert and valuable business partner.

“There is that common ground and we as HR professionals have the opportunity to take advantage of it. There are a lot of changes coming, and I think that we have the opportunity to lead those changes and to help the organizations to adapt and be part of them.”

A trusted partner for your development

After enrolling with AIHR, Diego not only reached his upskilling goals, but he also found and accomplished a new goal along the way: becoming a more well-rounded HR professional, who always has the right tools and insight for any job.

“I strongly recommend the AIHR platform. Why? Because from my point of view, AIHR is like a trusted partner that’s always facilitating you.”

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Andra Ciuperca
Going Beyond an MBA with Innovative and Practical HR Skills https://www.aihr.com/blog/customer-success-stories-stephen-jeffries/ Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:42:45 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=84503 After over 15 years of HR experience, a Master’s degree in Human Resources Management and an MBA, it would be easy to think that there’s nothing left to learn. But Stephen Jeffries knows better. “I’ve been able to grow even further than I thought possible.” A passion for learning Stephen hadn’t planned on a career…

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After over 15 years of HR experience, a Master’s degree in Human Resources Management and an MBA, it would be easy to think that there’s nothing left to learn. But Stephen Jeffries knows better. “I’ve been able to grow even further than I thought possible.”

A passion for learning

Stephen hadn’t planned on a career in HR. But after getting recruited into a talent acquisition role after leaving the Army, he never looked back. More than 15 years in recruitment and talent acquisition (and several degrees) later, he is still passionate about Human Resources, and about continuously expanding his knowledge. 

He started a doctorate degree for this very reason, but ended up putting it on pause. “I found that what many organizations are looking for is direct knowledge,” he explains. “Many degrees, even advanced doctorate degrees, only give you the basics. But they don’t dive deep.” 

But luckily, Stephen discovered AIHR.

Looking beyond specialization

Excited about the prospect of practical and targeted HR training, Stephen started browsing AIHR’s course catalog. “I was looking to grow beyond talent acquisition,” Stephen says. “I enjoy it, but I want to be able to grow and stretch myself into other areas of HR.”

He started by looking at the HR Business Partner certificate program, but his passion for the HR field and continuous learning soon prevailed. “The more I thought about it, the more I was thinking: why don’t I just invest in getting Full Academy Access?” And so he did.


Building up HR skills

A little under two months after enrolling at AIHR, Stephen completed 4 different tracks, including 3 certificate programs.

With the entire AIHR course catalog at his disposal, he decided to start with something close to home. “That’s why I went with the Talent Acquisition certificate program,” he says. “I’ve been doing talent acquisition for many years, but I don’t assume I know everything.” 

He soon earned his first certificate, and quickly moved on to Diversity & Inclusion, Hiring and Recruitment Strategy, and Strategic HR Leadership

“I haven’t looked back since enrolling,” Stephen says. “For me, my MBA and other degrees are the foundation. But what I’m learning at AIHR is letting me build my skills up and out.”

“I haven’t looked back since enrolling. For me, my MBA and other degrees are the foundation. But what I’m learning at AIHR is letting me build my skills up and out.”

Putting new knowledge into practice

It isn’t just Stephen’s dedication to continuous learning that motivates him to add certificate after certificate to his CV. “I’m able to use what I’ve learned immediately,” he explains.

From improving stakeholder management to better understanding the needs of leaders and the organization as a whole, Stephen has been able to apply his new knowledge immediately in his daily work. “I didn’t have to wait until I completed a course to use what I learned,” he says. “I started utilizing and implementing things right away.” 

Indeed, it’s the practical focus of the courses that sets them apart for him. “What stands out for me is how relevant and fresh everything is. My MBA feels almost antiquated, like I’m trying to navigate rush hour traffic with a Model T. But AIHR certification courses keep you relevant and able to stay in the game.” 

“What stands out for me is how relevant and fresh everything is. My MBA feels almost antiquated, like I’m trying to navigate rush hour traffic with a Model T. But AIHR certification courses keep you relevant and able to stay in the game.” 

When we asked Stephen what he will be studying next, he was still deciding between HR Business Partner 2.0 and People Analytics. “Eventually it’s going to be one or the other. But either way, the end result for me is to grow, learn, stretch myself, and be a mentor to others within my organization.”

Keep your skills up-to-date

Are you ready to transform your own career? Browse our extensive course catalog here and make your HR skill set future-proof!

Click here to connect with Stephen on LinkedIn. 

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Mai Do
Customer Stories: Empowering Capgemini’s People Analytics Practitioners https://www.aihr.com/blog/customer-stories-empowering-capgeminis-people-analytics-practitioners/ Fri, 30 Jul 2021 13:08:20 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=83952 Learning is key in empowering employees and making a business impact. But there’s another major benefit to finding the right learning solution. “The more people learn, the more people stay,” says Jan Krögel of Capgemini.  People Analytics has fast become an important specialization within HR, and the expectations are high. That’s why Capgemini was looking…

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Learning is key in empowering employees and making a business impact. But there’s another major benefit to finding the right learning solution. “The more people learn, the more people stay,” says Jan Krögel of Capgemini. 

People Analytics has fast become an important specialization within HR, and the expectations are high. That’s why Capgemini was looking for ways to empower the team leading the People Analytics efforts with specialized online training.

Capgemini’s goals were clear, as Jan Krögel explains. “We need to be credible to the business, and we need to understand the business, as well as the data and analytics aspect. We thought that going outside and working with a curated source would really help us with that effort.” 

And that’s where AIHR comes in.

Selected HR practitioners already involved in People Analytics and reporting were enrolled in the Academy to Innovate HR to take their data and analytics skills to the next level. In addition to following specialized courses, participants also worked on real-life projects helping leaders within the organization tackle their business challenges. “Some of these are being grown into big projects,” Kröger says.

That’s not to say that Capgemini didn’t face challenges in this project. For example, it can be challenging for learners with full calendars and lots of responsibilities to find the time to learn. Watch the full video to find out how Capgemini overcame this challenge.

You will also hear more about:

  • How Capgemini encourages people to implement the learnings in their day-to-day work
  • Examples of projects implemented as a result of the training, and insights gained
  • Measuring the ROI of learning initiatives

What we can reveal is that the project has been a success for Capgemini. Their next steps are expanding the scope of the project to include larger HR populations. But that’s not all. “We’re asking, how much needs to be part of the standard curriculum for HR? And the other question is, what else do we need to give the leaders we have identified to make them successful?”

Curious to see how AIHR can help you dodge the skills gap and empower your HR organization with future-proof skills? Explore our HR Skills 2025 framework, or learn more about our team licenses.

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Mai Do
Henkel APAC: Building Digital HR Capabilities with an In-House HR Learning Academy https://www.aihr.com/blog/aihr-henkel-hr-academy/ Tue, 11 May 2021 08:12:24 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=75520 More than 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025 (Future of Jobs Report 2020, WEF). And employees are eager to do so. According to LinkedIn Workplace Learning report, 94% of employees would stay longer with their employer if there was an investment in their learning and development. In a year full of unprecedented…

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More than 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025 (Future of Jobs Report 2020, WEF). And employees are eager to do so. According to LinkedIn Workplace Learning report, 94% of employees would stay longer with their employer if there was an investment in their learning and development.

In a year full of unprecedented challenges, Henkel APAC has dedicated considerable resources to investing in their greatest and most reliable asset – their people. This comes as part of Henkel’s global digital upskilling initiative, focused on fostering in-house talent.

Together with the Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR), Henkel established their first HR Learning Academy dedicated to developing digital skills for their top HR talent. The ultimate goal of the academy is to empower HR to increase operational efficiency and maximize the impact of HR on business outcomes.

What makes this academy unique? The focus on training for skill and competency-building, through a highly practical curriculum and on-the-job practice.

Innovation is HR-Driven

Henkel’s 140 years of innovation, continuous improvement, and delivering excellence is only possible with a strong focus on employee development. In fact, “developing people with passion” is one of Henkel’s core leadership commitments.

But who’s at the center of developing people if not HR? According to a KPMG report, HR is essential in shaping the workforce of the future and preparing them for increased digitalization, automation, and AI. Yet 80% of HR professionals are not equipped to do so.

With digital transformation in its highest gear, Henkel has taken their commitments seriously, and decided to develop the digital capabilities of their HR teams:

At Henkel, we dare to make an impact. Digital transformation is a key strategic focus for Henkel which involves not just the technical aspect but, more so, a cultural transformation. HR enables the business to achieve this and it is imperative that our HR team have the competencies to support it. I am very pleased to partner on this journey with AIHR.
Jackie Ngai, HR Head Asia Pacific

Building Digital Competencies in HR

To establish the HR DIGI+ Academy, Henkel APAC partnered with the Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR): a reputable HR training provider that can support Henkel’s HR talent at every stage of their upskilling process. 

The personal and professional development of our employees is very important at Henkel, which is why I am pleased to see the start of the HR Learning Academy. AIHR’s courses are enabling our employees to succeed in an increasingly digital world.
Jackie Ngai, HR Head Asia Pacific

AIHR’s comprehensive approach to competency-building binds well with Henkel’s focus on practicing on the job – a key element in Henkel’s HR Academy.

AIHR’s courses are structured around the three key components of learning: knowledge, skill, and experience.

Competence Building Model

  • Learners gain KNOWLEDGE by watching engaging instructional videos, tutorials, and going through the recommended reading material.
  • They acquire SKILL by completing assignments, creating projects, and participating in interactive role plays.
  • And they gain EXPERIENCE by repeatedly applying their newly acquired skills to solving real life business problems.

The EXPERIENCE level is where learners gain mastery of their skills. Yet this aspect of learning is often overlooked. This is why Henkel’s commitment to fostering a true culture of learning is so inspiring. Henkel opted for a practical and immersive approach to learning by creating a collaborative environment, where participants can practice their skills on real business projects. This makes Henkel’s HR Academy unique in the world of corporate learning.

Corporate Learning Reimagined

Imagine a learning program that promises to deliver business impact, innovation, and real behavior change. That’s what Henkel’s HR Academy stands for.

Within Henkel’s HR Academy, AIHR has designed a two-year program for their top HR talent. The aim of the program is to create real change agents, who will drive innovation from within the company.

Henkel's HR Academy 2-Year Program from AIHR

In the first year of the program, the participants follow the curriculum of AIHR’s Digital HR Certificate Program. This includes four courses designed to equip participants with the knowledge and skills needed for digital leadership.

In the second year, the participants will select three courses from AIHR’s extensive catalogue, in preparation for their graduation project, where participants will apply their knowledge and skill to drive innovation in their department. The projects will be judged by a panel of experts and the top rated ones will be implemented.

Training for Success and Impact

Every year, companies around the world invest 370 billion USD in employee training. Still, many training programs fail. So what makes Henkel’s HR Academy unique?

Three aspects:

  1. It focuses on skills that are vital for the future of HR and the organization
    Henkel’s HR Academy focuses on training key digital skills that prepare the participants for an increasingly digital future.
  1. Learning is connected to daily work activities & to broader company objectives
    The participants can apply their newly acquired skills and knowledge to their daily work activities, and help further the company’s mission of innovation.
  1. Success is recognized and rewarded
    The participants’ completion of their training program hinges on the quality of their projects. And the most impressive projects will be recognized and implemented.

In short, the participants are not just given the opportunity to learn, but also to apply their new skills to make lasting impact on Henkel’s business outcomes.

Investing in Upskilling In-House Talent

Driving innovation and creating lasting change starts with training digital leaders and creating a culture of learning in the organization. Henkel’s new HR Academy drives home the point that the most successful organizations are the ones where business growth is driven by employee growth. And this is even more important when it comes to HR.

HR has a pivotal role in preparing the business and the workforce for the challenges of the future, and making sure they are well equipped for this role is the key to business success.

Because the simple truth is that, at this point, if you don’t upskill HR, you effectively underskill your workforce.

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Mai Do
Improving the HR Department’s Data Literacy https://www.aihr.com/blog/improve-hr-data-literacy/ Tue, 30 Mar 2021 14:54:37 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=72655 In this podcast, Matthew Hamilton talks about how AIHR helps Proactive Life to develop data-driven and analytical skills.

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Improving the HR Department’s Data Literacy

In this podcast, Matthew Hamilton, Head of HR Strategy and People Analytics at Proactive Life, speaks with HRchat. Matthew talks about Proactive Life’s mission to upskill their team and the role of AIHR in helping them develop data-driven and analytical skills.

Matthew gives insights into HR teams’ importance to foster data-driven culture and how HR teams can shift to being more strategic partners to the business.

In this podcast, Matthew discusses:

  • The importance of data-driven and analytical skills for HR departments
  • The four pillars of data-driven culture and how to implement them
  • How People Analytics can help HR

Download our full guide to find out about our HR 2025 Competency Framework!

Transcript:

Bill Banham: Welcome to another episode of the HR chat show. I’m your host today, Bill Banham, and in this HR chat, we’re gonna consider improving the data literacy skills of the HR department. My guest this time is Matthew Hamilton, head of HR strategy, people analytics at Protective Life. As part of their mission to upskill their workforce, Protective life has contracted AIHR to upskill their HR professionals with analytical and data skills and help foster a data-driven culture. And we’re gonna talk all about these wonderful things and why more companies should be out there trying to upskill their people in this interview today.

Advertisement: What HR skills do you have to stay relevant? Join the Academy to Innovate HR to learn modern about relevant HR skills, all 100% online and self-paced. Visit AIHR.com to find online training programmes on popular topics like HR, analytics, HR, digital learning and development, talent acquisition and organisational development, visit aihr.com and get the skills you need to hit your HR career goals.

Bill Banham: Matthew, welcome to the show. 

Matthew Hamilton: Thanks. I’m excited to be here. 

Bill Banham: So before we get going, why don’t you tell our listeners a bit about yourself? I believe you have an engineering background, how did you end up doing people analytics?

Matthew Hamilton: Yeah, so I definitely followed a non-standard path to get here, although that’s probably not too uncommon for people in the space. So I’ve actually started my career in the military, I was a military officer for eight years, and then got out of service and worked in aerospace manufacturing, I have an engineering degree by education, and was doing commercial aerospace manufacturing. And then ultimately, my wife and I wanted to relocate and so I found my way into banking, into HR, leveraging that that military background for the leadership skills. And it’s funny, if we had talked eight years ago, I would have sworn to God to you that I would never work in banking, I’d never work in insurance, and I’d never be an HR. And now I’ve checked all three of those boxes off in the last eight years. But I had made my way to HR and then that kind of created the pathway into people analytics, the company I was with at the time was looking to expand the data driven capability of HR. And it’s kind of a joke, but not too far from the truth that the executive looked around internally and eyes on me and said, well, Matthew, you understand math, you have an engineering degree, a lot of HR folks don’t really understand math very well. So come figure this out and come make it happen. So that was kind of my pathway into people analytics. And it’s, it’s just kind of set with me, it’s kind of found been the niche that I found career-wise, which has led me to do this.

Bill Banham: Okay, wonderful. Gosh, that that is a that’s an unusual background, certainly, to get where you are now. But why is it important? Do you think for HR to have data-driven and analytical skills? Matthew? Does everyone need to have them at this point in 2020? Right, yeah. Does everybody pretty much need to understand the basics of data to be able to? I don’t know, find that conduit who can connect your people somewhere in all of the streams of data or help projects, business patterns over the next 612 months? Should everybody have some degree of data analytical skills at this point?

Matthew Hamilton: Yeah, so the quick answer, I think, is yes. All HR professionals need to have some level of data fluency or data literacy. If you take a step back and look at the function of HR, I don’t think a lot of people would disagree with me that HR kind of lags behind other business functions in terms of being analytical being data driven. Sort of the nature of the work, historically, HR has just been a much more transactional type function, you know, go hire people for me, go handle performance management and compensation and payroll and terminations and all that. So it’s been a very transactional focused type of function and has lagged other things like sales and marketing, for example, in terms of starting to leverage more data. But a lot of HR organizations have started to shift over the last decade or two and to be more strategic partners to business and sort of an implied part of being strategic partners to come with facts and data to the business leaders you support. And so there’s there started to be this movement, where HR as a function realizes they need to be more data-driven, more analytically rigorous, and so what does it take for the function for the organisation to be able to do so that the people have to some degree be data-driven and how they approach problems. And I do think it’s important for all HR professionals to gain some level of acumen, obviously, different roles may have more or less of a need. But there’s research out there, you know, Deloitte, I think has some research where they the level of maturity of analytics maturity within an HR function is really related to the gap between your analysts and your HR practitioners overall. So what they kind of mean by that is, if you hadn’t if you had a crack team of, of HR analytics, just the analysts themselves who are really good and understood this, if the rest of the org, the HR practitioners, the rest of the organisation doesn’t understand what they’re bringing to them, you might as well not be doing any of this, you really lose the capability if things are lost in translation between your small number of analysts and your broader team of HR practitioners. So that’s why it really is important that the broader base of HR practitioners has that level of data literacy. It’s not that we want every HR practitioner to be an analyst, but they got to understand they got to be able to consume the data-driven insights that are being brought to them, so they can help translate that to your business leaders.

Bill Banham: Okay, and your role in helping them do that, of course, is very, very important if you join Protective Life to help them build data driven capabilities in their HR department. Tell us more about that process. How did you implement the so-called four pillars of a data driven culture?

Matthew Hamilton: Yeah, so this is kind of my second go at doing this. I had been the initial people analytics manager at the company I was at prior to Protective Life and last year got recruited away. So I came into this, knowing a little bit of the path to follow already. I was pretty transparent as I was interviewing for the role of the direction that I intended to take us if I joined the company. And so when I came in, I kind of focus and I repeat this message a lot to our HR team, I focused around what you mentioned there, the four pillars of a data driven culture. And I would like to claim the origination of that, but I can’t. It actually comes from a writer and analytics writer named Brent dikes, who writes for Forbes, not just about people analytics, about just analytics in general, but it really is applicable in the people analytics space. So the four pillars of data driven culture, he says is the mindset, the skill set, the toolset and the data set. So if you think of the third and fourth one there, the toolset in the data set, that’s really sort of the infrastructure of being able to do people analytics. So there’s a lot of HR data out there, but it’s got to be organized in a usable fashion, that’s got to be clean, to some degree, it doesn’t have to be perfect, you got to have a tool to do this with, you know, Excel is for as much power and as powerful as it isn’t things you can’t with Excel, it’s not a scalable tool for people analytics. And most HR professionals don’t have the skills to do the very advanced things with it. So that’s sort of the infrastructure side. So I came in knowing that we were going to need to clean our data and implement a platform. So that was sort of one path we went down was, was getting a pure-play people analytics solution platform to do this on. But then concurrently, I was going down the first two pillars, the mindset, and the skill set. And that’s where we really started the upskilling, and the education, the socialisation of the concepts for HR professionals, sort of in parallel with getting the platform to do these kinds of analyses, to work towards those things that we talked about before just having a common shared understanding of our HR data. How is it being generated? Where does it come from? What does it mean, terminology and making sure people are on the same page when we say when we’re talking, we use the word turnover? What exactly does that mean? Because there’s a very specific definition of what turnover is, but unfortunately, when people aren’t speaking from a shared common language and understanding that it’s not uncommon for them to be speaking about two different things in their minds, but they’re using the same word. So that was sort of, you know, the path that I set us on when I joined the company to curtain at the same time and parallel build the people skills, the mindset and the skillset, as at the same time that we’re building the organisational capability and infrastructure, the toolset and the data set of analytics.

Bill Banham: Okay, thank you. Now that we mentioned that you guys have recently started using the Academy to innovate HR, I’m currently a student of HR myself. So I’m going through that journey too. When it comes to mindset and skill set, the specialized training that you’ve opted for maybe you can tell us a bit more about that, why you decided to go for it? And what are some of the hope for outcomes?

Matthew Hamilton: Yeah, so. So when you kind of look at building that capability in people, in addition to all the other things, as you mentioned, in the intro, I’ve got responsibility for HR strategy and people analytics, and then kind of the part that’s named in there, but I have the HR technology, ownership of the HR technology, so the HR s team reports up to me. So there’s just the issue that I think all fashional spaces have a bandwidth of time and capability to do different things. So and I’ve got a very small team dedicated specifically for people analytics, so I needed to leverage other minds and content that was out there. The team that we have, is not trainers, either think corporate trainers, right? So there’s a good degree where we can help train people, but we’re not trained ourselves as trainers to develop, you know, instructional design, to develop content. So, you know, so I’ve kind of faced with, well, there, there is a lot of great content out there. That’s, that’s available from lots of different sources. And to some, to some degree, we do use some of that we share, you know, if we come across great articles or different things online, we will share that content. Because it can be useful. But the problem from a sort of a big picture learning pathway view is that that when you do that, it becomes a work effort on us to build out that learning content, which is what we just really don’t have a lot of time for. But then the other problem is that I think the user experience the user side of it is that it creates sort of this hodgepodge of different content that may be good in and of itself, but there’s no sort of a central through-line, a common theme to it. So it becomes harder really, for some of those things to click in the learner’s mind because it wasn’t designed coherently if you will. So that was one thing where we just started to look, well, what are the sources out there where we could get sort of comprehensive training in the space from, and there’s, there’s really not a tonne out there. You know, there’s a handful, but there’s not a tonne. Because this people analytics is sort of a budding field. So there are just not as many resources out there. And I had been familiar with Academy to innovate HR. Back when it was HR was analytics, and AIHR literally started as a blog out there. For their founder, Eric van Vulpen and I followed him online for several years. So it’s kind of already aware of the space. And then that’s what led me back to them once they had built out the more formalized training component. So it’s kind of already comfortable and familiar with them being experts in the space. So that’s kind of what led us to leverage their learning content to build our team’s capabilities.

Bill Banham: And this is, I recently interviewed Eric actually. So by the time this show gets released, Eric’s show should also be out there, so you should totally check it out. As a follow-up to this conversation today. The question for you, I’d love for you to offer a couple of examples of how people analytics can help or enhance HR. So we’ve spoken about that a little bit so far, but maybe you can offer some real practical examples now. So that some some some teasers may be to get our listeners thinking, Oh, man, if I had that skill set, or if I, if I applied my knowledge in this way, it could really I don’t know, save me time helping my budgets. Help me understand who my top performers are met. Perhaps you can share a few examples there.

Matthew Hamilton: Yeah, yeah. So so I think definitely the specific examples can be very unique to different companies. I mean, there’s definitely themes that companies Bass, you know, retention issues, compensation issues, performance issues. So these are the matters that are common everybody, but the specific challenges that each company face are, are unique to them. And I would throw out for any of your listeners who are, you know, early in the phases or even not even really started down their people analytics journey, you really do want to consider what your business needs are and help that it leverage that to help you drive going down this path. Because you don’t want to go solve a problem, that’s not a problem or solve a problem, not on top of your CEO’s mind. You’re not going to get a lot of momentum if you’re solving problems that your CEO doesn’t feel her big issues. I didn’t kind of think about this in advance but I wanted to throw out just a few examples that may be timely, relevant to people. So we’re recording this year in November of 2020. With the global COVID pandemic going on. And so we’ve had a few things that we’ve implemented, as in the grand scheme, not very complex analyses. But relevant and timely, important. So one of them was back when, when infection rates started going up. In the United States back in March was when it kind of hit our state, we very quick quickly transitioned our workforce to work from home we’ve had for several months now we’ve had 95%, or more of our company working remotely, which is from a business standpoint has worked very well. For us. One of the impacts that we’ve seen, though, is that people weren’t using their time off as much, we exited the office pretty much the week before the most planned Spring Break periods were. So we saw a lot of people canceled their spring break plans. And in the first few months of the pandemic, we saw people using a lot less of their paid time off. And then our company policy lets us roll a certain number of hours over into the next year. But not all of them. If you don’t, if you’re over that limit, you’re going to lose your paid time off. And so we undertook an analysis that we kind of refreshed every month here to see well, how far behind are we compared to a normal year. And in the early part, we use that to adjust our policy, and how we handle the transition from 2020 into 2021. The company’s concern was well wouldn’t want to just buy out everybody’s unused time, because that’d be a very quick significant financial hit to the company. But we also didn’t want to do anything that didn’t accommodate the employees at all, because that would negatively impact them. So we were able to find sort of that fine line in between to adjust our carryover policy so that it could, you know, create the best scenario for as many people as possible without negatively impacting the company’s financials. But then also encourage employees in the remaining months of the year to utilize their time off, right. There’s an aspect even if you can’t go do a lot to have that mental health break, to just unplug and unwind for a little bit. So that’s one related to the pandemic. The other that we’ve been looking at is retention patterns. So we’re not, I think we’re not dissimilar from probably most companies out there, and that we’ve seen our voluntary turnover and specifically our resignation rate go down steadily throughout the pandemic. And it’s not surprising, right, the job market out there isn’t the best a lot of companies are closing or furloughing employees, reducing hiring plans. So there are not as many roles to move into. So people are leaving jobs less frequently. So on one hand, that’s a good thing, right, our retention is better throughout the pandemic. But if you only looked at that at a top line for the company, what that’s going to do is sort of hiding outliers, potentially could hide outliers underneath that. So we started disaggregating with our retention data, and looking at different groups of people to not just understand the resignation patterns of the company as a whole, but within specific types of jobs, parts of the company. And what we did see was that at least early in the pandemic, it’s sort of normalized now, but at least early, we actually saw that while our resignation rate was decreasing the resignation rate of our high performers, so people with the highest ratings on a five-point scale. So our high performers were resigning, their rate was not decreasing. And it was actually in decreasing at first, which if you think about it, again, it’s not surprising that if there’s not a lot of jobs that are being hired for all the people who are high performers at one company are probably going to be the candidates who are more competitive to get the fewer jobs that are being hired for. But that led us really focus on that group of people. And it has as I said, it’s kind of normalised now and we don’t see that disparity. But it could have been a big surprise that came at us that we, that we weren’t prepared for if we hadn’t been able to do that kind of analysis. So there’s a whole lot of other examples. We can talk about this for a long time. But there’s just a couple that we’ve done in the recent months here, that others maybe look at other companies may well be looking at that for themselves also. But to go back to what I initially said, the specific use cases for using data in regards really needs to be very specific and focused on a company’s specific challenges or issues that they’re trying to work on.

Bill Banham: Okay, awesome. And for those people who maybe do want to hear more examples, get more insights from you, how can they connect with you, personally? And also, how can they find out more about the company?

Matthew Hamilton: Yeah, so probably the best way is, just look me up on LinkedIn is I’m not too much of a social media maven, but I’m on LinkedIn. And then my company, the website is the best place to learn more about our company.

Bill Banham: Wonderful. Well, that just leaves me to say for today, Matthew, thank you very much for being a guest on this episode of the HR chat show. Yeah, thanks for the time. I appreciate it. And listeners. As always, until next time, happy working and stay safe. Thank you for listening to the HR chat podcast brought to you by HR Design.

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Blagovesta Dimitrova
Case Study: Creating a Data-Driven HR Organization at Grupo Argos https://www.aihr.com/blog/data-driven-hr-case-grupo-argos/ Thu, 25 Mar 2021 08:43:05 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=72401 Within six months of its creation, Grupo Argos’s People Analytics team was creating reports that were used in strategic decision-making at the very highest level of the organization. Find out how they made this happen — and how AIHR helped them on their journey. Laying foundations Founded as the Cementos Argos Company in 1934, Grupo…

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Within six months of its creation, Grupo Argos’s People Analytics team was creating reports that were used in strategic decision-making at the very highest level of the organization. Find out how they made this happen — and how AIHR helped them on their journey.

Laying foundations

Founded as the Cementos Argos Company in 1934, Grupo Argos has grown into a holding with over 13,000 employees spread across their almost 100 subsidiary companies. All employees and subsidiaries are served by a single HR organization, which is part of Grupo Argos’s Shared Services Center.

In early 2019, a group of 30 HR specialists enrolled at AIHR, the Academy to Innovate HR. The main goal was encouraging a more data-driven mindset in the organization — which was definitely a success.

A dedicated team

Soon after, the HR organization decided to form a dedicated People Analytics team. This was a major shift from the previous situation, where IT had owned all data within the holding.
Thanks to the AIHR courses, Grupo Argos had a group of HR specialists with new analytics, data visualization, and dashboarding skills, and the organization took full advantage of that. “My manager identified people with HR skills as well as the ambition to work with data,” says Guillermo Restrepo, the company’s HRIS admin. He, along with the new Head of HR Analytics and 2 other data-savvy HR specialists who were also enrolled in AIHR analytics courses, founded the Grupo Argos People Analytics team.

Even though the team is just half a year old at the time of writing, it has already managed to make a huge impact on the organization, as we will reveal later in this case. Guillermo attributes this success to skills they learned at AIHR. “We followed two courses about leadership in data teams, which helped us understand how to build and manage an analytics team: the basis of getting started in analytics.”

The case for awareness

The first challenge for the new People Analytics team was data quality. “We took stock of all the data we had, assessed the quality, and made decisions about data cleaning,” says Guillermo. “It was a lot of work.”

Another perhaps less obvious priority for Guillermo was creating awareness about People Analytics among decision-makers — something else he learned during his studies with AIHR. “You need to get managers on board. If they don’t ensure that the company makes data-driven decisions, then HR Analytics isn’t going to work. HR Analytics is important, but it costs money. And it will cost even more money if you don’t do it properly, as you’ll be investing in something you’re not using.”

Awareness wasn’t an issue in the highest level of Grupo Argos’s management, as would soon become clear.

Data-driven crisis response

The People Analytics team was only just up and running when the Corona crisis hit. Nevertheless, the company’s Presidents knew where to turn for the people data they needed to make critical and urgent decisions.

“They asked us to make a data visualization combining data from our HR system with virus data,” says Guillermo. The team created a complete data table and clear graphics, and the final result was used in the Presidents’ weekly meetings.

“We’re very proud to have worked on this project,” says Guillermo. “Our reports were used to make decisions about employee safety. We weren’t just doing our job. We were trying to save lives.”

“Decisions people want and need”

The People Analytics team’s contribution to the Grupo Argos Corona response created awareness throughout the entire organization and demonstrated just how valuable People Analytics is. And Guillermo can already see the difference in his work.

“HR is continuously coming to us for information, reports, and graphics,” he says. “They aren’t making decisions based on gut feeling — they always check if their information is correct so they can make better decisions that our people want and need.”

Now the People Analytics team is on the map within Grupo Argos, Guillermo and his colleagues are working towards their next goals. First on their list is offering predictive analytics services. “We already have all the information we need,” says Guillermo. “Now we just need to perfect it. Offering our internal clients predictions that help them save money and make better decisions: that’s our focus.”

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Mai Do
Landing an HR Analytics Job with Just Two Courses https://www.aihr.com/blog/landing-an-hr-analytics-job-with-just-two-courses/ Fri, 14 Feb 2020 15:11:59 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=47822 In today’s competitive job market, constant personal development is crucial for advancing your career — even for recent graduates. An academic degree isn’t enough to stand out from the crowd. Song Peng Ong was able to quickly develop from a Management Associate to an HR Consultant & Change Specialist with the help of AIHR’s People…

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In today’s competitive job market, constant personal development is crucial for advancing your career — even for recent graduates. An academic degree isn’t enough to stand out from the crowd. Song Peng Ong was able to quickly develop from a Management Associate to an HR Consultant & Change Specialist with the help of AIHR’s People Analytics courses.

The struggle to stand out

After graduating with a degree in Psychology from the National University of Malaysia, Song Peng Ong started his career in HR as a Management Associate at Great Eastern Life. However, like many millennials, he soon noticed that his degree alone wasn’t enough for him to reach his goals.

“Nowadays, it’s difficult to make a move in your career without having a certification in the topic in question,” explains Song Peng. “We millennials often have the dilemma of employers wanting us to have a lot of proven qualifications and experience when we’ve only just entered the workforce.”

Capitalizing on the HR skills gap

Song realized that more and more companies were starting to explore HR Analytics, and soon developed an interest in data-driven research in HR. However, he didn’t have enough subject matter expertise to pursue his interest professionally.

He decided to enroll in a number of AIHR People Analytics courses to steer his career into his chosen direction.

While still working as a Management Associate, Song Peng started following the HR Leader course, and followed it up with the HR Data Analyst.

“I was very positively surprised that the courses were so practical. I have taken courses in this field before and found a lot of the content to be too general.”

“I was very positively surprised that the courses were so practical,” says Song. “I have taken courses in this field before and found a lot of the content to be too general.” The practical nature of the AIHR courses meant he was immediately able to capitalize on his new expertise — and the HR skills gap. He soon secured a job as an HR Consultant & Change Specialist at KPMG.

Understanding the bigger picture

Two courses and a dedication to personal development: that was all it took for Song Peng to make the move to HR analytics.

“The HR Analytics Leader course helped me understand the connection between HR and strategic business developments. Even though I’m not a team or department leader (yet), it was eye-opening to learn more about the things that managers need to deal with. The course has helped me understand the bigger picture of the whole HR function and the rest of the business. I think it has made me a better employee.”

Qualified and ready

“I wanted to be in the forefront of this HR analytics movement, and AIHR provided just the right platform for me to do so,” says Song Peng. And it isn’t just a matter of equipping him with the right knowledge.

“This experience has affirmed my ambitions, as well as given me concrete evidence that I am able to do data analysis and use data visualization tools. I know the roadblocks of setting up a people analytics project. I can identify the most relevant metrics. And I now know that I can work in my current field of Learning & Development and implement a lot of the lessons I’ve learned from the two AIHR courses.”

With his new expertise, Song Peng is looking to the future with confidence.

“I believe that HR analytics is the future of HR, and I want to be qualified and ready when the right opportunity within the field pops up.”
Song Peng Ong profile photo
– Song
People & Change in Advisory Manager at KPMG Malaysia

Ready to make your move?

The skill gap in HR isn’t going anywhere soon. If you want to capitalize on this like Song Peng by developing your digital HR skills, AIHR has a wide array of courses diving into everything from Digital HR Strategy to HR Data Analysis. Enroll and start future-proofing your career today!

Click here to connect with Song Peng on LinkedIn.

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Mai Do
Making an Impact with HR Analytics https://www.aihr.com/blog/making-an-impact-with-hr-analytics/ Thu, 21 Nov 2019 09:55:53 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=47831 When he started with HR Analytics, Daniel Torres, had over ten years of experience in various fields within the job market. He had worked in marketing, sales, finance, and last but not least, five years in HR. From gut feeling to data Daniel had worked in marketing, sales and finance before making the move to…

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When he started with HR Analytics, Daniel Torres, had over ten years of experience in various fields within the job market. He had worked in marketing, sales, finance, and last but not least, five years in HR.

From gut feeling to data

Daniel had worked in marketing, sales and finance before making the move to HR. And it didn’t take long for him to notice a certain something about his new field.

“When I got into HR I realized that even though there were metrics and KPIs, most people still tried to make decisions based on emotions,” says Daniel. “It was a gut-based kind of decision-making.” It was a major change from his previous roles, where a data-driven approach is much more common. Daniel soon realized the necessity of implementing analytics in HR.

Applying business expertise to HR

Daniel’s diverse experience helped him get started. “I started putting into action some things that I had learned previously in marketing and finance,” he explains. “It was very data-based, so that’s why I got into HR Analytics: first into HR Metrics, and then data-driven decision-making. And that’s how I started my path in HR Analytics.” 

To drive more fact-based and effective decision-making in his organization, Daniel chose to become a People Analytics specialist.

Strategic and self-paced

It was while he was researching HR metrics that Daniel found the Academy to innovate HR. AIHR provided exactly the foundation Daniel wanted. 

“I really liked the fact that there was a certificate dedicated specifically to People Analytics,” says Daniel. “I believe this topic better equips us, the 21st century practitioners, to use tools and successfully navigate away from gut- and emotion-based decision-making toward data-based decision making.”

“I liked the curriculum of the HR Analytics Leader course, which was the first one that I completed,” says Daniel. “It was very strategic and well thought through. Since my career started in business, I really liked the emphasis on the business aspect of it all: it starts with asking the right business question.” 

The course structure and methodology were also a good fit: “I liked that it was very strategic, hands-on, and 100% online, because I was able to complete it at my own pace, and go back if I needed to.”

Building a career

There’s no doubt that the HR Analytics Leader course was the right fit for Daniel. “This course really met my expectations,” he says. “I believe that the HR Analytics Leader course sets very clear guidelines and roadmaps for leading a People Analytics team, or for working as a senior professional in a People Analytics team — or, as in my case, working in a market that is still just starting.

“Personally, I needed something that could help me build a career from scratch, and this course was a great start for me.”

Better business outcomes

Daniel’s foresight and ambition have been crucial in bringing about a cultural transformation in his organization. It didn’t take long for him to see the immense impact that a data-driven mindset and a structured approach to people management could have on his organization, and he made it his mission to implement data-driven practices in his HR department. These practices resulted in better business outcomes and earned him a more strategic standing within his team. 

“I am currently working at Ecuador’s second-largest bank, which has around 3,500 people. In the project I’m involved in, I get to use the plan and roadmap provided in the course, which was accepted by the HR manager. I plan to continue implementing it.

“I’ve already started with the first quick win, using Power BI. It was really nice to see the things that I learned in the course coming to life and gaining acceptance.”

In-demand HR skills

In large organizations, HR Analytics is quickly becoming a necessity. Daniel’s experience just goes to show how much of an impact one person can make simply by expanding their own skill set.

HR Analytics skills are very high demand, but they are also in short supply — and the opportunities for professional growth they are afford are simply incredible. Very driven by the impact he’s made in his organization, Daniel plans to further expand his skill set in HR analytics and tackle more advanced projects.

“My next step is to continue with People Analytics not only with descriptive statistics, but starting to go more in-depth and do some projects with more predictive analytics.”

Since speaking to AIHR, Daniel has moved into a Senior Compensation Analyst role with Parker Hannifin.

“I really liked the fact that there was a certificate dedicated specifically to People Analytics. I believe that this topic better equips us, the 21st-century practitioners, to use tools and successfully navigate away from gut- and emotion-based decision-making area towards a data-based decision-making area.”
Daniel Torres
– Daniel
Senior Compensation Analyst at Parker Hannifin

If Daniel’s story inspired you and you’d like to connect with him, you can find his details here.

Capitalize on the HR skills gap

Ready to capitalize on the analytics opportunity in HR? Get the skills you need to succeed in HR’s digital future at AIHR. Daniel was able to make an impact in his organization with the help of our People Analytics Certificate Program, but we have an ever-growing catalog of courses that you can browse here.

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Mai Do
From HR to HR Analytics in a few Months https://www.aihr.com/blog/from-hr-to-hr-analytics-in-a-few-months/ Sat, 20 Apr 2019 07:03:10 +0000 https://www.aihr.com/?p=24725 In the face of constant technological developments, investing time and energy in your digital skill set is essential to continued success in the field of HR. But as Trung Nguyen demonstrates, committing to life-long learning and focusing on in-demand skills can also open up a host of exciting new opportunities. Diving deeper into HR Analytics…

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In the face of constant technological developments, investing time and energy in your digital skill set is essential to continued success in the field of HR. But as Trung Nguyen demonstrates, committing to life-long learning and focusing on in-demand skills can also open up a host of exciting new opportunities.

Diving deeper into HR Analytics

Trung has worked in HR for almost 10 years. Over the course of his career, he has held a variety of positions (including HR consultant and HR innovation officer) for companies like Korn Ferry Hay Group, McKinsey & Co, and Nike. It was when he started working as a talent analytics specialist at Nike that he decided to enroll at AIHR.

His new role required in-depth knowledge of HR Analytics. Trung has always been committed to life-long learning so instead of enrolling in a single course or certification program, he chose the All-You-Can-Learn license, giving him access to all AIHR courses.

In-depth analyses and visualizations

Within the first few months, Trung completed the HR Analytics Leader, Global Data Integrity and Natural Language Processing courses. With his new knowledge and skills, Trung was able to conduct in-depth analyses and create powerful data visualizations for various talent populations in EMEA.

And it wasn’t long before he landed his next job: talent analyst manager for Danone Group at their Paris headquarters.

Practical and theoretical knowledge

Within the decent amount of time I spent pursuing these courses, I gained both a solid theoretical foundation and practical knowledge of HR Analytics,” says Trung. “Even though I was relatively new to this exciting field, after completing the courses I felt substantially more confident discussing HR Analytics and the benefits it brings to the organization — as well as actually taking my organization on a journey toward building a strong analytics capability.”

So what was it about AIHR that worked so well for Trung? “What I particularly like about these courses is the practical knowledge and teaching method of the instructors, and the helpful reading and resources, all of which make the course very thought-provoking.”

“I would recommend these courses to anyone who wishes to advance in HR Analytics.”

Continuing his learning journey

Trung is never done learning. Given the heightened strategic nature of his new role at Danone, where he will analytically empower the Group in managing top talents globally, he is planning to continue his learning journey at AIHR. Next on his list of courses are Strategic HR Metrics and Building a People Analytics Strategy.

Since speaking to AIHR, Trung has moved into an HR Transformation Manager role at VNG Corporation. We can’t wait to see what achievements his drive and commitment to personal development will help him attain.


I felt substantially more confident in discussing HR Analytics and the benefits it brings to the organization, as well as in actually taking my organization on a journey towards building strong analytics capability.

I would recommend these courses to anyone who wishes to advance in HR Analytics. What I particularly like about these courses is the practical knowledge and teaching method of the instructors, and the helpful readings and resources – all of which make the course very thought-provoking.”

profile picture trung
– Trung

HR Transformation Manager at VNG Corporation

Click here to connect with Trung on LinkedIn.

Fortify your digital skill set

Are you ready to transform your own career? Browse our extensive course catalog here and make your HR skill set future-proof!

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Mai Do