The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees
One book, placed in its field — what Erik van Vulpen's book gets right, where it goes further than the rest, and what the rest of the field adds.
Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data · peopleanalyst.com/guides/profile-basic_principles_people_analytics_van_vulpen
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The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees
One book, placed in its field — what Erik van Vulpen's book gets right, where it goes further than the rest, and what the rest of the field adds.
Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data · peopleanalyst.com/guides/profile-basic_principles_people_analytics_van_vulpen
The problem
Business impact erodes when it is left to instinct instead of method.
You were taught the moves piecemeal, never the whole model.
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
The model
- 01Business Priority Alignment
- 02Team Skillset Completeness
- 03Data Quality
- 04Analytics Maturity Level
- 05Analytical Capability
- 06Actionable Insight Communication
- 07Reduced Human Bias in Decisions
- 08Decision Quality
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
Step 1 of 5 · Business Priority Alignment
Every analytics project should trace to one named strategic priority and one business owner who wants the answer.
Misconception
Practitioners believe that as long as the topic is important to HR—engagement, wellbeing, diversity—it is automatically worth analyzing.
Reality
A topic being important to HR is not the same as being tied to a top-three business priority; the C-suite funds work that moves revenue, cost, or risk, and everything else competes for scraps of attention.
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
Step 2 of 5 · Team Skillset Completeness
All five capabilities must be present on the team, though not necessarily in five different people.
Misconception
Teams assume people analytics is a data-science problem, so they staff statisticians and treat the other four skills as optional support.
Reality
The rarest failure is bad math; the common failures are asking the wrong question (business), reading the data wrong (HR), extracting it wrong (IT), or presenting it in a way no one acts on (marketing).
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
Step 3 of 5 · Data Quality
Budget real time for data profiling and cleaning—it typically consumes more effort than the analysis itself.
Misconception
Practitioners assume that because HR systems are the system of record, the data inside them is already accurate and analysis-ready.
Reality
HRIS data is optimized for transactions and compliance, not analysis—job titles drift, terminations lag, and free-text fields hide duplicates, so it almost always needs cleaning before it can be trusted.
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
Step 4 of 5 · Analytics Maturity Level
Maturity progresses through defined stages; each depends on the one below it.
Misconception
Leaders equate maturity with predictive and AI capability and dismiss descriptive reporting as beneath a 'real' analytics team.
Reality
Maturity is sequential: advanced techniques depend on the data foundations and trust built at the reporting stages, and organizations that skip levels find their predictions rest on nothing.
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
Step 5 of 5 · Analytical Capability
Capability is limited by its weakest input, so diagnose the constraint before spending.
Misconception
Practitioners think capability is mostly about owning sophisticated tools and algorithms.
Reality
Capability is the multiplied product of team skills, data quality, and maturity—a strong tool with weak data or an incomplete team yields no valid insight, because the weakest input governs the result.
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
A framework to use
Bersin's Talent Analytics Maturity Model
This framework is part of the full guide. See the guide →
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
The cheat sheet
- Business Priority AlignmentEvery analytics project should trace to one named strategic priority and one business owner who wants the answer.
- Team Skillset CompletenessAll five capabilities must be present on the team, though not necessarily in five different people.
- Data QualityBudget real time for data profiling and cleaning—it typically consumes more effort than the analysis itself.
- Analytics Maturity LevelMaturity progresses through defined stages; each depends on the one below it.
- Analytical CapabilityCapability is limited by its weakest input, so diagnose the constraint before spending.
- Actionable Insight CommunicationDeliver a decision, not a dashboard—the recommendation is the product.
- Reduced Human Bias in DecisionsStructure the decision, not just the data—biases exploit unstructured judgment.
- Decision QualityDefine success criteria before the decision, then track the realized outcome.
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data
Sources
- The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees — Erik van Vulpen
The basic principle of people analytics learn how to use hr data to drive better outcomes for your business and employees · Mike West, Editor · Leading With Data