How Does Insightful Data Lead to Smarter Strategic Moves?

Welcome to the Vantage HR Influencers Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Vantage Circle, the simple and AI-powered rewards and recognition platform for employee engagement.

We live in a competitive world and, interestingly, our choices determine whether we thrive or we barely survive. Now, you may ask how we can be sure whether we are making the right choices. Well, this is where the power of insightful data comes into the picture. This is way beyond calculating numbers, it is more about uncovering the stories hidden behind those numbers. These are the stories that guide smarter and more strategic decisions.

Having said that, in today's episode, we are diving deeper into the transformative impact of data in human resources. Now, in a time where strategic decisions are the need of the hour, adopting a data-driven approach isn't just important, it's essential. By tapping into insightful data, companies can not only anticipate outcomes, but equally drive decisions that keep them ahead in the race for top talent and operational excellence.

So, hello listeners, welcome to the Vantage HR Influencers Podcast. I'm your host, Riha, and today we have with us Sarah Katherine Schmidt, Vice President of Customer Experience at Peoplelogic. Welcome to the show, Sarah. It's a pleasure to have you with us today.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Thank you, Riha. It's wonderful to be with you this morning. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. And hi, listeners.

Riha Jaishi: It's a pleasure. So, to kick things off, can you briefly take us through your professional journey so far, Sarah? Listeners and I are eager to learn about your journey.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Absolutely. So, I started in human resources and people operations leadership roles about 16 years ago. It's hard to remember back that far, but I was able to come up with some stories and anecdotes for this podcast. I started in talent acquisition at a consulting firm that was around 350 people, and I found that I loved small organizations. So when I went on to my next role, it was a 25-person company, and we scaled that company 3x, ultimately leading to a successful exit. Then I got the bug, I was really excited to join small-stage startups with PE backing, VC backing. So I went on to be Director of People Operations at a couple of different organizations and helped them scale their talent programs. I've taken all of that experience of 16 years and brought it to Peoplelogic, and I've been here a little over a year now. What I love most about my job is that I get to bring my experience to our customers and help coach, guide, and mentor them through the journey of modernizing their technologies and processes. So that's a little bit about me.

Riha Jaishi: Well, that's quite an inspiring venture, Sarah. Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Of course, of course, always happy to talk about the career and approaches to data. I'm excited for this conversation because data is something I am hugely passionate about, and it has helped drive my career in the direction of elevating in HR and people operations, and now customer experience.

Riha Jaishi: Yes, we are equally excited to hear the same from you, Sarah. Now, with your permission, I would like to delve into our topic further. So, are you ready?

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Yes, let's go.

Riha Jaishi: So, you have a 16-year career in HR, Sarah, like you just introduced to us. This ignites my curiosity as to how you've really developed this relationship with data and how it has evolved. Can you share an anecdote from your early days and compare it with how you handle data now to how you handled it way back when you started?

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Yes. So, as I mentioned, my early career was spent in talent acquisition, and part of my role was to produce the recruiting metrics for our awesome team of five. So even 13 years ago, I was digging into data and trends around our recruitment funnel: how many candidates made it to first or second screens, who received an offer, what was our offer-to-acceptance ratio. Some of those basic numbers tell us that we're going in the right direction. The team and I always joked a little bit that when we would look at the metrics, we'd say, well, you need to kiss this many frogs, those unqualified candidates, to get to your prince or princess, those qualified candidates that you ultimately hire. I carried this experience with me into my next role, where I owned talent acquisition and was hiring for that growth-stage company I mentioned. With that goal of tripling the team, I knew I needed accurate funnel metrics, not only to show my efforts, but to understand where we were getting our hires from, how long it was taking to hire for our roles, and where we ultimately needed to optimize our funnel. That helped me get through kissing my frogs faster, so I could find those really great candidates who could ultimately join the team. So, that's a fun little excerpt from my early career days, using data to predict and help analyze what we were doing and whether we were doing the right things or where we needed to shift.

Riha Jaishi: Sarah, that's quite a shift, and really, the way you presented it was really interesting. I'm sure listeners also loved how that evolved and how you really developed that data-driven approach. So, moving ahead, as leveraging data is gaining momentum, and given your vast experience in this field, I'm sure you've been involved in several impactful projects. Do you have a favorite data-driven project or initiative that you've led, and what really made you personally think that it stood out from the rest? We would love to hear your take, Sarah.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Thank you for the question, because digging back in my memory gets me re-excited and re-engaged in data. If I think about a favorite project or initiative, it was in 2019. I actually worked with the Peoplelogic team previously to develop their first product, Peoplelogic Optimize. That was really pivotal for me, in that we were using data to predict burnout, to predict turnover, to see the connections between teams, who may have been out on an island, who was connecting with more customers, who was maybe reaching the stage of having too much on their plate. We built Optimize to collect data from the tools that teams were already using in their roles, to surface the insights and signals from all of the noise that data can create. Sometimes we have way too much data to analyze, but we know there are valuable pieces in there, and Peoplelogic Optimize helps surface those in a really insightful way, and provides recommendations on what to do if you have a person who needs more care and empathy because they may be experiencing burnout, or if you have a person who may be looking to shift jobs because their stay-factor score was down. We looked at all of those pieces to help inform whether or not a company needed to pursue a different strategy in their retention efforts and their efforts to engage and keep their employees.

Riha Jaishi: Yes, that's quite a powerful example of how data can really be used to solve the real-world challenges that employees face, right? And it really shows how these proactive decisions that you take based on data can have a lasting impact.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Yes, and it was particularly timely because we ultimately entered the COVID era, as we call it. So the shift to remote work, and even hybrid work, was very interesting for us in looking at the data and being able to provide and surface those insights to customers as they were moving through that transformational change.

Riha Jaishi: Exactly, that's true, that's great, Sarah. So now it's no surprise that any approach can face resistance or hurdles before it gains widespread acceptance. Keeping that in mind, are there any misconceptions or obstacles that you've encountered so far while trying to convince stakeholders about the value of data-driven insights?

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Well, I'll start with a misconception, which is that your gut is always correct. That may be true, but you need additional data to prove out your gut instinct, because your gut instinct is your context of the organization and your knowledge of the inner workings, but data helps inform and validate that information. So the misconception is that gut instinct is what should rule all decisions. The obstacle that I've encountered when convincing stakeholders about the value of data-driven insights is really them having a lack of curiosity and choosing to lean on that gut, and really not being in a space of growth-mindedness. Something that's so essential is just being more curious about those feelings we have when looking into the data, to see what it's telling us. You talked about storytelling previously, and that's something data can do really well when you analyze it and start to put those pieces together. So I encourage stakeholders, executives, leaders, to have curiosity about what the data is telling them, and to utilize that to validate your gut, or invalidate your gut sometimes. But ultimately, the value of data-driven insights is certainly there when you have that curiosity.

Riha Jaishi: Yes, I truly agree with what you said, Sarah. This thing about gut instinct, people really need to get away from it and start working through the data.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Yes, absolutely.

Riha Jaishi: So now, shifting our focus a bit. As you've mentioned, you've always been a fan of working in small to mid-sized organizations, and you have the experience. These small to mid-sized organizations often have to be more agile with their strategies, and data can really play a crucial role in making informed decisions. Could you give us an example of how small to mid-sized organizations have leveraged data to make smarter strategic moves, and are there any successes or challenges you'd like to mention?

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Certainly. Well, the challenge is really what I mentioned previously, around that lack of curiosity and choosing to lean on gut. But we have a number of success stories at Peoplelogic, where our customers have been really keen to understand different trends within their organization. A specific company comes to mind where they had a geographically dispersed team, that team was in the United States across different states, they also had a team in Belarus, and a team in Poland as well. They were looking to see why individuals were leaving. They had just come out of a private equity funding round, and they wanted to understand why one engineer was less engaged than another engineer, what the engagement survey data was actually telling us about predictability in terms of attrition, in terms of burnout, in terms of level of engagement, and where they had those high performers who could ultimately bring the team along and help rally them through change. This customer was able to dig into the data through our platform and understand, but also prevent, some of that burnout and attrition by taking actionable steps that were grounded in data, grounded in fact. So they validated their gut instinct with the data and ultimately were able to make more of those smarter strategic moves.

Riha Jaishi: That's quite an interesting thing you said, Sarah, about validating gut instinct with data. That's something to take note of and consider, especially for all the listeners out there. We can see how incredible it is that things backed with data can make a big difference. Now, looking ahead, as data continues to reshape industries, HR is no exception, and with new technologies emerging, it's crucial for companies to stay ahead of the curve. What are some of the emerging trends you see in the use of data in HR, and how should companies prepare themselves to adapt to these changes?

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Sure. So there are two trends I'd like to highlight, and the first is organizational network analysis. While ONA has been around for several years, it's really only been available to bigger organizations that have the financing to invest in those tools. So that was the intent of building Peoplelogic Optimize initially, to democratize the data for smaller to mid-size organizations. Organizational network analysis allows you to see the interconnectedness of teams, how teams are working together, and where there may be bottlenecks in processes or programs. The second trend I'd like to highlight, that I'm really passionate about right now, is AI agents for HR. Not just an AI co-pilot necessarily, but a team of agents that can help you with your work. These agents have huge potential to supplement, not supplant, HR teams. They can help run analysis and stitch together the data you have to make faster recommendations and surface insights really efficiently and effectively. We also happen to be building this kind of AI agent for HR, and it's incredibly wonderful to see how I can upload survey results or review results and get an overall analysis, and then dig in deeper and ask this agent through Slack to do this for me. There are additional members of my team who can help me out with very specific tasks, and they can help me piece together some of the actions I want to take, from analysis to action.

Riha Jaishi: Sarah, these emerging trends are proof that there is no end to experimentation, and as we move on, the possibilities keep expanding, and we really need to keep evolving ourselves to stay updated, like you've been doing.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Right, yes, we need to evolve, we need to embrace, we need to be curious and growth-minded about these trends, everything from AI agents to AI in general, to more modern technologies, and utilizing those to enhance and elevate our work. The best thing we can do as HR professionals is move from being back-office support staff to the boardroom, and technology and data have the ability to get us there, and give us a seat at the table.

Riha Jaishi: Absolutely, absolutely, Sarah. So now we're arriving at the end of today's episode, but before we wrap things up, is there any particular advice you would give our HR professionals who are just beginning to explore the potential of data-driven strategies in their roles? This could really be helpful to them.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: First, if you're there, congratulations, you've already reached a wonderful point of exploration and curiosity. So one of the first things I would recommend is to take a data literacy class and get familiar with data terminology and concepts. There's nothing more valuable than learning and educating yourself, digging into a particular topic willingly. Then start looking at the data you have, that you can run some basic analysis on, maybe it's your recent engagement survey or your recruiting metrics, for instance, to go back to my original example. Data can really help you see the way forward, so start with that class if it strikes you and engages you, keep going, understand more about data analysis, take more classes, there are plenty of platforms out there that can certify you in data analysis. Take those classes, absorb that information, and then really start digging into the data you have, being curious and experimenting with different ways to look at the data and pull the threads across that data set.

Riha Jaishi: Great advice, Sarah. I'm sure these HR professionals will find this extremely helpful and will make the best use of it.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: I hope so. I hope you've all taken away something from this conversation. I certainly have. It's wonderful to talk about the way data helps us navigate a constantly changing world. It has tremendous potential, and we just need to harness it.

Riha Jaishi: Absolutely well said, Sarah. As we come to the end of the session, I would like to thank you for joining us today and sharing such incredible insights. It's been more than a pleasure hearing your perspective on how powerful data can be in transforming HR operations and guiding strategic decisions. We really appreciate your time and your expertise, and I'm sure our listeners are heavily inspired by your expertise and are walking away with a wealth of information to ponder.

Sarah Katherine Schmidt: Well, thank you for the opportunity, and thank you, listeners, for listening. As this comes out, it's been a pleasure, and always happy to chat and connect for a virtual coffee, whatever serves you, I do love a good coffee at any time of the day.

Riha Jaishi: I'm sure, and thank you once again, Sarah. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We hope you found today's conversation as enlightening as we did. So until next time, take care, and we'll see you soon.