People Analytics in Asia Pacific: Why is it different?

This is a co-authored article with Arun Sundar of TrustSphere.

The recent 2018 Global Human Capital Trends report from Deloitte highlighted the rising importance of people data and analytics to organisations in Asia Pacific. Figure 1 below highlights the top 10 trends in the APAC region, with People Data ranking as the fourth most important trend (it ranked second globally). The study shows that 89% of respondents (the global figure was 85%) believe that people data is important or very important, but that only 38% (42% globally) believe that their organisations are ready or very ready in this category.

Figure 1: The top 10 trends in the Asia Pacific region highlighted in Deloitte's 2018 Global Human Capital Trends report by importance and readiness (Source: Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends, 2018)

Figure 1: The top 10 trends in the Asia Pacific region highlighted in Deloitte's 2018 Global Human Capital Trends report by importance and readiness (Source: Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends, 2018)

PEOPLE ANALYTICS IN ASIA PACIFIC FACES A UNIQUE SET OF CHALLENGES

From speaking to people in the HR Analytics community in Asia Pacific, it is clear that the challenges around building and sustaining capability with regards to people analytics are different to those in Europe and North America, and also vary considerably across a region that is home to 65% of the world's population.

This article, which is part of a series focused on people analytics in Asia Pacific that will be published during the course of 2018, explores the main differences. It is equally intended to provide guidance to global organisations with operations in the APAC region as well as Asia Pacific based organisations themselves seeking to capitalise on the many benefits – both to the business and employees – offered by people analytics and a more data-driven approach to HR.

CONTRIBUTORS

The series of articles is a collaboration with Arun Sundar, Chief Strategy Officer of TrustSphere, who as well as providing an explanation of the differences associated with practicing people analytics in Asia, will also invite comment from other experts in the people analytics community in the region. This article includes contributions from Nick Sutcliffe of The Conference Board, Jayesh Menon, HR Director of Moet Hennessy, Junko Owada of Hitachi and Alexis Saussinan from Merck. Arun and I would like to thank each of you for your invaluable contributions to this article. 

To continue, head over to LinkedIn to read the remainder of People Analytics in Asia: Why is it different?