People Intelligence: What it is and Why it Matters

What is People Intelligence? 

People Intelligence is the combination of strategies and technologies used by organizations for statistical and data-driven analysis of performance, productivity, and business information. People Intelligence platforms can make sense of disparate people-generated data by transforming the information into actionable insights that impact a business’ operations. 

The History of People Intelligence: 

People Intelligence is the evolution and combination of several different data focused organization optimization strategies. People Intelligence combines traditional Business Intelligence with People Analytics, Workforce Analytics, and Organizational Network Analysis (ONA). 

Business Intelligence (BI) started to evolve as early as the 1960s, with basic systems of sharing information across an organization. BI has been one of the most rapidly evolving industries, but now when most people hear about Business Intelligence, they are referring to several data visualization tools.  

People Analytics and Workforce Analytics are modern methodologies built around collecting and utilizing HR and organizational data specifically giving HR leaders and managers a way to derive more value from their data. The goal of both People Analytics and Workforce Analytics is to study all people processes, functions, opportunities, and challenges in a quantifiable, measurable way. 

Organizational network analysis (ONA) is a structured way to imagine and visualize how the communications, information, and decisions flow throughout an organization. True ONA allows businesses to understand how information and actions currently flow, how they could flow, and how they should flow most efficiently. 

People Intelligence is the combination of BI, People/Workforce Analytics, and ONA to provide a comprehensive and contextual understanding of how work gets done in your company. With People Intelligence, the story of how work gets done, how it could get done more efficiently, and how to best cater to the needs of your colleagues is presented in an actionable, impactful, and valuable way. 

Why People Intelligence is Important: 

People Intelligence (PI) can help leaders make better, data-driven decisions faster by showing historical, present, and predictive data within specific business context. Managers can leverage PI to provide performance, productivity, and operational benchmarks to make the organization run more efficiently and smoother.  People Intelligence empowers business leaders to spot trends in revenue, employee attrition, even customer churn using the data their teams are generating. Used effectively, the right people data can help organizations: 

• Measure and optimize performance 
• Measure and optimize productivity 
• Analyze workflows and processes 
• Optimize operations 
• Proactively Discover and solve issues or problems  

How People Intelligence Works: 

Businesses are sustained on their ability to ask questions, discover answers, and work towards their overall goals. To get the answers and to appropriately track performance and productivity against these goals, they must have the infrastructure in place to gather data, analyze it, and determine the next best steps to achieve their goals. In the world of cloud-enabled technologies, this has never been so easy to accomplish as it is today. 

From a technical perspective, raw data is automatically collected from various platforms used to complete business activities. The data is then aggregated and analyzed kicking off the process that provides answers to the questions being raised internally. The trick, and the natural evolution of People Intelligence, is presenting those answers and showcasing the data in a way that is understandable and actionable. While traditionally having to rely on data analysts and scientists, we can now incorporate Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities to make data analysis and expertise scalable—empowering everyone to make the best decision at the best time.  

People Intelligence Tools and Platforms: 

Most tools and/or platforms that have historically labeled themselves as People Intelligence solutions fall into the realm of pre-hiring analysis. That is, those tools focused on improving the efficacy of recruiting pipelines and the like. 

True People Intelligence platforms streamline the analysis of processes around people data to help inform decision-making capabilities. Real PI makes it easier for people, regardless of their role, to see and understand their, and their teams’, data without the technical know-how of a data analyst. 

As a best-in-class People Intelligence solution, Peoplelogic.ai connects to the tools your teams use most frequently. In doing so, the tool can aggregate and analyze the data from several disparate sources, giving you a centralized location to consume, explore, and understand your data. This gives you the ability to ask business questions in real-time. Furthermore, Peoplelogic uses advanced ML modeling and A.I. augmented analysis to prescribe actionable recommendations that get smarter over time using the contextual feedback of the user.