Microsoft's Chief People Officer on Creating a Data Driven Culture in HR
Digital HR Leaders Podcast - Bonus Episode - Kathleen Hogan, Chief People Officer at Microsoft

Microsoft's Chief People Officer on Creating a Data Driven Culture in HR

David Green 🇺🇦 David Green 🇺🇦

David Green 🇺🇦

Co-Author of Excellence in People Analytics | People Analytics leader | Director, Insight222 & myHRfuture.com | Conference speaker | Host, Digital HR Leaders Podcast

Published Aug 3, 2021
+ Follow
People drive the business, empowering people with people analytics empowers people to empower the business

Of the more than 100 companies Jonathan Ferrar and I researched for our recently published book – Excellence in People Analytics, one that stood out was Microsoft. It is one of the best examples of scaling people analytics to provide value for employees and the business - and in successfully creating a data driven culture in HR.

Microsoft’s Chief People Officer, Kathleen Hogan, was generous enough to provide a Chief Human Resources Officer's Perspective in the book while Dawn Klinghoffer, Microsoft's Global Head of People Analytics, also contributed a case study to the Technology chapter on Scaling People Analytics.

This is an extract of Kathleen’s contribution to Excellence in People Analytics:

“I think we’re just at the beginning of an incredibly exciting time for HR leaders who increasingly have more of a strategic role and are able to use more empirical data to inform decisions around performance, talent management, agility, employee experience and productivity.”

I’m especially delighted therefore that Kathleen is my guest on this week’s episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast.

Data and insights are essential to everything that I am talking about around hybrid

You can listen by clicking on the image below or by visiting the podcast website here. 

No alt text provided for this image
Whether it be a yearly poll or the daily pulse, I think the key is that you use the data and you show how hopefully it improves the employee experience

In our conversation Kathleen and I discuss:

  • How HR is a strategic partner to the business at Microsoft: "If you think about culture, it is all about your people and frankly, I think also we know that from a business perspective, it is all about your ability to attract and retain exceptional talent. So I think that connection from the beginning in terms of Satya believing that HR and the HR function was something strategic and something important was there from the beginning."
  • How Kathleen has worked closely with CEO Satya Nadella to develop the culture at Microsoft over the last five years: "Satya really said, I want to be intentional about defining our aspire to culture and then really being intentional about enabling that aspire to culture. Take your time before you just declare your culture, because then there is a lot of hard work after that to really make that a reality."
  • Key learnings from the culture journey: "i) If your CEO can embody the culture, you are espousing, that is a huge force multiplier; ii) Making sure that you are communicating about the culture consistently; iii) Satya has a town hall or a QA every month with the entire company. And that is a consistent drum beat for him to talk about our culture, our mission, obviously also our strategy and our worldview; iv) Every year we are trying to do new things to continue to evolve our culture; and, v) Embed the culture into all of your people processes."
  • Embedding culture into all of Microsoft's people processes: "We changed how we recruit, where we recruited, we changed how we promote folks. We invested in training and development, with a focus on our culture. The other key thing was using data to debunk myths and to help people see via data, what the truth was (and) use that data to help change behaviours."
  • The importance of the people analytics team led by Dawn Klinghoffer to Kathleen as Chief People Officer: "I was lucky when I stepped into this role to already have this incredible people analytics team that was already established. It is not just how do you go from data to insights, but then can you operationalise them and somehow institutionalise those insights in terms of your tools, your manager, training, and your people processes."
  • The role of people data in supporting decision making and busting myths: "The more you can empower people or managers with data and insights around the behaviour, that is going to help them be successful. That is a force multiplier in terms of driving the business and changing the trajectory of the business."
  • The impact of continuous listening and how a daily pulse of 2,500 employees has helped shape Microsoft’s approach to hybrid working: "We absolutely relied on our listening systems, we have relied on our daily pulse and just the incredible insights that the team has been able to deliver from that. We have relied on the connection between that and workplace analytics and really looking at how people are spending their time and the connection between that and employee sentiment and finding the insights from there."
  • How Microsoft is adopting Viva internally: "We are really looking to aggregate all the institutional knowledge of every employee and make it available anytime, anywhere."
  • The impact of the pandemic on technology and employee experience: "As awful as the last year has been, on some level the silver lining has been, that I do think it has accelerated our tools and the innovation from a tools perspective, but I think even more importantly, it has accelerated the flexibility that we can provide to employees."

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested or involved in people strategy, culture and inclusion. So that’s business leaders, CHROs and anyone in a People Analytics, Learning, Talent Management or HR Business Partner role.

Data is absolutely key to everything we are doing. It is not just related to one dimension of the (People) function. It is needed in all areas and fuels the insights that helps us make better decisions in all aspects of the business


LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

To listen to the Podcast and read the transcript of my discussion with Kathleen, head over to myHRfuture by clicking on this link: Creating a Data Driven Culture in HR at Microsoft.


WATCH THE VIDEOS

As well as the podcast, there will be a couple of videos available on the myHRfuture YouTube channel highlighting two of the topics Kathleen and I cover in our conversation. In this clip Kathleen describes how Microsoft transformed its culture:

Recommended by LinkedIn

Strategies to Design a Winning People Experience…
Hacking HR 2 months ago
How will AI transform the role of HR?
David Green 🇺🇦 10 months ago
The best HR & People Analytics articles of July 2021
David Green 🇺🇦 3 years ago


GET INVOLVED

If you enjoyed listening to this week's podcast episode, I'd be grateful if you could take the following steps:

  1. Please subscribe to the Digital HR Leaders podcast and weekly newsletter to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
  2. Please take the time to rate the show on iTunes. We rely on your feedback and support to make the podcast, so this is very helpful!
  3. Who would you like to see me interview in future episodes? Let me know in the comments below.
  4. Lastly, don’t forget to share on social media with your friends and colleagues, your support is always greatly appreciated!


THANK YOU

A huge thank you to Kathleen for sharing her time, expertise and inspirational work she is leading at Microsoft. You can follow Kathleen on LinkedIn.

I also recommend digging into the following resources by or featuring Kathleen to learn more about the work she is leading at Microsoft:

Thanks to Ian Bailie, Manpreet Randhawa, Caroline Styr and the myHRfuture team for creating the Digital HR Leaders podcast and video series. 

No alt text provided for this image

FIG 1: Source - Microsoft 2021 Work Trends Index

__________________________________________________________________________

CATCH UP ON THE DIGITAL HR LEADERS PODCAST

If you haven't listened to all of the episodes of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, you can catch up now by clicking on the links below.

__________________________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David is a globally respected author, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As Managing Partner and Executive Director at Insight222, he has overall responsibility for the delivery of the Insight222 People Analytics Program, which supports the advancement of people analytics in over 70 global organisations. Prior to co-founding Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at TrustSphere, David accumulated over 20 years experience in the human resources and people analytics fields, including as Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations increase value, impact and focus from the wise and ethical use of people analytics. David also hosts the Digital HR Leaders Podcast and is an instructor for Insight222's myHRfuture Academy. His book, co-authored with Jonathan Ferrar, Excellence in People Analytics: How to use Workforce Data to Create Business Value will be published in the summer of 2021.

Data Driven HR Monthly Data Driven HR Monthly

Data Driven HR Monthly

139,400 followers

+ Subscribe
Michael Tripodi

VP Sales - Leading NA New Logo Acquisition at Gloat

3y

Chris Mucha - FYI

Like
Reply
1 Reaction
David McLean

LinkedIn Top Voices in Company Culture USA & Canada I Executive Advisor | HR Leader (CHRO) | Leadership Coach | Talent Strategy | Change Leadership | Innovation Culture | Healthcare | Higher Education

3y

Thanks David Green

Like
Reply
1 Reaction
Ambrosia Vertesi

Chief People Officer @ Ironclad

3y

Excellent insights and learnings! Thank you for sharing with us David and Kathleen.

Like
Reply
1 Reaction
Peter Olatunde Clay

Client Solutions & Relationship Manager | Market Expansion, Revenue

3y

As little as it is, it is highly informative, educative and foundational. Without data, there is no future. The present is bleak while the past is an event without lessons to learn from. We live in a progressive society heavily relying on the data of the past to take an ideal decision for the present. Africa's future lies with data management in all of its ramifications to reduce waste, cut cost and provide quality life.

Like
Reply
2 Reactions
See more comments

To view or add a comment, sign in

More articles by this author

See all

Insights from the community

Others also viewed

Explore topics