Turning Data into Insights that Inspire Action

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Zahina Bibi, a leader passionate about leveraging people analytics to drive better business outcomes. Currently heading People Insights & Analytics Transformation at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, Zahina has over 15 years of experience enabling data-driven decision-making.

In our conversation, Zahina provided invaluable perspectives on the skills needed to thrive in people analytics, how to drive the adoption of self-service analytics, and the growing role of AI. But above all, her words reinforced the tremendous potential of people data to transform organisations when focused on solving real business problems.

Read on for Zahina's advice on igniting curiosity through data fluency, the power of visual storytelling, and why soft skills represent the "secret sauce" in people analytics impact. Her bold vision and human-centred philosophy teach established and aspiring practitioners how to unleash the promise of workforce intelligence.

V: How did you get started in people analytics?

Zahina: I fell into people analytics in a roundabout way. I worked as a management information analyst in my early twenties after temping. Many of my responsibilities involved repetitive reporting - repeatedly creating the same daily, weekly and monthly reports and dashboards. While I was good at getting the work done, I began questioning why we produced many of these reports and their purpose.

I've always had a naturally inquisitive mindset and been curious about processes. I could try to disrupt the status quo and make things easier or more efficient. This sparked my passion for innovating and simplifying or improving processes using data insights. Although some of my colleagues were content with basic repetitive reporting, I saw an opportunity to bring more value.

My interest grew as I started exploring how to leverage better the data we had access to. I enjoyed the creativity and problem-solving in figuring out how our data could help answer important business questions. This set me on a path in my career of constant learning and growth, driven by the ambition to simplify and enhance how organisations use people's data. The ability to glean actionable insights and tell impactful stories with data drew me further into this evolving field of people analytics.

V: What is your most memorable people analytics project?

Zahina: Implementing a complete reporting and analytics service following an SAP SuccessFactors implementation was a major people analytics project I led, first at HSBC and then more recently at Standard Chartered. In both initiatives, there was an existing system being replaced by SuccessFactors. The expectation is to maintain separate analytics capabilities before and after the transition.

However, my passion and vision was to integrate data and reporting seamlessly so leaders and stakeholders would not have to go to multiple systems or sources for people's insights. I wanted to thoroughly understand and properly model all the relevant HR data within the tooling architecture from the start rather than just stitching together separate analytics processes.

A key focus was automating connections and mapping between data sets as much as possible. My goal was to structure and organise the data to enable self-service access to analytics. This eliminated the need for manually manipulating giant Excel spreadsheets to generate reports and insights, which was the status quo then.

The project was enormously complex, especially at an organisation like Standard Chartered, which was one-third the size of HSBC. However, the business impact made the challenges worthwhile. We successfully went from thousands of disparate reports and dashboards to just over 600 strategic ones. We also increased automation and simplified integration between systems for more efficiency.

Although still an ongoing journey, the outcomes have been more self-service analytics, reduced reporting burden, and integrated workforce insights for leaders - ultimately enabling data-driven talent decisions. Reflecting on how much manual effort we eliminated through upfront design and automation motivates me in this work.

V: What are the key skills and mindset required to succeed in people analytics?

Zahina: the technical skills required for people analytics are learnable for aspiring professionals, especially with the wealth of training resources available today. You do not need a math degree or be a coder to get started in this field. The foundational competencies around data, statistics, and analysis can be developed over time.

However, I cannot stress enough that so-called "soft" skills like creative problem-solving, critical thinking, and influencing stakeholders are vital to success in people analytics. These skills enable you to translate technical outputs into business impact. We, as an industry, focus intensely on data science capabilities but not enough on these other differentiating talents.

Creative problem-solving lets you frame the right questions, identify metrics tailored to each unique business problem, and generate innovative solutions. This ability to apply analytics versatility based on the context is important yet often overlooked.

Influencing stakeholders and securing buy-in is also pivotal. No matter how groundbreaking your analysis is, the insights must resonate with leaders and drive change. People analytics professionals must be able to communicate data findings compellingly and make a strategic case for recommendations.

These soft skills empower you to be proactive: to identify problems early, structure data effectively, and derive insights that inspire action. While still developing your technical analytics skills, hone your creativity, business acumen, and communication abilities in parallel. This multifaceted toolkit unlocks the full value of people data for organisations.

The visualisation elements are so critical in the reality of the world's beauty. And we're going to see more designers coming into this space.

V: Do you have a favourite people analytics metric or approach?

Zahina: One insightful people analytics metric I introduced early in my career was tracking new joiner attrition. At the time, I was working at HSBC, which significantly focused on reducing overall attrition, given its large retail workforce. Attrition was a perpetual challenge, especially amongst new hires who left within their first 2-3 months. This represented a major cost due to recruiting investment and a pressing business issue.

I created a specific metric looking at new joiner attrition trends - the percentage of new hires leaving within a short time window, segmented by different employee groups. By splitting the attrition data, we could pinpoint pockets within the workforce with particularly high new joiner attrition. This allowed targeted action to stem attrition amongst these vulnerable segments, which is still unique to the organisation.

Before this, attrition was tracked at an aggregate level, which masked some nuances. Introducing this metric brought focus to a pressing problem area - our significant upfront investments into attracting and onboarding new talent that was quickly lost. It also exemplified people analytics' value of tailoring measurement to illuminate strategic talent issues.

Monitoring this metric over time, in combination with exit surveys, helped HSBC identify drivers of regretted attrition amongst new joiners. Leaders could then implement more effective onboarding and mentorship to improve retention. This ability to link data to tangible actions that improved business outcomes made further joiner attrition a particularly useful and insightful people metric.

V: How do you encourage end users to adopt people analytics self-service?

Zahina: Encouraging widespread adoption of people analytics self-service is crucial yet challenging. The main obstacle I've observed is fear - apprehension amongst business leaders, managers, and employees around interacting directly with data tools. Some perceive it as intimidating or requiring advanced technical skills. There is often hesitation to rely on something other than centralised analytics teams for reporting.

To help demystify self-service analytics, Standard Chartered launched an HR-wide data fluency program accessible to the business more broadly. This consisted of simple, interactive training content curated by our team and made available across our core learning experience platform, diSCover. It provided baseline education on concepts like data sources, reporting, visualisation, and analysis applications to build confidence.

Critically, the program had strong sponsorship from senior leadership. This signalled that basic data fluency is a core competency expected of all employees as data permeates every function. Mandating completion of select modules through performance scorecards drove participation and adoption.

While the training is not intensive enough to create expert analysts, it establishes familiarity. Employees can understand how to access self-service dashboards, visualise data, spot trends, and extract insights independently. This reduces reliance on intermediaries and empowers leaders with direct access to people's information to guide their teams.

No approach will work for 100% of employees. However, lowering the perception of data as scary and inaccessible for the majority establishes a fertile environment for a data-driven culture to take root. Ongoing feedback and coaching help sustain these mindset shifts over time. But creating that initial spark of curiosity is an important step.

V: How do you stay current with the latest innovations and best practices in people analytics?

Zahina: Staying on top of innovations and best practices in people analytics requires continuous learning and an active curiosity. There are always new tools, approaches, and technologies to explore in this rapidly changing field.

I rely heavily on leading influencers who aggregate and curate content to filter the most relevant updates. For example, a former McKinsey consultant, Keith McNulty, consistently shares great insights on LinkedIn around analytics, operating models and capability building. Subscribing to thought leaders like David Green and the Insight222 team surfaces monthly emerging research and case studies.

Attending conferences, networking events, and tradeshows exposes me to new concepts from across industries. I try to participate in these knowledge-sharing opportunities as much as possible, in person or virtually. The shift online has expanded access to these events.

Interacting with peers, mentors, and collaborative social platforms keeps me connected to real-world developments. Seeing how other organisations innovate and hearing about their experiences brings a fresh perspective.

But staying current requires self-driven learning, too. I devote regular time to upskilling on new tools and techniques through online courses, tutorials and communities. Continuous skills development and knowledge reinforcement sustain my proficiency in this fast-changing domain.

Above all, maintaining a curious, growth-focused mindset keeps me engaged in ongoing exploration. There are always new data sources and analytical approaches on the horizon that could add value.

V: What is a current trend or topic in people analytics that you think is particularly important right now?

Zahina: AI is a trend I see as pivotal in people analytics, even though it presents unique challenges compared to other functions. People data is highly regulated regarding privacy and allowable uses, which limits some AI applications directly on employee information. However, AI's potential comes from enabling comparisons between internal workforce data and external talent market data.

For example, we use a powerful tool called Faethm at Standard Chartered, which leverages AI to analyse public job listings and LinkedIn profiles. This provides valuable insights on talent availability across different locations that help inform our workforce planning and recruitment strategies.

While we exercise caution applying AI directly to our employees' data, we can ethically utilise it to mine external data sets. This allows a more nuanced analysis of labour market trends, skill evolutions, hiring competition and other factors that would be impossible to gather manually.

As people analytics matures compared to fields like sales or finance that have applied AI aggressively, we must lay the right data governance foundations. However, there is tremendous upside in intelligently leveraging AI on publicly available information to elevate internal data. This allows holistic visibility into the talent landscape that guides strategic decisions around where we source talent, how we develop skills, and how we remain competitive.

Navigating AI carefully and responsibly considering regulations will be an ongoing journey. However, combining external AI-enabled insights with our workforce knowledge unlocks huge potential. With an ethical approach, AI can bring our people strategies into sharper focus.

V: What is the future of people analytics in the next 5-10 years?

Zahina: I see people analytics entering a new era of elevated maturity and impact over the next 5-10 years driven by automation and AI. A key shift will be the automation of repetitive reporting tasks and basic data manipulation that many teams still handle manually. This will allow people analytics professionals to focus less on "number crunching" activities and operate more strategically.

However, despite the commentary around automation, many organisations still have large offshore or centralised teams of analysts churning out manual standard reports. We will see a consistent upskilling and evolution of skill sets away from these transactional roles. Data scientists and analytics engineers will become more prominent, developing and deploying algorithms and AI to generate powerful workforce insights automatically.

The nature of insights will also change with emerging techniques like predictive analytics and sentiment analysis. Statistical analysis and data visualisation design will advance significantly as new technologies arise. People analytics teams will need to stay adept at these cutting-edge skills.

Most importantly, teams will need communication designers and storytelling experts who can compellingly translate complex analytical outputs into digestible recommendations for business leaders. Analytics will become a core input for strategic decisions rather than a side activity. The results will be productised and embedded in workflows, moving away from process-centric delivery.

Overall, I see exponential possibilities as people analytics leverages exponential technologies over the next decade. But we must thoughtfully shape the direction based on ethics, privacy, and human needs as automation and AI transform the function.

V: What do you enjoy most about your role in people analytics?

Zahina: A few key aspects keep me motivated and engaged in my role in people analytics. First is the constant change and evolution. Reflecting on the advancements in the field in just the past 15 years is remarkable. I started creating manual reports in old tools like Oracle Discoverer. Now, we have self-service visualisation powerhouses like Power BI. The technology enables such superior analytical capabilities compared to manual processes.

This rapid pace of change constantly exposes me to new learnings. I get to play with innovative approaches and cutting-edge tools. For someone passionate about simplifying processes and leveraging technology to gain efficiency like me, it's energising and fulfilling work. People analytics perfectly blends my strengths around data, technology and business strategy.

Another motivator is the huge potential for people analytics to guide better workforce management decisions. As economic and talent pressures rise, organisations need advanced insights to compete. Our field is poised to have an enormous strategic impact based on the workforce intelligence we can deliver to leaders. I find this very inspiring and meaningful.

Finally, being on the frontier of an emerging discipline is intrinsically rewarding. The community of practitioners is still small but growing rapidly. Being an earlier adopter of people analytics through a mix of aptitude and luck puts me in a great position to help shape the function's evolution. I stay engaged, visualising how we can continue to elevate the value people analytics offers organisations through innovation. There's still so much more potential to unlock.