Companies have been investing in People Analytics and Industrial Psychology since the late 1800s, going back to Fredrick Taylor (time and motion studies) and Carl Jung (psychological types). The original idea was to scientifically manage work, using data to measure labor, strength, motion, and later engagement, skills, and leadership.

All this effort resulted in thousands of books and tools to measure employee engagement, employee experience, productivity, and organization design.

Ultimately where we landed was a new domain we call People Analytics: using people-related data to monitor, improve, and optimize business outcomes. And this journey, which I’ve been a part of for 30 years, resulted in a massive investment in HR technology platforms, engagement surveys, sentiment analysis tools, and more and more models for trust, leadership, management, wellbeing, and employee growth.

All that energy, deep thinking, and investment now lands in a new world, one we call “Systemic Business Analytics.” We use this name because it’s time to stop isolating people data from business data and running this domain as “projects,” rather think about it as an integrated analytics system.

In other words, as I explain in the podcast, let’s move forward and take all the people data we capture and embed it right into our existing business measurement systems. Instead of creating a “people data warehouse” to run reports and analysis on HR information, we can use that valuable information and put it right in the hands of business leaders and managers.

Our new research, “The Journey to Systemic Business Analytics,” details this journey and shows you our four level maturity model. (You can view the maturity model here.)

Today fewer than 10% of companies are doing this well, but that’s still a large number. And as I describe in the podcast, AI is going to light a bonfire under this space and rapidly accelerate this direction.

Additional Information

People Analytics, A Complex Domain, Is About To Be Transformed by AI.

People Analytics Certificate Course in The Josh Bersin Academy

Systemic Analytics: A New Approach

Galileo, The AI Assistant for Everything HR

This week I summarize my meetings and discussions with clients in NYC and you can see we covered many topics.

Here’s the AI summary, which is pretty good.

In this conversation, Josh Bersin discusses the evolving landscape of AI platforms, particularly focusing on Microsoft’s positioning and the challenges of creating a universal AI agent. He delves into the complexities of government efficiency, emphasizing the institutional challenges faced in re-engineering government operations.

The conversation also highlights the automation of work tasks and the need for businesses to decompose job functions for better efficiency.

Bersin stresses the importance of expertise in HR, advocating for a shift towards full stack professionals who possess a broad understanding of various HR functions.

Finally, he addresses the impending disruption in Learning and Development (L&D) due to AI advancements, predicting a significant transformation in how L&D professionals will manage knowledge and skills.

Additional Information

Inside Microsoft’s struggles with Copilot (Business Insider Exclusive)

Hyper-Growth Through Efficiency: Theme For The New Era

Digital Twins, Digital Employees, And Agents Everywhere

Chatbot Architecture: MS Copilot, Joule, Galileo, and The Future of L&D

In today’s podcast I discuss the organizational, institutional, and societal impacts of AI. And I’m not predicting what “could happen” but rather sharing “what is happening now.” As you’ll hear, AI plays a role in our political issues but an even greater role in our careers, pay, rewards, organization structure, and culture.

A recent AI adoption study by McKinsey found that 74% of companies have at least one AI application in place, and 20% have 3 or more. So we’re already seeing the impact. As you’ll hear, this is a technology that people are worried about at the moment, so we need to consider many levels of change management throughout our organizations.

Chapters

00:00 The Rapid Rise of AI and Automation 05:13 Job Transformation and AI Impact 08:56 Privacy Concerns in the Age of AI 12:47 Organizational Design and Talent Density 20:48 Leadership in the AI Era 29:54 Embracing AI: The Path Forward

Additional Information

Hyper-Growth Through Efficiency: Theme For The New Era

How To Create Talent Density

Were These Layoffs Inevitable? Perhaps, But Here’s How It Happened.

People as Competitive Advantage: Certificate Course In The Josh Bersin Academy

After decades of effort and growth, only around 10% of People Analytics teams deliver strategic business value. Many are still focused on traditional analysis of engagement, retention, leadership pipelines, and other HR measures.

In this WhatWorks podcast I talk openly with Paul Rubenstein, the Chief Customer Officer at Visier, about how this market has evolved. And in the conversation you can learn about Visier and the role of integrated, AI-platforms for the important topic of managing corporate HR and work data.

Our newest research on People Analytics is coming out this month, stay tuned for much more detail on this topic.

Additional Information

People Analytics, Evolved: A Systemic Approach

Certificate Course in People Analytics from The Josh Bersin Company

This week I discuss the issue of DEI (must it DIE?), inclusion, and corporate culture in the Trump Era. We just completed a 1.5 hour discussion with 30+ companies on the impact of the 2024 election and regardless of your political position, some people are worried. It’s clear to me that DEI (or whatever you call it) is not going away, but in this podcast I reframe the topic and give you perspectives from some of the largest companies in the world.

Additional Information

Are Diversity And Inclusion Programs Going Away?

Elevating Equity: A Certificate Program From The Josh Bersin Academy

Chief Diversity Officer: The Toughest Job in Business

In this episode of the WhatWorks podcast, Paul Walker, CEO of FranklinCovey, talks with Kathi Enderes about FranklinCovey’s history, his own journey of 25 years with the company from frontline employee to CEO, and how the company now helps large organizations like Marriott enable transformational change through individual behavior change, execution excellence, creating a culture of trust and performance, and developing new leadership capabilities.

FranklinCovey (FC) is one of the only publicly traded learning and leadership companies in the world.

Learn about how FC helps Marriott deliver one of the most highly esteemed customer experiences in the hospitality market.

Interviewee: Paul Walker, CEO FranklinCovey

Additional Information

The Surprising Facts About Leadership Development,

Human-Centered Leadership,

Why Are Some Companies More Dynamic Than Others?

This week I discuss how major new AI use-cases have emerged. Imagine if every employee had a personal AI assistant? It’s going to happen. I also discuss LinkedIn Hiring Assistant, Galileo, SuccessFactors Joule, AI for performance management, and a big question: what are you going to do with the 35% productivity you gain?

Coming back from multiple weeks on the road with clients and vendors, this podcast will expand your thinking and help you build your own business case for AI tools and agents in your own HR organization.

While many of us believe AI is a productivity tool, I explain how AI use-cases in HR are for expansive than you realized.

Watch this YouTube to learn about the two ways to think about AI applications.

Keywords:

AI in HR, recruitment, productivity, coaching, job descriptions, LinkedIn, generative AI, HR technology, innovation, use cases

Additional Information

LinkedIn Enters AI Agent Race With LinkedIn Hiring Assistant

Digital Twins, Digital Employees, And Agents Everywhere

SuccessFactors Leapfrogs HCM Capabilities: AI, Skills, Talent Intelligence, And More

Introducing Galileo Pro, Your Personal AI Assistant for HR

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In this week’s podcast I discuss the trend (and need) for job task re-engineering: breaking down our jobs into tasks, so we can effectively use AI and Agents to speed things up. As more and more vendors announce AI Agents to assist with work, our best opportunity for massive improvement is to “re-engineer” how we do things, not just “add agents” to our current jobs.

As I describe, most companies build job titles in a “mashed potato” approach where we squash a bunch of things into one job description. Thanks to AI we can now think about work differently, and this will impact sales, marketing, HR, engineering, and just about every other function in our companies. In some ways this is a return to the old ERP model of “designing work around the software” but this time the Agents are smart, programmable, and learning! So if we do this well we’re going to see massive improvements in productivity.

I talk about Rolls Royce, EPAM, and the PR battle between Salesforce and Microsoft for “Agent-Tech.” Plus I talk about why Chief Learning Officers have a new role in 2025!

Lots of new ideas to think about here.

Please watch this video for more on this topic.

Additional Information

Get your hands on Galileo Professional: your personal AI assistant for HR

Digital Twins, Digital Employees, And Agents Everywhere

Redesigning Work with AI

Vendors Mentioned

Agentforce by Salesforce

Copilot Agents by Microsoft

Sana Labs (the platform under Galileo)