Data Analytics is something that has been growing in importance within Talent Acquisition for the last few years. Most companies are just starting out on their journey with data but there are some who are now sophisticated enough to benefit from a more predictive and data-driven talent acquisition mindset.
One of these pioneers in this area is Cisco and my guest this week is Ian Bailie their Global Head of Talent Acquisition Operations.
In the interview we discuss:
• How Cisco and built and scaled an in house talent trends division
• The key performance metrics they measure and how this is evolving
• What they have learnt from the data and what has surprised them
• The move towards to predictive analytics and how Talent Acquisition is able to influence higher level decisions in the wider business
Ian also talks about the plans for the future and gives his tips on how to get started with talent analytics
Thanks to HR Tech World for helping to organize the interview
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Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?
Ep 46: Talent Analytics At Cisco
Support for this podcast comes from Cielo. Cielo is the world's leading provider of global recruitment process outsourcing and related solutions, spanning the talent lifecycle from employer branding to onboarding. Cielo takes a we-become-you approach to RPO that provides their clients with customised solutions that match industries, geographies and business priorities. To find out more, visit www.cielotallant.com. Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 46 of the Recreating Future Podcast. Data analytics is something that has been growing an importance in talent acquisition over the last few years. One company who are really making talent analytics work for them is Cisco. My guest this week is Ian Bailey, Cisco's global head of talent acquisition operations. Keep listening to find out what they've done, how they're doing it and what they're finding out. Hi Ian and welcome to the podcast. Hey Matt, thank you very much. Good to talk to you. Could you just sort of introduce yourself and tell us a bit about who you work for and what you do? Yeah sure, so my name is Ian Bailey and I am the global head for talent acquisition and people planning operations at Cisco Systems and so really what that means is that I lead the organisation in Cisco that supports our recruiters and TA organisation and then also all of our workforce planning activities from an operational perspective. So that might be analytics, it could be systems and tools, programme management, change management and all of our sourcing and pipelining activity. That sounds like a very big job. It's a lot of fun, it changes every day. Fantastic and Cisco is obviously a kind of a large complex organisation. What are the sort of key challenges you have in talent acquisition there? Yeah so I think what's happening with Cisco at the moment that's really interesting from a TA perspective is that we are going through a transition as a company where we're starting to move into some of the growth areas like security and cloud and the internet of everything versus our kind of traditional operations around kind of networking and routing and so really as we get into those new growth areas that's changed the types of talent that we look to attract to Cisco and it's meant some different challenges from our hiring perspective. I can imagine and one of the things that I know is a key focus of yours is data analytics and predictive analytics and workforce planning and I know you're doing some very innovative things in that space. Tell us a bit about the journey that you've been on with that. What sort of role of analytics played and how has that sort of developed? Yeah sure so I think something that we've gone on which is a similar journey I think that a lot of companies go on and everyone's kind of at a different place in that in that journey but it's really moving from just being able to kind of be very reactive and looking at data spending a lot of time manipulating data to be honest and you know merging spreadsheets those kind of things which is where we used to spend a lot of our time from an analytics perspective or you know from the perspective of the analysts to then starting to try and automate as much as possible get the data into the hands of the people that need it from a you know self-service point of view as much as we can but also add some kind of rigor around what metrics we look at so you know what is it that we are actually deciding to measure why are we measuring those things applying targets and ready trying to grow our performance in the right direction against you know those metrics that we consider to be key performance indicators having regular ops reviews you know that kind of thing and then once you know we laid the groundwork for that and really started to feel like we had some maturity particularly in the recruiting space around what we were looking at and why and what behavior that was driving then I think you know we were able to then turn our attention to try to correlate you know between the different metrics understand what you know what impact changing one data point might have on another or you know taking an action and how that might impact something else so you know if we're looking at time to fill and hiring managers satisfaction and quality of hire and some of those things then if you're moving what the needle in one metric how does that impact the others and really what behavior are you driving to kind of continue to move the organization forward against against the right strategy and so that kind of conversation started to become more and more common you know but to do that you have to lay the foundation and then I think only then can you start to then look to the future and try to think around starting to kind of scratch the surface around predictive and really starting to influence the business and have more strategic conversations with the business. So just to dig into that a little bit deeper what were the key metrics you were measuring and what did you actually find to be the most the most useful of those because I know there's there's lots of debate around this in terms of you know what metrics actually actually me what did that look like for you guys? Yeah and I think it really depends on the organization as well so I'd never say there's you know one metric that's the perfect metric right it's going to depend on what what you're driving for and what problem you're trying to solve but from our perspective you know I think just like everyone else we started off by measuring probably what was easier to measure you know what we thought we could measure versus something that was maybe you know more strategic and that's the journey we went on where we then started to question why we were measuring some of the more simple process kind of metrics like time to fill and and if that was actually something that the business cared about or did the business care about you know as much as they might care about time is that the the most important thing to them or is something like the quality of the individual that we bring in and how they fare you know six months 12 months into the job is is that more important if we're losing people within six months right so early attrition six months attrition something like that that that's a problem you know that's a number we want to keep down because that is a reflection I think not just of of how well we're doing from the hiring process but also actually the hiring manager and and and the business around the decision that they're ultimately making to hire that candidate you know as a recruiting organization we can present a good slate of candidates hopefully but then ultimately who gets interviewed and then hired we we can consult on but the old the final decision sits with the business and and so there's dual accountability there as well and so I think where does metrics that start to link more closely to what the business is trying to achieve as well as what we're trying to achieve as an organization then I think those start to become more more meaningful and then something else that we're looking at a lot more at the moment is is candidate experience you know the experience that the candidate has throughout the recruitment process and then how that might impact you know their overall decision to come to Cisco and then also the experience of the hiring manager and is there are there sort of specific technologies that you're that you're using to measure this what's what's been the most useful the tools you've used to to really sort of come up you know get to the bottom and come up with this data yeah so it's saying in terms of the actual you know kind of measurement there's not necessarily a specific technology if you're looking at experience then often that comes down to a survey you know so trying to keep that super simple and keep your response rates high and and some of those things to get that anecdotal feedback is is always you know good advice that that we've kind of honed over over the years to make sure that we can get the get the best results I mean something that we find actually for things like CANS experience and hiring manager experience that is the most useful information is often the free text kind of comments and obviously they're usually the hardest to analyze so we've been working more recently with software that will help you analyze those free text comments and start to kind of figure out was it a positive or a negative statement you know what was the sentiment what was the area of the process that maybe the comment referred to things like that to try and dig through that rich data and and start to get more quantitative you know information from it and then I think you know some of the other things that we've seen success moves have just been really around making sure that people have access to the information that they need when they need it and I know that sounds super simple but it's it's really hard often in a large organization and I hear this from my peers as well to kind of put the right tools in the hands of the the managers or the recruiters where they can very quickly slice and dice data and get at the information that they need to drive the right conversation unfortunately I think we we often spend a lot you know far too much time kind of getting to the point of producing the data rather than spending our time looking at the data and something that we've tried to do is is really automate as much of that as possible and and allow people the time to then really dig into the information do the right root cause analysis and then have a meaningful conversation and once you've sort of established this data internally which it sounds like you've done a great job of doing how do you sort of bring a predictive angle to that and is there any external data that you kind of throw into the the mix to move forward yeah so I think from a predictive perspective I would say that's still something where we're exploring I know there's a few companies that have made you know some progress in that area and it's something that we're we're continuing to kind of play around with around you know how can you predict attrition and things like that I think where we have been able to add value in that area is is in bringing in to your point the external data around the candidate market you know talent pool analysis that kind of stuff and then what we've done is we've used that information you could say in a kind of predictive sense to help inform site strategy like you know location strategy in terms of where we hire both at a kind of low level in terms of you know maybe a department manager or functional leader kind of level but also from a facilities workplace resources kind of level where if we've been thinking about opening a new office in a part of Asia for example then the way that we've been able to influence those decisions is by doing a full market scan and you know on the surface it might seem like there's a great talent pool in a particular location that maybe we're looking to expand in and you know maybe it ticks all the boxes from a cost perspective and you know from the ability to get office space and things like that but then when you look at the talent one example that we had quite recently we started to realize that although there was you know let's well make the number up let's say like a million people out there that were graduating each year that had the requisite skills when you dug a bit deeper it became clear that there wasn't the right level of experience or international experience you know maybe English language experience right or indeed experience of working within international organizations and so the talent pool just shrank and shrank and shrank as we actually started to look more at the type of people we would consider hiring and the decision was then made to not open an office in that location and so I think from that point of view we've been able to really start to kind of influence some of the higher level decisions we're making with the business around you know where we expand and where we look to hire in the future I mean that's fantastic in terms of the way that you're able to have an influence on those on those kind of business decisions how did you kind of build that that influence and that trust was it was it from the robustness of the data or was it just sort of part of the part of the Cisco culture yes a good question I think it is a journey I don't think you know that happens overnight I think the quality of the data and being able to speak to the data is an important part of that you know really being able to provide kind of quality insights present them in a clear way but then also to be able to explain those insights and be able to talk to them knowledge believe and then I think you know it was a kind of drip effect whereby you know we worked on this for a couple of areas and then before you knew it there were a lot of different parts of the business coming to us requesting this type of information and so I think you know often I find with with data is once you once you actually provide a need and start to get that information out there then then the floodgates can can really open because people often you know are desperate for the information and so that's kind of what we've seen is you know in the absence of having this information the the business has just been really glad that we can provide that intelligence and and help them kind of navigate through that that decision-making process fantastic and from all the data that you've had the the learnings that you've seen is there what's the one thing that's really surprised you that sort of come out because you're collecting and analyzing this data yeah I think what's really interesting for us is as a technology company I think there's we have our headquarters in San Jose and obviously a lot of our hiring takes place there and as the the talent market starts to become more and more challenging in that region then we start to explore you know where else can we go to find the the right talent you know elsewhere in in the US and elsewhere in the world and and so there's a lot of assumptions that the people tend to have around that and I think being able to kind of respond to those assumptions and provide really crisp data around that is incredibly compelling but it's also something that's been a huge gap you know potentially in terms of what we can deliver internally in the past or it's been something that's been very expensive to be honest to go out and buy in and so to kind of grow that muscle in-house and and really be able to kind of provide that information across Cisco a very in a very cost effective way is is what's been kind of really good about what we've been able to do and then you know I think what's been surprising I guess is the is the huge take-up of that service and and how keen people are now to get that information you know when when historically it just hasn't been available I mean it's brilliant that that's been so successful for you I know that a lot of organizations are sort of looking at data and analytics and in this area at the moment and in some kind of cases they're sort of struggling to know where the best place to start is what would your advice be to another organization that's just starting this journey yeah I think you know you don't need to spend a fortune on this I think what's been interesting about the way that we've grown the team we do have kind of three or four people aligned to this work now but what's been interesting about the way that we've grown that team is it really started off by where we had a really kind of senior level sorcerer who also had a bit of an analytical mindset and the combination of those two skills meant that we were able to kind of harness you know what their development area and where they wanted to kind of progress with this and and start to kind of build some of this ability in house we then you know had one or two people to the team to kind of augment that and deal with the demand but but really in terms of how much it might cost just to do a single kind of talent map or talent pool analysis you know externally you're talking maybe 10, 15 cage time it becomes very quick to justify that you know bringing that expense in and and funding one or two headcount instead but I think what you need to make sure and this is where we were lucky I think but I don't I don't think it's something that other organizations couldn't emulate is that you do have the right skill set for that you know having that blend of someone who really understands the recruitment role and the talent market but also has a bit of an analytical mindset is is kind of a rare combination and so if you can find someone like that or couple a great saucer with a great analyst and just you know pair them side by side then I think you need that combination right if you're just trying to go at this with a core analyst skill set then I think you're missing that kind of information and knowledge about the external market and likewise if you just go from a sourcing perspective then you you'll struggle to kind of get get someone who can maybe tell the story of the data and and so I do think finding people who are keen to do this to be honest you know in a smaller organization it could be 10 or 20 percent of somebody's time you know in addition to filling requisitions and things and so as I say I really don't think it's a huge investment it's more about getting someone who has a passion in this area and a bit of a mix of those skills and then there's a lot of tools out there that are available you know often organizations are actually investing in in platforms like LinkedIn and so starting with something like LinkedIn is a great way to start to scan the market but then there's a lot of other tools and aggregators out there that are actually free that can start to give you a view on talent pools and doing market scans it's just then a matter of kind of pulling all that data together and visualizing it you know and making it something that an executive can very quickly understand and get a story from so what's next for you guys where where where is this going the future what what is your what does your journey look like over the next sort of 18 to 24 months yeah so I think something that's been relatively new to my job title making it quite long now but um is that people planning piece and really that's something that we haven't had a kind of enterprise wide cohesive strategy around at Cisco in the past we've had areas that you know have done it well but we haven't necessarily come at it from an enterprise perspective and so what we're trying to do there is really look at how can we build a lot of this information to help our decisions around what was planning as I said we started to kind of move in that direction with site and location strategy but then also how do we really start to understand internal supply within our company i.e. the skill sets of our employees and how they match up to you know kind of where we're going from a strategic perspective with with roles and and the different growth areas that we're moving into and then how does that compare to the external supply information that we're already you know getting quite good at pulling together and and I think as you start to merge those two things together and start to kind of build an inventory of of information if you like an internal CRM of your your talent internally then really as you start to go down that workforce planning journey of linking the overall strategy to a to a workforce plan then you can start to make that decision more intelligibly around you know do we go out to the market and hire hire in where we have gaps you know do we look at building that skill set internally you know is it diverse does it acquire etc. and kind of how you understand what action to take as part of your your talent plan or your people plan it's it's critical that you're looking inward and understand the skill sets of your your own workforce and then you can understand also what the external talent market looks like and how those two compare and so really for us that's kind of where we're going next is trying to tie all of those threads together we're kind of working on a concept that we're calling the talent cloud whereby we can really build a tool in the house that employees can use to understand where they have personal skill gaps find learning and development opportunities aligned to those how they can maybe take like stretch assignments to to build up their skills but also how they can have visibility into the skills of the future for Cisco and start to kind of manage their own careers and build their own path to to any of those future roles that might kind of benefit Cisco in the future and so as we kind of provide that mechanism for the for the employees internally we can then obviously look at how we use that for development and growing skills in house and then we can couple that with the external data to inform our hiring strategy. So final question I know you're speaking at HR TechWorld in London in a couple of weeks time is there anything you're sort of particularly looking forward to you know from the event in terms of sort of hearing from other people or conversations that might be happening there? Yeah absolutely I mean I'll kind of sit in on the other sessions as well for the data and analytics threat that I'm on and I just love hearing what everyone else is doing to be honest because I think so much of the work that we end up doing is you know is always driven by the priority for our own company and and it's events like this that allow us to really understand kind of what everyone else is doing and there's always you know a good few bits of information that I take away that are great ideas that other companies are doing that obviously we haven't thought of and then I think often it's nice to learn that other people are often dealing with the same challenges that you are and you know haven't figured it all out yet either and so yeah I'm really excited to hear what other companies are doing and obviously to share our story and see what people think of that. Absolutely Ian thank you very much this will need to be. No worries thank you very much. My thanks to Ian Bailey and also thanks to HR TechWorld who helped set up the interview. You can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and on Stitcher and you can find all 45 previous episodes at www.rfpodcast.com. On that site you can subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me. If you're enjoying the podcast I'd be really grateful if you could write a review on iTunes. Thanks very much for listening I'll be back next week and I hope you'll join me. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]