You’ve analyzed the information, identified trends, and found valuable insights – now it’s time to share your findings so they can be used to motivate action and make change. This is where the business acumen, communication, and storytelling skills we discussed in Step 1 will come in handy. That’s because impactful people analytics isn’t about analysis, it’s about how insights are used. It is up to you to ensure your findings are communicated in a way that is heard by others and is best positioned for success. The following tips may help you share your insights in ways most likely to be heard, valued, and acted upon.

Tips for Communicating People Analytics Findings

Tips for Crafting Your Message.

When you share your findings, it’s not enough to simply summarize what you’ve found. You want to know your audience and take a little extra time to tailor your message specifically for them. Different audiences will usually require different approaches, even when you are sharing the same exact findings. For example, you will usually find that business leaders crave strategic implications and want to hear how your findings align with business objectives; they want to hear about things such as key performance indicators (KPIs) or return on investment (ROI). However, when sharing results with a broad group of employees, they’ll be less interested in ROI and more interested in how the information relates to them personally; they’ll want to hear how their feedback contributed to your findings or how the results of your findings may affect their working lives. Before sharing your message, learn as much as you can about the people you will share your message with and consider what is most important to them. Here are some of the more common types of audiences you may be sharing your people analytics findings with along with some general guidelines for crafting a message best suited to each.

Crafting a Message for Business Leaders:

• Focus on Strategic Impact: Align your findings with company goals. Show how your insights can improve business objectives (e.g., productivity, quality, or performance) or streamline talent processes (e.g., talent acquisition, retention, or leadership effectiveness).
• Speak Their Language: Use business-centric language, focusing on metrics like cost savings or increased productivity.

Crafting a Message for Employees:

• Transparency and Respect: Emphasize how employee data is used to improve the organization, not track individuals. Employee privacy, ethics, and trust are some of the most critical aspects of people analytics; always include details on any steps taken to protect employees in the process or outcomes.
• Focus on Improvement: Frame findings as opportunities for growth and development. Highlight how initiatives are being undertaken based on employee feedback and for the benefit of employees.

Crafting a Message for HR Professionals:

• Focus on Collaboration and Practical Application: Focus on providing actionable insights with concrete recommendations for HR initiatives. Partner with HR to brainstorm solutions based on your findings and incorporate their deep talent expertise.
• Go Deeper and Draw Connections: Because supporting people is their job, HR professionals typically appreciate more details and depth from your explanations compared to business leaders or employees. When sharing, frame your findings as a way to support HR decision-making and be sure to include details on your methodology and data sources alongside your key findings. You may also want to include relevant HR metrics and industry benchmarks to provide context and spark discussions about best practices.

General Tips for Crafting Your Message:

• Share Actionable Insights, Not Problems: Don’t just present problems; propose solutions. If the only analyses you have to share present a problem without a solution (e.g., “Employee productivity has dropped 32%”), then you likely have not done enough analysis and are not ready to share a message broadly. Sharing at this point should be with trusted colleagues, your manager, or others who can help you work toward identifying possible explanations, recommendations, or specific actions based on your findings. Once you have these identified, you’ll be better equipped to craft a message that will lead to action.
• Share Findings, Not Your Work: Avoid overwhelming your audience with complex methodologies. Present clear, concise takeaways, using visuals where appropriate to explain relationships. A common mistake in people analytics is to share all of the analyses completed to reach a finding or to give too much detail regarding the methods used to reach the conclusions. While you should give some of this information, you do not need to present it all. That will give you more time and opportunity to focus on presenting the most impactful insights and move toward action. The focus should be on the data-informed insights and how those findings can lead to change. Just make sure you are prepared to answer any questions about the details if someone is interested – an appendix or notes you can email someone later if they desire them are nice ways to make the details available if needed without them getting in the way.
• Focus on Benefits: The commonly used acronym WIFM stands for “What’s in it for me?” This is the question on the mind of anyone you are working with. Focus on delivering value to others, and make sure there is something in it for them. You can do this not just in how you position your communication, but in the work you choose to focus on and by highlighting how the data can bring about improvements for them, the employees, or the organization.

Tips for Choosing the Right Channel.

Once you have settled on the right message for your audience, you need a way to get it to them. The right communication channel can increase the likelihood that your insights are heard, remembered, and acted on.  If you aren’t explicitly asked to share your insights in a certain way like at a meeting or in a report, it can be hard to know when it’s best to send your findings via email, in a meeting, in a prepared a written report, or some other way. If you do know your audience well and you know their preferred communication method, I recommend going with that as your first option. I find it is usually best to meet people where they are and communicate with them in the channels they are comfortable in – this will make them more likely to be receptive to you. But for those times when you haven’t been given a clear method and it’s up to you to decide how best to share your findings, here are some general guidelines that may help.

• When Communicating with Business Leaders: Opt for executive summaries, bite-sized emails with key findings attached, or impactful presentations with key findings provided at the very beginning of the presentation, and write the key takeaways as the title of each presentation slide.
• When Communicating with Employees: Transparency and accessibility are key. Internal communication platforms, company-wide or staff meetings, emails, or visually compelling infographics are usually best suited for this. Depending on what and to whom you are sharing your insights, it is usually best to involve someone from departments such as HR, Communications, and possibly Legal if the messaging will be to a large number of people or include sensitive topics (Note – most people analytics topics are sensitive topics).
• When Communicating with HR Professionals: If you are sharing insights with HR it’s usually so that they can either translate it to business leaders and employees or take action on it. For this reason, they usually appreciate a deeper dive into the data paired with the same key insights you would present to a business leader and an employee. Consider interactive dashboards, detailed reports, collaborative workshops, or meetings. These methods allow them to engage deeply with the information and provide access to detailed answers aligned with your key findings. Plan to be available to answer questions and don’t be surprised when you receive follow-up analysis requests.

When deciding between the many options, consider the complexity of your message. Simple findings that aren’t on sensitive topics or at risk of being misunderstood can be easily and efficiently shared asynchronously in emails, infographics, or communication posts. For complicated findings, sensitive data, or resulting actions that impact people, it’s usually best to choose a method providing more detailed information such as reports or interactive dashboards. You may also need to consider methods that allow interaction with your audience so you can answer questions or solicit feedback, such as well-structured presentations or meetings.

When selecting, you should also consider your goals. If you hope others will independently engage with your insights, opt for emails, dashboards, or reports. If you hope to spark dialogue and gather feedback, opt for presentations, workshops, or meetings. If your goal is collaborative action, opt for meetings and workshops.

Finally, keep in mind that every culture and situation is unique. While I hope these general tips can help you share your message in a way that best showcases your awesome work, you’ll have to modify them or make different choices based on your unique situation. Consider things like how urgently the message needs to be shared, the culture and environment in which you share your message, and the preferences of those you are working with. You also should consider your own skills, if you are stronger at communicating through one method than another, it might be a better choice for you sometimes.