It’s Not All Analytics: Step 2. Build Your Non-Technical Skills

It’s Not All Analytics

It may sound strange, but the most important skills for people analytics aren’t necessarily quantitative analytical skills. In fact, some of the most critical skills are not technical at all.

I have met people who think they can’t be successful in people analytics because they aren’t “good at math.” That’s just not true!

People analytics is as much about critical thinking, questioning, and being inquisitive as it is about anything else. Math, or any other analysis, is just one method for thinking through problems critically.

Technical skills simply aren’t enough for a career in people analytics. Someone great at numbers won’t get far if they are only great numbers. It takes a lot of non-technical skill to ensure that the right things are analyzed for insights. And, that those insights are understood, applied to appropriate situations, and integrated into decision-making and processes. I can name multiple successful people analytics professionals with relatively limited analytical skills.

I’m not saying technical skills aren’t important – they are! In fact, we will spend a whole chapter on them (see step 3). But, with people analytics, it’s more about the smart application and use of analytics to drive important business outcomes, not the analytics themselves.