People Analytics: What can we learn from the study of animal behavior?

Understanding people is (or at least should be) the basis for how organizations manage people. 

The traditional method used to measure sentiment - surveys, Gallup research, exit interviews, performance reviews, etc. – is based on how someone answers a question.  Does an anonymous survey accurately capture how an employee feels?  Maybe. Is a face-to-face meeting with HR or a manager always authentic? Probably not. 

The cumulative sum of these inaccuracies becomes an Information Bias Deficit that often misses the signals of employee stress, burnout, and potential resignation. 

The good news is that this deficit is not inevitable. Innovation in data science now offers a way to flag when employees are likely to feel burnt out, unappreciated, or micro-managed.  

Let’s take a short detour. The field of animal behavior research was based on manual observation and qualitative analysis. In the last few years, scientists have integrated sensors and machine learning based data analysis to process large volumes of data efficiently and extract meaningful patterns and insights.   

Machine learning applied to the sound, smell, movement, and overall behavior unlocks insights used to safeguard endangered species, mitigate human-wildlife conflicts, and monitor ecosystem health.  Scientists today are finding new ways to identify poaching activities, detect diseases, or protect endangered species from predatory invasion.  

Not long ago, the most advanced tool for HR was Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) which is a structured way to visualize communication patterns.  

In the last few years, we have seen advancements in Artificial Intelligence such as Explainable-AI that can now be applied to the workplace. Algorithms can combine large data sets, fused together from multiple sources and provide insights into talent risks. For example, in the chart below we can see that for this organization, the optimal range of interactions between a manager and his/her employees is one to two days a week.  Less than this may lead to isolation, and more than this may be considered micro-management. 

Of course, this approach will likely bring some controversy, which we will address directly: animal behavior is far simpler than human behavior. The sounds of a whale’s songs, clicks, and whistles cannot be compared to complex human interactions at work.  

At first glance, this may sound like science fiction.  It requires a shift in mindset (because we don’t think of teams of employees as their own unique species).  But with the appropriate guardrails, we can learn from animal behavior research and incorporate Artificial Intelligence in HR analytics.