Week 12 - Transcript
(Interview with Sally
Smith).pdf
00:00:49.860 --> 00:01:04.220
Timothy Bednall
We're here today with Sally Smith. Sally is the Head of People Analytics at National Australia Bank or
NAB, as it tends to be known, by its employees. Sally, very grateful for you being here today because
you know, obviously you know, both got very, you know, busy schedules, so you know, I really
appreciate your taking the time.
Tell me, I guess I'll start by asking a little bit about. I mean your role, you know, within our National
Australia Bank, what does what does a typical day in the life of ahead of People Analytics look like?
00:01:38.580 --> 00:01:56.470
Sally Smith
Yeah, before I get to that Tim, will just want to say thank you for including me. I'm particularly
passionate about growing the field and really keen that we have students that had came to
understand what people analytics is in practice for one of the major organizations in Australia.
So by way of background, I've worked in people analytics for round, about six or seven years now,
and in that time I've been involved in various aspects of the work so.
Usual sort of pieces around reporting, providing common KPI's answering questions about Tata and
that kind of thing in the middle of that six or seven years I held rolled out. I would describe as the
highlight of my career. So what that meant in practice was our people insights. Projects were under
untangling complex.
People related questions using data as well as science, so not just the usual suspects of opening and
trawling spreadsheets and applying algorithms, but we would work backwards from what are some
of the people related business issues that are experienced in other parts of the organization?
And also looking at some of the expensive HR practices and finding ways of doing more with less.
More recently, I've added to that portfolio and included aspects about reporting portfolio so that
tends to be standardizing some of the metrics and reporting them through executive reports or HR
related dashboards.
Uh, and at the moment we're looking at how do we take sort of what's been a very tactical solution
in reporting and scaling that out too?
Many leaders and analytics specialists at the National Australia Bank terms of an average day in
people analytics. I would say no. Two days are the same, which is what I love about my role.
00:03:57.970 --> 00:03:58.960
Timothy Bednall
,Fantastic.
00:04:01.190 --> 00:04:04.680
Sally Smith
Uh, so one day it could be conversations around a particular issue. So if I give you an example of one
of our call centers has some kind new starter attrition and the HR team, there were keen to get
underneath what might be causing that.
So scoping out a potential sort of way of untangling that and finding root cause.
, Second question could be around no. We we're keen to focus on maintaining and ensuring our
colleagues are taking regular leave. So how do we set KP eyes and sort of track those through
financial year?
Another day might be a being involved in some of the HR transformation work, so we don't send
stand still and the work that we do with our underlying ITN reporting infrastructure. So it will be our
cross HR project to look at at how do we upgrade some of our core HR information systems across
the organization.
Timothy Bednall
Fantastic, well my students at the moment are actually working on a kind of dashboard project,
where they're essentially, and you know, working with well, actually made up data set and working
out. I mean one is that they can actually take that data and look at the best way of presenting it so.
So that's, uh, that's awesome. I mean really interesting projects and you know many ways I. I guess
you must feel a little bit like a detective. You know, in terms of, you know, looking at that data and
being able to, you know, try to work out what the root causes of things like, you know, turnover and
you know the accumulation of annual leave. You know Mark must be.
Sally Smith
Yeah, absolutely a detective and I think one of the most exciting moments is when you find an
interesting insight in a data set and no for those hours or days. You're the only person that knows it.
So and I always get to light up when we find something counter intuitive and I share it with a one of
our stakeholders. And usually they lean in and say I'm really and then that leads to another question
and good analytics. One question, one could question always leads to another. So it is a bit like a
detective. As you say, a team. Or the other analogy, I would give you is it's like following the vein of
caramel.
00:06:43.950 --> 00:07:00.170
Timothy Bednall
I do like that analogy. I do have a bit of a sweet tooth so you know I do like that analogy as well. So
what what's been, you know? One of the more interesting insights you know that you've discovered,
you know, as a part of this process.
00:07:07.210 --> 00:07:22.240
Sally Smith
There there are. There are quite a few, and for those of you that are keen to understand, some of
the examples that now there are two IT news articles that features some of our projects so you
could have a look at those as well.
To answer your question, one of the one of the most interesting pieces that we found was it it
actually related to the example of the attrition in the call center. So when we started out, the
number was very high.
The executive is in that area were particularly concerned about the level and because it was
impacting impacting customer service, and it was also impacting some of the other metrics. Business
performance metrics in that area. So they were keen to under to get underneath that from a
perspective of, well, how do we improve the experience that our customers are have when they're
calling in as well as creating a better environment for the teams to work in? Interestingly enough.
(Interview with Sally
Smith).pdf
00:00:49.860 --> 00:01:04.220
Timothy Bednall
We're here today with Sally Smith. Sally is the Head of People Analytics at National Australia Bank or
NAB, as it tends to be known, by its employees. Sally, very grateful for you being here today because
you know, obviously you know, both got very, you know, busy schedules, so you know, I really
appreciate your taking the time.
Tell me, I guess I'll start by asking a little bit about. I mean your role, you know, within our National
Australia Bank, what does what does a typical day in the life of ahead of People Analytics look like?
00:01:38.580 --> 00:01:56.470
Sally Smith
Yeah, before I get to that Tim, will just want to say thank you for including me. I'm particularly
passionate about growing the field and really keen that we have students that had came to
understand what people analytics is in practice for one of the major organizations in Australia.
So by way of background, I've worked in people analytics for round, about six or seven years now,
and in that time I've been involved in various aspects of the work so.
Usual sort of pieces around reporting, providing common KPI's answering questions about Tata and
that kind of thing in the middle of that six or seven years I held rolled out. I would describe as the
highlight of my career. So what that meant in practice was our people insights. Projects were under
untangling complex.
People related questions using data as well as science, so not just the usual suspects of opening and
trawling spreadsheets and applying algorithms, but we would work backwards from what are some
of the people related business issues that are experienced in other parts of the organization?
And also looking at some of the expensive HR practices and finding ways of doing more with less.
More recently, I've added to that portfolio and included aspects about reporting portfolio so that
tends to be standardizing some of the metrics and reporting them through executive reports or HR
related dashboards.
Uh, and at the moment we're looking at how do we take sort of what's been a very tactical solution
in reporting and scaling that out too?
Many leaders and analytics specialists at the National Australia Bank terms of an average day in
people analytics. I would say no. Two days are the same, which is what I love about my role.
00:03:57.970 --> 00:03:58.960
Timothy Bednall
,Fantastic.
00:04:01.190 --> 00:04:04.680
Sally Smith
Uh, so one day it could be conversations around a particular issue. So if I give you an example of one
of our call centers has some kind new starter attrition and the HR team, there were keen to get
underneath what might be causing that.
So scoping out a potential sort of way of untangling that and finding root cause.
, Second question could be around no. We we're keen to focus on maintaining and ensuring our
colleagues are taking regular leave. So how do we set KP eyes and sort of track those through
financial year?
Another day might be a being involved in some of the HR transformation work, so we don't send
stand still and the work that we do with our underlying ITN reporting infrastructure. So it will be our
cross HR project to look at at how do we upgrade some of our core HR information systems across
the organization.
Timothy Bednall
Fantastic, well my students at the moment are actually working on a kind of dashboard project,
where they're essentially, and you know, working with well, actually made up data set and working
out. I mean one is that they can actually take that data and look at the best way of presenting it so.
So that's, uh, that's awesome. I mean really interesting projects and you know many ways I. I guess
you must feel a little bit like a detective. You know, in terms of, you know, looking at that data and
being able to, you know, try to work out what the root causes of things like, you know, turnover and
you know the accumulation of annual leave. You know Mark must be.
Sally Smith
Yeah, absolutely a detective and I think one of the most exciting moments is when you find an
interesting insight in a data set and no for those hours or days. You're the only person that knows it.
So and I always get to light up when we find something counter intuitive and I share it with a one of
our stakeholders. And usually they lean in and say I'm really and then that leads to another question
and good analytics. One question, one could question always leads to another. So it is a bit like a
detective. As you say, a team. Or the other analogy, I would give you is it's like following the vein of
caramel.
00:06:43.950 --> 00:07:00.170
Timothy Bednall
I do like that analogy. I do have a bit of a sweet tooth so you know I do like that analogy as well. So
what what's been, you know? One of the more interesting insights you know that you've discovered,
you know, as a part of this process.
00:07:07.210 --> 00:07:22.240
Sally Smith
There there are. There are quite a few, and for those of you that are keen to understand, some of
the examples that now there are two IT news articles that features some of our projects so you
could have a look at those as well.
To answer your question, one of the one of the most interesting pieces that we found was it it
actually related to the example of the attrition in the call center. So when we started out, the
number was very high.
The executive is in that area were particularly concerned about the level and because it was
impacting impacting customer service, and it was also impacting some of the other metrics. Business
performance metrics in that area. So they were keen to under to get underneath that from a
perspective of, well, how do we improve the experience that our customers are have when they're
calling in as well as creating a better environment for the teams to work in? Interestingly enough.
