Digital twins of employees – The Future of People Analytics
Elmen Lamprecht explains…
“For years I have been jealous of how sales and marketing teams use data to understand their customer better. By optimising the data they gather, they use their understanding of consumer behaviour to maximise business outputs (such as revenue) by tailoring products and/or marketing campaigns through personalisation. And thanks to big data and the Internet of Things (IoT), they are getting better and better at creating Digital Twins of Customers.
“A digital twin of a customer is a virtual representation of a real-life customer that can be used for a variety of purposes, such as marketing, customer service, and product development. The digital twin is created by collecting data about the customer, such as their demographics, purchasing history, and online behaviour. This data is then used to create a detailed profile of the customer, which can be used to better understand their needs and preferences.
“One of the main benefits of a digital twin is that it allows companies to personalise their interactions with customers. For example, a retailer can use a digital twin to recommend products that are likely to be of interest to a particular customer, or a bank can use a digital twin to identify customers who are at risk of defaulting on a loan. Another benefit of a digital twin is that it can be used to improve customer service. For example, a digital twin can be used to predict when a customer is likely to need assistance, and to route them to the appropriate customer service representative. In addition to these benefits, a digital twin can also be used to improve product development. For example, a car manufacturer can use a digital twin to simulate how a particular customer will interact with a new car model, and to identify potential issues before the car is built.
“Now let’s get back to the source of my envy. HR departments sit on so much employee data, but we were never able to optimise the use of this data. I felt jealous because for many years, I was unable to do what my colleagues in sales and marketing could do – create digital twins of people.
“But with advanced People Analytics, this is about to change.
“There is no doubt that HR has more data about an individual (an employee) than sales and marketing teams have (customer). In HR, we have an employee’ s CV and personality data (gathered via recruitment), full employment history with us (via payroll) which tells us where the employee lives, if they are married, how many dependants they have, and even how much leave they have taken and for what reasons. Additionally, we have performance data, training data and employee listening data (engagement). In fact, we have so much data that sales and marketing teams should be jealous about the richness of individual data we have.
“Through advanced People Analytics, we can create Digital twins of Employees (DToE). By using individual data, we can create virtual representations of employees and use it to understand their needs and preferences. Through DToE’s, we can personalise the employee experience throughout the employee life-cycle. HR can predict future employee behaviour and adjust engagement around that. For example, we can predict which employees are at risk of leaving the company and engage with them pro-actively. We can develop or amend HR policies like rewards and benefits, training, succession planning around actual individual needs and interests and move away from the one-size-fits all approach we normally follow.
“In the same way Digital Twins of Customers can cultivate customer loyalty and spend, so can our Digital Twin of Employees be used to cultivate engagement, loyalty and productivity. Overall, a DToE is a powerful tool that can be used to improve the employee experience, increase productivity, and reduce HR costs by focusing on interventions that will guarantee a higher ROI.”
This article is based on research conducted by 21st Century, a leading Business and People consultancy in Africa. Please contact us at [email protected] for any further information.
Written by:
Elmen Lamprecht, BA Psych (HONS); BA Theology (HONS), Executive Consultant at 21st Century, [email protected]
About 21st Century:
21st Century, a level 2 BBBEE company, is one of the largest Remuneration, Reward, HR, Organisation Development and Change Management consultancies in Africa, specialising in sustainable business solutions, with a team of more than 60 skilled specialists, servicing over 1700 clients – including non-profit organisations, unlisted companies, government, parastatals and over two-thirds of the companies listed on the JSE. 21st Century offers bespoke business and strategy planning services, operating model and organisational design, creative reward practice modelling, change, stakeholder and culture management, training courses and comprehensive human capital and talent plans. These are all underpinned by our analytic and survey capability tailored to the African environment. 21st Century continues to offer solutions via a combination of virtual channels and on-site presence.
21st Century has expanded its services to offer a full turnkey sustainable business and remuneration service. Beyond remuneration and reward consulting, 21st Century offers local analytics for business advantage; remuneration and HR training; change management services; talent and people solutions; and end-to-end organisational design and development.
21st Century is the Africa representative for the GECN group of companies, specialists in global executive remuneration and governance.
