If you had scored well in Class X, chances are that IT services and solutions giant Wipro will be interested in you as a potential candidate.
Abhijit Bhaduri, Chief Learning Officer of the Wipro Group, says that when the software major used analytics to look at hiring outcomes, X grade exams results emerged “a terrific predictor of on job performance”.
Wipro, which has 1.6 lakh employees on its rolls, is using predictive analytics to transform its hiring and retention practices and leadership pipeline development.
‘On job’ performers According to Bhaduri, as part of its Leadership and People Science project, when Wipro looked at the profiles of top “on job” performers at the organisation, their class 10th marks was a common factor. “We were also interested in finding causation of this trend. One hypothesis is that in X grade, unlike in XII or graduation, we have to study all subjects including those we are not going to pursue later. But if you work hard at those too, chances are you will give your best shot to all tasks at hand,” says Bhaduri.
Ahead of the big tech conference of the Society for Human Resources Organisation in Mumbai, where use of analytics is a major talking point, Bhaduri described how the application of big data is transforming the talent management game at Wipro.
According to Bhaduri, if a high potential candidate is not doing well on job, the tendency is to ascribe the failure to the candidate. But often it could be the failure of the decision maker — in this case the interviewer. Hence, Wipro decided to use analytics to find out the success rate of its interview panels. Based on the results, it has now re-jigged its interview panels.
Helps handle attrition The software company has also deployed analytics to handle attrition. “Analytics can predict with 70 per cent accuracy the employees who are likely to leave the organisation and why,” says Bhaduri.
Wipro is not the only one to use analytics for talent management. Pamela Harding, Community Chair of Linked:HR (an almost one million strong group of HR professionals on LinkedIn), points out that analytics is permeating every facet of HR today. “The most visible and fast growing area is in the Talent Acquisition & Management space... Search for talent is more proactive than reactive,” she says.
However, there is a dark side to predictive HR analytics too as employers profile employees, raising issues of ethics and privacy.