People Analytics Podcast: Uri Gal – Cautionary Advice for People Analytics ¦ TPAP018

Uri Gal of the University of Sydney joins the People Analytics Podcast - a series of lively conversations with leading practitioners, thought leaders, researchers and tech pioneers from a variety of backgrounds, from around the globe.

Uri Gal University of Sydney

Uri Gal - Associate Professor of Business Information Systems, University of Sydney

max blumberg hr analytics
Max Blumberg

Episode 18: Cautionary Advice for People Analytics

Max Blumberg talks with Uri Gal, Associate Professor for Information Systems at the University of Sydney. The push to use data and analytics to drive decision-making in HR - as in the wider business - continues apace around the world. To varying degrees of advancement and success, human instinct continues to give ground to algorithms in guiding business strategy.

As a sociologist as well as an analyst, Uri talks with Max about what he sees as the potential pitfalls along the seemingly inexorable data-driven journey:

  • The major assumptions behind People Analytics, and how valid these assumptions really are
  • The dangers involving bias, and whether analytics is a help or a hindrance in overcoming it
  • Ethical issues involved in People Analytics - privacy, employee isolation and the mechanised workforce
  • Practical issues - the impact on managerial skills, innovation and worker motivation.

A provocative conversation that challenges a lot of the mainstream thought in this area. Please leave your comments below - join the conversation.

Uri Gal is an Associate Professor in Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney Business School, where he has been since 2010. He received his PhD in Information Systems from Case Western Reserve University in the USA.

His expertise is in IT-enabled change processes and his research focuses on the effect of new digital technologies on people and organisations.

He is particularly interested in the use and impact of Workforce Analytics on managerial decision-making, organizations, and employees. His work has been published in some of the leading Information Systems journals and conferences.

Dr Max Blumberg is founder of the Blumberg Partnership, a Top 50 analytics consultancy which provides innovative analytics consultancy to organisations including Nestle, Lloyds Register, the BBC, Rentokil Initial, Barclays Corporate and the CIPD. Max is also Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds Business School; a Visiting Researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London; a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.