Merck's People Analytics and People Data & Technology journey

How Merck leads the business transformation from a people perspective

In our exclusive interview with Mr. Dietmar Eidens (Global CHRO at Merck) and Mr Alexis Saussinan (Global Head of Digital HR Technologies & People Analytics at Merck), Merck shares the do’s and don’ts and lessons learnt from their impressive People Analytics and People Data & Technology journey. We launched this white paper around People Analytics strategy best practices which hopefully helps you to create an even more powerful People Analytics capability in your own company.

Start your People Analytics journey with PwC 

At PwC we support clients in the People Analytics capability area from strategy to execution. This means that we support organizations in designing, developing and implementing solutions to address a variety of use cases covering different areas throughout the employee journey or the Hire-To-Retire process. We tailor our support and solutions to your needs and take on board the already existing tools and applications, your analytics maturity level as well as your general People Analytics ambition level going forward. We have already covered a wide variety of topics (including onboarding, retention, absenteeism, L&D optimization, total reward, D&I, engagement, upskilling), different levels of data availability and varying levels of existing model complexity. The bottom line is that we link real business problems to practical solutions that bring value to your company - keeping things as simple as possible and staying away from making things overly sophisticated. For example, for organizations at the beginning of their People Analytics journey, developing insightful descriptive dashboards may be more powerful than applying complex machine learning models.
 
True value creation through People Analytics requires more than 'just' these great solutions that feed on high quality data. It also requires a diverse skill set in the analytics team to really bring the message across to the decision makers in your organization. Technical skills are essential to crunch insights from your data, but creating clear visuals and telling the 'story right' or the 'right story' is an art in itself.
 
Read the impressive People Analytics journey from the multinational pharmaceutical company Merck. 

People Analytics is not (only) about HR, it is about the business and how workforce data can support and enable the execution of the company strategy from a people angle. It enables HR to shift from the traditional - more operational and scorekeeping - function to becoming a strategic business partner.

Some examples how People Analytics empowers your business

People data for relevant and actionable insights for better people decision-making. 

Which employees are most likely to leave your organisation and how can you reduce that likelihood? When looking at absenteeism due to sickness and staff turnover, we examine your data and compare it to that of other organisations. We link the figures to data on, for example, employee satisfaction and your employee training programmes. Together with you, we then translate the insights gained from the analysis into concrete prevention measures and measurable targets.

People data for diversity insights (e.g. gender pay gap or feasibility of a woman's quote). 

What is the proportion of male to female employees in your organisation and in several function levels ? With our diversity tool, we provide you with insight into topics such as the gender pay gap and the feasibility of a women's quota. We visualise the relationships and use statistical analysis to provide in-depth explanations for the differences. Following the addition of algorithms and scenarios, you will be able to see the future influence of interventions.

People data for automated insights from your payroll records. 

Our payroll analysis tool conducts an automated analysis of the data in your tax returns. This produces a dashboard with information on your workforce. For example, when will the rising age of your employees lead to employees leaving the organisation? What is the income distribution in your organisation? The tool conducts standard checks to identify exceptions that warrant investigation. Machine learning means that the tool can expose cases of fraud, for example.

Download Merck's case study

https://pages.pwc.ch/core-asset-page?asset_id=7014L000000PnTGQA0&embed=true&lang=en

Contact us

Matthias Leybold

Matthias Leybold

Partner Technology & Data, PwC Switzerland

Tel: +41 58 792 13 96

Linda Vos

Linda Vos

Senior Manager, People Analytics, PwC Switzerland

Tel: +41 79 916 87 96

Adrian Jones

Adrian Jones

Partner, People and Organisation, PwC Switzerland

Tel: +41 58 792 40 13

Myriam Denk

Myriam Denk

Partner, People and Organisation, PwC Switzerland

Tel: +41 58 792 26 53