Culture Amp and Nasdaq: A people analytics transformation

Writer, Culture Amp

People analytics is crucial for modern businesses aiming to drive success through informed decision-making. Nasdaq, a global technology company serving the financial services industry, has always valued people data, it recently doubled down on using people analytics to uncover deeper workplace insights. By leveraging advanced analytics, Nasdaq aims to better understand employee engagement, improve talent management, and enhance overall organizational performance.

To explore this transformation, Culture Amp’s CEO Didier Elzinga sat down with Nasdaq’s Richard Taylor, SVP of People Experience & Diversity, and Nicole Lettich, Director of People Analytics, to share real people analytics strategies they’ve used to sustain high performance and drive success. Here’s what they had to say:

Building credibility with executives through data

Nasdaq is blessed with an executive team that truly puts employee experience first, and that means Rich and Nicole have their work cut out for them. They’re responsible for supplying senior leaders with the data and insights they need to boost engagement and make Nasdaq a great place to work.

“It's important for people in roles like mine and Nicole's to understand what your executive team values most and prioritize that. I've seen and been part of HR teams that gather so much data that it's overwhelming. You need to help them identify a few things that really move the needle so then you can prioritize,” shares Rich.

Rather than pursue numerous people initiatives simultaneously, Rich recommends focusing on one or two key areas at a time. This approach allows you to monitor the results of your actions more effectively. Over the past five years, Nasdaq has used this strategy to develop clear career frameworks and foster a culture of ongoing recognition. The impact has been substantial: overall engagement scores have increased by eight points, with career and recognition metrics seeing impressive 20-point rises.

To build credibility and trust with your executive team, Rich recommended starting with initiatives that will make a meaningful impact on employees and presenting relevant data to back up your claims. An early success can help you gain the buy-in and support you need to pursue larger-scale improvements.

Not every initiative will require extensive data. Nicole adds, "Our focus has been on bringing those foundational metrics to our senior executives so that we could whet their appetite when it came to the data. We use that as an opportunity to identify areas where we could do deeper dive analyses. As you can imagine, that approach isn't exactly scalable,” she explains. “So we started building out some dashboards for the more common data requests. That way, we had a single point of truth that we could use when sharing our people metrics with the rest of the business."

Since switching to Culture Amp, Rich and Nicole have streamlined the way they deliver crucial people metrics. Custom dashboards help them pull common metrics quickly and easily, while having Culture Amp as a single source of truth for all things engagement has helped further establish their team’s credibility and foster a data-driven culture within the organization.

From reporting to predictive analytics

Looking ahead, the Nasdaq people team sees itself transitioning from traditional data reporting to predictive people analytics.

"We want to go beyond the data to understand the underlying drivers…and build that larger picture around the employee journey. We want to go from ‘What’s happening to Y?’ to ‘What’s next?’," shares Rich. He’d love a future in which he and his team can identify key factors influencing employee behavior, like why employees might be leaving, and use data to answer questions like, "Could we boost retention if we invested more in recognition or career development?”

Thanks to Culture Amp, the company is close to making this a reality. Culture Amp’s platform gives Nasdaq a comprehensive view of the entire employee journey – from hire to exit. With all this data at their fingertips, the HR team can offer actionable insights to executives, enabling Nasdaq leaders to understand the connections between various events and outcomes.

Rich adds, "The gold stake for me is to be predictive, like let's get ahead of it and try to address things before they become an issue."

Together, Rich and Nicole aim to leverage predictive analytics to anticipate challenges and proactively implement solutions, fostering a more engaged and stable workforce.

Maintaining healthy, trusted data

At the end of the day, your people strategy is only as good as your data – words Rich’s and Nicole's teams live by. Culture Amp plays a pivotal role in their respective teams’ abilities to maintain healthy data and build senior leaders’ trust in their insights.

“It's important that we have that foundation of trust with our stakeholders when it comes to providing reliable data,” shares Nicole. “One of the reasons that I'm excited about adding a people analytics platform is because it's going to give us the ability to combine different datasets. We will really have an understanding of our data health and our data quality.”

Culture Amp has also helped the company share survey results with the entire organization, not just senior leaders. Now, managers can access their team’s anonymous responses in real-time, helping them unlock the insights they need to become better people leaders.

[Culture Amp] is one of the only platforms where we have employee surveys embedded with core HR data. And if you think about it, one of the first questions that you get from a manager when you share data is ‘Why?’. Now, we’ll be able to use all of this information to provide context to the metrics that we’re already sharing out.

— Nicole LettichDirector of People Analytics

With Culture Amp, Nasdaq managers can have a better understanding of what’s happening with their teams when the second engagement surveys close. With this information, people leaders can reflect on their role and take action to build stronger teams.

Unlocking the power of people analytics with Culture Amp

People analytics enables organizations to quickly draw actionable insights from vast sources of people data, providing business leaders with the information they need to make informed decisions. The right people analytics platform equips HR teams with the knowledge they need to make strategic choices that enhance overall organizational performance and employee engagement.

Want to learn more about how Culture Amp is helping Nasdaq benefit from people analytics? Watch the full recording of Rich and Nicole’s conversation from Culture First Global 2024.