Uber: Productivity comes from employee data
Take listening further with data.
Why You Should Care
Many organizations are looking at data to see employee issues.
Discover how and why Uber did this.
RJ Milnor, global head of people analytics and chief people data officer at Uber, shares the company's biggest takeaways from the experience.
The way organizations interact with the staff has irreversibly changed. Over the pandemic, not only were teams dispersed but new expectations were set for employees. In turn, the expectations staff have for their employees also shifted.
To discuss how Uber has adjusted to changes in the workplace over the last few years, RJ Milnor, global head of people analytics and chief people data officer at the ride-hailing giant, caught up with UNLEASH.
Milnor will be appearing at UNLEASH America (25-26 May). Ahead of his session on employee listening and business outcomes, Milnor shared some very interesting insights about the importance of data at Uber.
Changing how employees listen
“At Uber, we listen to our teammates every day be it through casual hallway conversations, 1:1s, and All-Hands meetings”, explains Milnor.
“These conversations strengthen our connection with each other and provide the company with valuable feedback from the people that are closest to the work.”
But Minor notes: “What differentiates us from many other companies is how we listen to our employees at scale.
“We do this through our Continuous Listening program, which leverages a portfolio of different surveys and data to understand how employees are doing and what we can do to create a more magical and productive experience at work every day.”
Looking inwardly, Milnor adds: “For us, continuous listening really means ‘continuous response’. To continuously improve ourselves, we get employees’ feedback to leaders and process owners in a timely way to make the changes that our teams need.
“We do that by making the results of Continuous Listening transparent and accessible through tools like on-demand dashboards, sharing results and insights with all of our employees, and leveraging our people analytics and HR teams as consultants to help interpret the results and plan next steps.”
Adapting to the pandemic
Uber’s listening process was developed over the pandemic, and Uber transitioned from biannual surveys. This was because the move to remote work presented an “urgent need” to shake up how the data from the surveys were collected.
RJ Milnor, Global Head of People Analytics and Chief People Data Officer, Uber
Milnor comments: “As the pandemic continued, it became clear to us that we needed a more flexible listening strategy that would enable employees to tell us what they need when they need it so that leaders and process owners can respond in a more timely way.
“That led to the Continuous Listening approach that we have today.”
These changes helped Uber support its employees better during the challenges of the pandemic: “Shortly after the pandemic began, we designed and launched a survey to all of our employees to understand how they were doing in this new working environment and how we could help.
“Many employees were doing well working from home, but some were having a tough time…especially those that were balancing work with caregiving responsibilities.”
“Our listening strategy revealed some very important insights and requests.
“For example, employees told us they needed more flexibility in their schedule because of the commitments that they had at home.
“This led to a series of quick policy responses that enabled our employees to have much more flexibility such as helping teams understand that it was ok to miss meetings when there is a conflict, or encouraging recording or taking notes at meetings for those who couldn’t attend.”
Some of these policies are still in place and play into how Uber uses its people data to drive HR decisions.
Using data effectively
The ride-hailing company collects data in numerous ways.
“We collect survey data from employees throughout the year – filled with rich quantitative information and context in the comments – and monitor a variety of data points that help us understand trends in how teams are working”, notes Milnor.
To do this Uber extends surveys throughout the year to understand culture, engagement, and experience. Surveys are also utilized after “key moments” in the career journey of an Uber employee.
Milnor goes on to explain: “All of this is supplemented by our ambient listening – aggregated, de-identified data that reveals trends in work patterns like collaboration hours, meeting volume, and focus time.
“When we find patterns in the data or need to explore a topic in more detail, we supplement this strategy with additional qualitative research (e.g. focus groups, empathy interviews, etc).
“Together, this mixed-methods approach paints a holistic picture of how our employees are doing and how we can help them be successful.”
This holistic picture leads to clear positives for the business. Milnor notes: “An advantage of an effective listening strategy is the ability for companies to connect how employees work, how they feel, and business results.
“This can yield very precise and data-driven recommendations that benefit both employees and the business.”
On the back of looking at employee data, Uber found that staff who have time to focus are more productive.
Further to this, Uber’s employee listening strategy showed that employees were actually attending more meetings than before they started working remotely. Unfortunately, Milnor tells UNLEASH this was “often at the expense of focus time”.
So the employer moved to “test an application that helps our employees manage their meetings – automatically rescheduling meetings and defragmenting their calendar – to secure more focus time in their day.”
As a result, “we saw both focus time and perceptions of employee productivity increase…Now, focus time has become a part of our regular vernacular across the company.”
How to measure success
Discussing what good employee data looks like, Milnor measures “success in two ways”.
The first is is taking the time to see whether the data that leaders rely on is accurate and consistent. The second is checking that “the business making decisions based on the employee data, analytics, and insights that we provide.”
Milnor continues: “Our goal – and how I define the success of our own people analytics function – is the second, enabling our leaders to make more evidence-based decisions by unlocking the insights in people data.
“But if you don’t have the first, it is very difficult to achieve the second.”
Evidently, it’s time to start collecting data before you make any concrete plans for the future.
Want to find out more about how Uber is using employee data? RJ Milnor will be speaking at UNLEASH America in Las Vegas (25-26 May).
