Enhancing Global HR Tech: Balancing Data, Automation, and Human Touch

BY Matthew Koehler | December 20, 2024

Ankit Saxena, now the global head of people insights and HR technology at PPG Industries, has had a long career in data analytics. He has seen it all, from fraud to operational to financial to people analytics. In his experience, there are four critical takeaways: a clear business case, good storytelling, solutions, and action plans.

“Whether you work in any kind of an analytics or technology environment, you have to have a clear business case. The second thing is the storytelling. Unless you connect the dots, your story is not impactful. The third thing is the solution. So you told me the problem. How do you fix it? [Finally], the action plan you're going to have. And those principles, whether you work in X analytics, y analytics or HR analytics, remain the same across the board.”

Saxena spoke to the editorial audience director for Harvard Business Review, Nicole Smith during  From Day One’s November virtual conference. They discussed the importance of maintaining a human touch in a rapidly evolving AI world and retrofitting existing technology with the new.

When making a big move in any organization, especially one centered around people, you have to have your finger on the pulse of a lot of analytics. Saxena says it’s typical to pay attention to internal movements—how the company is performing, how the market is shifting, what major internal events are taking place, and more.

There’s also people insight, which is all about gathering and analyzing employee data to understand their motivations and engagement.

“If you’re looking to make a very broad kind of a decision, if you’re looking to understand what needs to be the future way of the organization from the people perspective, you have to have a pretty clear line of sight of what is happening externally as well,” said Saxena.

Saxena points to how external events like Covid and inflation created ripple effects within organizations by influencing talent supply, attrition, compensation, and career dynamics. “As a professional in the analytics space, you keep a tab on all those things, not just your internal but also externally. During my career of 15 to 17 years, I have realized that if you are myopically focused internally, you will lose sight of the external environment, and if you focus too much on the external, you will lose sight of the internal.”

To not get overwhelmed on managing all the external and internal metrics, Saxena says all organizations are focused on how they are [using] automation and AI.

To narrow down the aperture of information and really focus on what is needed, Saxena says it’s imperative to look at the internal use case for technology. “What exactly is the benefit that you’re going to generate for your end stakeholders? Is there any kind of a buy-in that you see? Because AI is a prime example where everyone wants to jump in, but they don’t know exactly what the outcome is.”

To answer that essential question above, Saxena developed a framework based on five ‘whats’:

  1. What’s the use case? 
  2. What benefits do the different technologies generate? 
  3. What’s the cost of implementation and maintenance? 
  4. What are the future growth opportunities for any specific technology? 
  5. And, what does change management look like?

“Every organization struggles with their technology implementation if they don’t have robust change management,” Saxena added.

Nicole Smith of the Harvard Business Review interviewed Ankit Saxena of PPG Industries 

“There are a lot of traditional technologies that do exist and will continue to exist. And I think that is important for us to understand that a lot of companies invest into technologies, but they are not able to make them work.”

Saxena believes there’s an opportunity here with companies making their existing technology work. At previous companies, he said they would buy a technology but not fully implement it. “I think making your existing technology or tech stack work appropriately and providing you the full benefit” is a theme he's seeing in the market.

Another piece of advice he offers is that before you look at the next big AI product being offered, look internally. “Rather than buying an AI technology, you should kind of look upon your current tech stack and how it kind of aligns with your AI capabilities.”

“Make sure that you are using [traditional technology] to the fullest capability. Second, before you go outside [to buy] any AI capability, you should explore what tools you have and if they offer any AI capability. And can you leverage it for certain use cases to show some success and have an investment for the future?”

Saxena emphasizes the importance of evaluating technology investments carefully to ensure they align with a company's vision and strategy. He notes that technology companies frequently introduce new capabilities to stay competitive in the AI space, which can create a challenge for businesses locked into long-term contracts.

“Companies are not going to invest into anything new unless you have made the existing ones work, so this is a kind of a catch 22. Once you invest into long term contracts, you have to make them work,” Saxena said.

Matthew Koehler is a freelance journalist and licensed real estate agent based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in Greater Greater Washington, The Washington Post, The Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others.

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