The amount of digital data available is doubling every three years

Data mining can transform digital data into useful information

Targeted practices include: › Marketing - CRM› Surveillance - detecting patterns in terrorist activity › Fraud Detection› Scientific Discovery - genetic programming› Employment Practices

Provides useful information to human resource departments in the areas of employee recruitment and retention

Profiles the characteristics found in the most successful employees

Aids in focusing recruitment and retention efforts

Uses can vary from the most generic uses, such as employee background checks, to more “paradigm shifting” uses

Driving Records Vehicle Registration Credit Records Criminal Records

Social Security No. Education Records Court Records Workers' Compensation

Bankruptcy Character References

Neighbor Interviews Medical Records

Property Ownership Military Records State Licensing Records

Drug Test Records

Past Employers Personal References Incarceration Records

Sex Offender Lists

Most generically, data mining is used to conduct employee background checks

Leading companies: LexisNexis, Checkpoint (now owned by LexisNexis), and Acxiom

The information collected for employers include:

1-2% of large companies, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Capital One, have used analytics to evaluate their workforce

Employees leave digital trails detailing their behavior, schedule, interests, and expertise

Microsoft, for example, studies correlations between thriving workers and their attributes, such as the schools/companies they arrive from

Companies create inter-office social networking sites designed to link workers and study their ideas and circles of influence

SAS developed an employee retention software program to create profiles of employees that left the company within the past five years and compare profiles to current employees

The software could also be used to identify those in the company that are most likely to suffer an accident

Cataphora studies communications within companies. Certain employees produce chunks of data—whether words or software code—that later pop up in other electronic messages. The people copied most often, Cataphora concludes, are “thought leaders”

These communications identify “superconnectors” who help share ideas and “bottlenecks” that appear to hold ideas up

Project how much workers will produce over their careers and carry out cost-benefit studies on recruiting, training, and employee retention

Study these trends to see if needed know-how should be taught or recruited

“Brings the same rigor you bring to operations and finance to the analysis of people”

Rupert BaderDirector of Workforce Planning Microsoft

Many website offer scant and often incomplete information in background checks

The data that is dispensed by workers the “old-fashioned way” is not caught in the data warehouse.

Is your privacy for sale?

Data brokers generate billions in revenue selling sensitive personal information that can include SSN, phone numbers, credit card numbers, and prescriptions

Employers can see your data, but you cannot

As a manager, would you consider using data mining as a tool for selecting the appropriate candidate for a job with your company?

Yes

No

As an employee, how do you feel about your employer using your information in the BI data pool for recruitment and retention purposes?

It doesn’t bother me

I’d opt out if given the chance

Any questions?