THE PERFECT PAIR: THE CHRO & PEOPLE ANALYTICS LEADER
Providence
CHRO
Greg Till, Ph.D.
Chief People Officer
PA LEADER
Mark Smith
Insights, Optimization & Staffing Executive Leader
INDUSTRY
Healthcare
Greg Till & Mark Smith
Together, this pair has grown the people analytics practice from two people in 2020 to a dozen in 2023 at Providence, a healthcare organization with 117,000 caregivers (all employees) in 51 hospitals, 1,000 clinics, and a comprehensive range of health and social services across Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.
Chief People Officer, Greg Till, joined Providence in 2012 as the chief talent officer, and Insights, Optimization & Staffing Executive Leader, Mark Smith, has been with the healthcare organization since 2003 when he came on as the director of Human Resources.
Why this pair starts with outcomes first
"What's evolving is that human resources is being asked to be a key leader in solving business problems. We are looking at our human resources function, starting with Greg, and focusing on the core business problems today that we need to be solving for and what might be emerging over the next two or three years that we need to begin to prepare analytics for."
Mark
"The thing that aligns us is that we start with the outcomes we're trying to create together for our caregivers, communities, and customers. Starting with the outcomes allows us to align quickly around the strategies we need to create, and then determining what data and insights we need to understand to fully inform those strategies."
Greg
"It's helped us get closer to our aspiration of being true business leaders, not just business partners or advisors in HR. Most executives are motivated more by data than qualitative assessments. So, having better data at our fingertips that we can trust provides actionable insights...so we can make better-informed decisions."
Greg on how people analytics changed the business' view of HR
What the future of people analytics looks like
"You won't be able to tell the difference between business analytics and people analytics. I’m excited to see that. Part of what will get us there is moving from looking at large groups to using AI to look at individuals. We can then recruit, retain, and have development conversations based on the data. This will move us to the next phase where we ask fewer questions about people analytics and more questions about the true correlations and how we break down barriers between finance data, people data, and quality data to truly understand the various factors impacting the organization and workforce."
Mark
"I wouldn't be surprised if, in the near future, we can ask a tool like Visier what we should be paying attention to today, and it will provide us with the hot spots for the day."
Greg
"...finding someone who's equally strategic and visionary, operational, and a relationship builder, motivator, influencer who can talk up and down the organization, is an incredibly unique skillset. We're very fortunate to have Mark as our unicorn in this respect."
Greg on Mark
"Greg appreciates data and ensures we're examining it, and he also constantly monitors it. It's rare for us to be in a forum where Greg isn't reviewing the insights. He frequently acknowledges how these insights have driven us towards certain actions that are yielding business outcomes. This modeling is extremely important."
Mark on Greg
With Visier’s people analytics solutions, Providence has:
Improved healthcare hiring strategies
In a tight labor force, Providence used Visier insights to accurately forecast vacancies and proactively hire the right talent to ensure they have the right people in the right roles at the right time.
Centralized and democratized people analytics
With Visier, teams beyond HR now have a single place to go to answer their own ad-hoc business questions—freeing up HR resources for more strategic initiatives.
Created simple yet powerful data dashboards
Visier’s user-friendly UI and robust analytics features make it easy for Providence leaders to quickly digest data visualizations and make an informed decision.
How people analytics saved Providence $3M
Mark explains how Visier’s people analytics solution delivered a holistic view of the organization and accurate vacancy projections that drove Providence leaders to proactively hire over 2,000 caregivers in 2022 despite a tight healthcare labor market—ultimately saving the company $3 million.
How people data underscores their business strategy
"We strive to represent human resources or people data not for its own sake, but from a broader perspective on what we believe is creating a business impact. This interest in data, leading with it, driving back to key actions based on the insights we're seeing, and making continual improvement based on the trends we observe, makes my role a joy. It encourages me to continue to dream about what we should think about next so that we can stay one step ahead of what's happening in our industry and with our workforce today."
Mark Smith, Insights, Optimization & Staffing Executive Leader
"We’re not just using data for its own sake. We’re trying to build a vision around what we want to drive towards in the future, and utilize data to support the best paths to get there."
Greg Till, Chief People Officer
About Visier
Visier is the recognized global leader in people analytics, workforce and compensation planning, embedded solutions, and genAI for people answers. At the core of Visier’s innovations is a simple premise: People impact is business impact, and you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Visier gives people-powered organizations the tools and insights to drive productivity, performance, and business outcomes through people impact. Founded in 2010 by the pioneers of business intelligence, Visier has over 60,000 customers in 75 countries, including enterprises like BASF, Panasonic, Experian, Amgen, eBay, Ford Motor Company, and more. Visier is headquartered in Vancouver, BC with offices and team members worldwide. For more information, visit www.visier.com.