MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Putting Dignity at the Core of Employee Data Use

We suspect that few leaders appreciate the diversity and volume of data about employees that their organizations are amassing from sources ranging from digital collaboration platforms to workforce wearables and mobile devices. Even throughout the pandemic, the scope and nature of employee data has expanded rapidly to include vaccination status, the results from frequent health checks, virtual meeting behaviors, and work-life survey results.

At most large global firms, people and workforce analytics are mainstream initiatives led by HR leaders. But increasingly, employee data is being used in new ways, beyond HR, to produce lucrative results. For example, one organization analyzed employee activity and building characteristics to generate insights about occupancy in its facilities, which ultimately saved the organization millions of dollars in reduced heating and cooling costs.

About the Author

Dorothy Leidner is the Ferguson Professor of Information Systems at Baylor University. She is a fellow of the Association for Information Systems.

Olgerta Tona is an assistant professor of informatics at the University of Gothenburg.

Barbara H. Wixom (@barbwixom) is a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR).

Ida A. Someh is a senior lecturer in business information systems at the UQ Business School at the University of Queensland and a research fellow at MIT CISR.

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