In this episode, host Ben Butina speaks with Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D., about her journey into people analytics and the rapid growth of her new organization, the Society for People Analytics. Stephanie shares how a simple meet-up with colleagues evolved into an international movement uniting people analytics professionals across diverse backgrounds, from HR and I-O psychology to finance and data science. With over 5,000 members and a strong focus on community, education, and professional development, the Society aims to support and shape the future of people analytics. Tune in to hear about the organization’s mission, its vendor-neutral approach, and the resources available to anyone interested in joining or learning more about this dynamic field.
Transcript
This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies. Please do not quote myself or any of my guests based on this transcript.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: Welcome back to the Department 12 Podcast. I’m your host, Ben Butina, Ph.D. Joining me today is Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D. How are you today, Stephanie?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: I’m good. How are you doing?
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: I’m real well, thanks for asking. So we do have a topic that I brought in to talk about. Pretty important one. But before we do, I always like to ask, how did you find out about it? How did you end up in this world?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah, it’s a great question, and I wish I had a more scientific response than the one that I have. But I think, like many of us, I went and got my bachelor’s in psychology because I wanted to figure out how to help people quickly realize there’s not too much you can do with just the bachelor’s. And I was going to have to do something very there. So did a couple of just investigating and figuring out what that might look like. And, you know, I looked into social work. I looked into school psychology, I looked into a couple of other programs. And I ended up about Googling the highest paying psychology job. And I/O came up as the top. And I was like, “You know what? Let’s read a little bit more about that.” Then as I started to learn more about it, what better way to really have an impact on people than where we spend most of our time, which was at work, and still apply for programs and got into Louisiana Tech, and the rest is history.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: Awesome. Go Tigers! So, the reason I invited you on the show is that lately it seems like my LinkedIn is just blowing up. Every other person that I know and respect is saying that they are the founding member of some new organization. So I wanted to learn more about it. So could you just tell us a little bit more about this, this fledgling organization?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah, for sure. It’s been definitely a lot of fun, and I just like the community of people. Analytics is such an interesting one. And so I would start with saying this is probably an idea I had a year ago or so where I was. I started a new job and I was traveling back and forth to Minnesota where my job was based. And I realized that I had some friends in the people analytics world in Minnesota, and I was like, “Well, let me just get some of my friends together while I’m there. We could just grab a drink and chit chat and talk about analytics.” And it was a great time, and we ended up forming the Minnesota People Analytics meet-up from the Minneapolis area. And so it just kind of popped up, and I was like, “okay.” And so as I started to format, I was like, “Well, what do I do? Do I get sponsors? How do I go about doing it? Do I make a post? Do I need to do LinkedIn?” Then, like, how do you grow a people analytics meet-up? And so I started reaching out to others that were doing similar things, and I realized we were all starting these meet-ups and all looking for a community in several different cities. And so how can I help by maybe bringing us all together and sharing resources? And that’s how the society came to be. I reached out to some friends of mine that were also leading meet-ups and said, “Let’s get together, feel like how we can best practice share at a higher level than just kind of how we’re all doing it individually at the local level.”
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: All right. So, I mean, that sounds like like the very definition of organic growth, you know, that there’s this need out there that just kind of tapped in and you realize, hey, there’s a lot of other people like me that want to share this information. Why not, you know, why not through PSYOP or an existing organization? Like why a new one?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah. I think another thing is I was bringing some of my friends and the people analytics space together for a PSYOP presentation. This must have been a couple… this was also last year, and I quickly realized that everyone that I was putting in on this email didn’t have an I/O background. I think the field of people analytics has grown very fast, and a lot of folks have stumbled into people analytics that mostly come from other domains like finance or marketing or, I mean, a lot of folks from the economics space recently, as I’ve grown the community. And so I think because there is no formal kind of educational requirement for people analytics, making everyone that was on my panel be a member of the Society of Psychology didn’t make as much sense. And so it ended up just being a virtual webinar online and with kind of the information we’re going to build. But I think that’s the whole reason that we kind of did something different outside of PSYOP—because so many folks are not those that are in this space.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: Yeah, absolutely. What kind of fields? I know you mentioned economics and a few others, but like, where are the people analytics professionals coming from other than, of course, I/O psychology?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah, so we did a recent poll and we had over, I think, 600 responses where we found that 70% of folks in people analytics come from H.R. or I/O. So you still have the majority coming from either our traditional human resources background or an I/O background. The other 30% is kind of that rolling population of marketing, finance, and economics. And you get a lot of folks that just kind of like, you know, that’s the majority, but data science folks that come from, like, doing customer analytics, and now they’ve switched over to the people side, or they were doing data science in the business and now they moved into the people analytics space. So you get like people that moved in from doing analytics and from other organizations into translating that into what it means for the internal folks that they support. And so I think that 30% that’s growing is more so those data analytics, data science folks in different parts of the organizations that stumble into the people side.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: Mm hmm. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. So I know that this kind of started out as, you know, you were meeting some folks in the Minneapolis area and sharing best practices. And then, you know, you discover, “Hey, everybody’s kind of doing this. We can network together.” What does it look like now? I mean, I assume it’s not based on a weekly meeting or that kind of thing. So what’s going on in the organization now as it’s growing?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah, it’s a great question. So I think to your point on the founding membership badges and all the memberships that are popping up, we had a viral moment and we reached our 5,000 members, which was my goal for next year.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: Congratulations!
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Thanks. It’s been awesome to see. So with 5,000 members, to your point, you’ve been figuring out what’s the next step, you know, and so I think we’ve added in an additional form for meet-ups. The global element has been something that we’ve been focused on. So we have an international committee that’s focused on how do we engage. We have a large population in Nigeria and in the Middle East/North Africa region. And so for putting those together right now and figuring out how to get them started across with kind of more than the meet-ups piece. But also we’re looking into an education committee that, just in an hour, has got folks looking into, “Okay, to my point earlier of like, what’s the path?” We get asked the question a ton of times like, “What type of certification do I need to get in order to join?” Do I need to go get a specific degree? What does that look like? So, you know, maybe that’s kind of looking into some of that piece as well. And some folks who, like, get their I/O degree but they don’t dive deeply into analytics side, then later in their career find they want to switch—what does that transition look like? We have those conversations a lot, too. So we’re working on other resources and pathways we can support universities to create career paths.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: So providing not just best practices and sharing those with each other, but also, you know, playing some role in shaping the future of the profession itself.
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: That’s the hope, yeah, for sure.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: What else do you see in the future? I know that it’s not just about you anymore. Now that 5,000 is an unbelievable number to reach so quickly. So you have a lot of stakeholders out there. What do you think the future of the organization looks like?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah, we have got a fantastic advisory board, and we’re finalizing our board of directors, too. I’ve just got so many of the rock stars in the field who are fully supportive and on board and really helping me think through this. To your point, it’s not about me. There’s just so much work that’s already been done. And so a big piece of it is bringing all
the work that’s out there and centralizing it a little bit better so people can find it. You know, people enter the field, and I always laugh, I say, “Unless you know David Green or Richard Rosenow, it’s really hard to get around people and understand the space.” And it’s so great to be bringing some of that knowledge that they’ve kind of built and centralizing it a little bit into, like, here’s one stop where you can, you know, get a lot of information about where to go. And so I think between the international component, the education component, the awareness piece, I think just growing awareness of people analytics and what it is and what it looks like, but also professional development for us that are already in the field. How do we continue to grow? What are skills that we might need to develop? And so our three pillars are awareness, betterment, and community. And I think how do we continue to build that awareness, to better ourselves, but also the community aspect is where this really starts keeping true to that element as well. We’re vendor agnostic. So I think a lot of times resources and webinars are put on by vendors, and so we wanted to make sure that this was something that everyone felt they could be a part of, that didn’t have to be a customer of a certain organization or feel like if you work for this company and you can’t support that. And so we wanted to get away from that and really be just a true society where we can all come together and help to your point earlier really help shape this field.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: This sounds fantastic. If someone is interested in joining or learning more about the organization, where should they go?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah. So the Society for People Analytics dot org, that’s our website. It’s got all the information on local meet-ups, and there’s a meet-up interest form if you don’t have a meet-up in your area, where you can help be a part of the solution and join others in organizing in your area. There are also resources like links to David Green’s work and books by Al Adamsen and Oliver Kavaler, and there’s a bunch of other resources from previous webinars we’ve done. There are also about six or seven blogs that we’ve already started to publish and put out there, so there are tons of resources. I would strongly recommend checking the website out. We also have a LinkedIn page that has a lot of resources that we post on a daily basis as well.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: So if I have listeners who are students, are they also welcome to join or participate in some way?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah, great question. Absolutely. Our membership right now is free, so there’s no charge to students, professionals, practitioners, or academics to join the society. That said, we do have a committee starting to form that is focused on student development, so if they want to get involved beyond just being a member and start to get more involved with actually doing some of the committee work, they should definitely reach out to admin at society analytics dot org. We are collecting volunteers.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: That’s awesome. So we will share that message as widely as we can. At this point, I’d like to sort of back up and ask a few, like, bigger questions. So, tell us about the specific organization and more about what it was like for you. In helping you organize—originally, you said you had this idea about a year ago. And in about a year, you’re up to 5,000 members, an advisory board, and a board of directors. I’m assuming based on all of that, you’re also a 501(c)(3) at this point, or some version of that?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah, we are.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: So that’s an incredible piece—one that not a lot of nonprofit organizations of any kind really aspire to. To what do you attribute this incredible growth?
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Yeah, it’s great. I think the community was ready. I was talking to Max Weinberg in Alabama and a few other folks who have been in the field much longer than I have. And, you know, Max wrote an article in 2017 calling for a society for people analytics. I think it just was a lot of things starting to form and the community was ready for something. I think a lot of the growth and momentum came from we were already on this, and we just needed someone to press the “go” button. And I think that was a big piece of it. The other piece of it is, I’ll say, I’m super passionate about it. And, you know, if it means me working my nights and my weekends on paperwork or building a website using my MySpace-era HTML skills, that’s what I’m going to do. So I think because I had a huge passion, and my advisory board early on had it too, we just put the pedal to the metal.
Ben Butina, Ph.D.: Stephanie, thank you so much for being on the show. I am going to be joining myself, like, immediately after this episode is over. I hope that many of my listeners will consider doing the same, or at least go and check it out because this is a big deal. And obviously, the audience is there, the people are there, the movement is ready. And again, thank you so much for taking some time out of your afternoon to talk to us, Stephanie.
Stephanie Murphy, Ph.D.: Thanks so much for having me, Ben. It’s been awesome.
