Concept: Storyteller Engine
People Analytics uses an automated analytical engine called Storyteller that:
- Searches millions of combinations of data.
- Makes connections between the combinations of data.
- Delivers the most significant results in the form of focus insights.
A focus insight is a finding in the data that addresses a business question.
Each focus insight describes an instance of significant under- or overperformance in a metric, along with a combination of dimensions, trends, and drivers that contribute to the finding.
Storyteller uses statistical and heuristic methods to determine the ranking of focus insights and which focus insights should surface after performing one of these comparisons:
- Comparison to historical performance - Storyteller surfaces these focus insights when the engine detects a significant variance between the current performance of a metric against historical performance. The look-back period is usually 12 months if you have at least 13 months of data history in People Analytics, or 3 months if you have less than 13 months of data history. However, the look-back period might vary depending on the metric.
- Internal comparison - Storyteller compares current performance in a given focus group against the performance of the comparison group and surfaces significant gaps as focus insights. Depending which level the focus insight is on, the comparison group changes. Storyteller might make the comparison at the company or region level, or at a different level in the hierarchy. By comparing performance to the closest groups in the same organization or region, Storyteller can identify focus insights that provide actionable and meaningful data in relation to the dimension where the focus insight takes place. Examples:
- For a focus insight on FP&A suborganization in Finance at Level 3, the Storyteller engine compares performance of this dimension against the performance of the parent organization Level 2 (instead of comparing to the performance of Level 1).
- For a focus insight in Canada, Storyteller compares performance in Canada against performance at the region level, such as North America or the Americas.
For more information about focus insight in People Analytics, see Concept: Focus Insights.
Automatic Filtering
To help ensure the highest quality of insights, Storyteller automatically filters out focus insights where:
- The population size is 5 or less people.
- There is no active headcount for 1 or more months that are included in the People Analytics analysis. This filtering only applies to focus insights in these topics:
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Organization Composition
- Retention and Attrition
- Talent and Performance
Example: A focus insight on a Female Diversity Trend where there is no active headcount for 1 or more of the 12 months analyzed.Example: A focus insight on a Female Diversity Gap where there is no active headcount for the month analyzed.
Suggested Focus Insights
To spotlight data that you could have missed otherwise and allow you more time to explore focus insights on other tabs, on a monthly basis People Analytics selects insights to display on the Overview page. Your selection of insights depends on focus insight ranking in the Storyteller engine, People Analytics user interactions such as clicking on suggested business questions, and how often these business questions appear on the Overview tab.
Top drivers don’t have an impact on focus insight suggestions.
You can dismiss any focus insights you find irrelevant to help our algorithm uncover more actionable data over time. We only generate 7 focus insights for a fiscal month, so if you dismiss all of your suggested focus insights for the month, we won’t display any new insights before the next recurrent data refresh. You can’t undo an insight dismissal, but a previously dismissed insight can resurface after 4 months, if People Analytics deems it relevant again.