What Elections Can Teach Us About People Analytics: A Strategic Framework for Leaders

Is your company using a data-driven people strategy? As I prepared to teach my second cohort of People Analytics undergraduate students, I started to think about local examples of analytics in action. As I watched Jamaica’s 2025 general elections, the light bulb went off about the possible link between political campaigns and HR practices (e.g., canvassing vs. employee surveys, manifestos vs. data storytelling). Just as political parties use analytics to understand voter behaviour, predict outcomes, and allocate resources, companies can harness people data to develop and implement strategies that enable them to win in the marketplace. Like parties trying to convince voters they are the right choice at the polls, a company needs to:

1. Be clear on its vision
2. Define a winning strategy
3. Attract the hearts and minds of potential candidates so that they are willing to join your team
4. Orient its people to its way of life so that they can see where values are aligned and work towards attaining the mission and vision of the company (cultural-fit alignment)
5. Create an environment that allows people to flourish so that they help the company in the process of winning.

If we were watching the General elections through the lens of People Analytics, what lessons could the C-suite learn from the process? I venture to say there are five critical ones.

What is People Analytics?

People analytics is

“Collecting and applying organisational, people, and talent data to improve critical business outcomes. It enables HR departments to gain data-driven insights to make decisions on different people processes and turn them into actions to drive the performance of an organisation.” [1].

In general elections, parties are collecting and analysing data to help them win at the polls. There are requests for pollsters to gather data from varying sources, conduct detailed analysis, and even craft dashboards to aid in understanding the external and internal environment. This data will then inform strategy, and the outcomes will be as good as your implementation and level of evaluation at each stage. This is no different from a company that is garnering data to derive insights, which will drive the organisational outcomes.

Many people think that the ideas and concepts of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour are COMMON SENSE. However, evidence-based management in conjunction with our hunches helps to increase our understanding of issues, which helps to identify the appropriate solutions. Evidence-based management is defined as

“Making decisions through the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available evidence from multiple sources by translating a practical issue into an answerable question, systematically searching for and retrieving evidence, critically judging the evidence, pulling together the evidence, incorporating the evidence into the decision-making process, and then evaluating the outcome of the decision taken.” [2]

In simple terms, people analytics help leaders to make decisions and is the key to practising evidence-based management, where decisions are not driven by mere gut instincts.

What lessons can I learn about people analytics from the General Election?

A large part of the work in people analytics involves the collection and management of data, and the ability to use the insights to tell a convincing story.

Lesson 1: Define Your Problem

The Foundation of All Analytics

All analytics start with a question. This question may be influenced by a problem being experienced in the present or forecasted in the future. Defining the problem and asking the right questions is an important first step to ensuring that we are on the path to finding the solution required.

In an election, the question could be, ‘What do I need to do to ensure that voters select my team as a viable option?’ Winning is based on how we present ourselves. This could be like an attraction to the company; how do you get people to join and support you?

Business Application: In the workplace, one problem being experienced is finding the right talent to join teams. This talent shortage would raise many questions. For example:

• Do we have the right strategy to attract the talent we need?
• Are potential candidates aware of our existence and what our company offers?
• What is our employee value proposition compared to competitors?

This list is by no means exhaustive, but the principle of getting the question right is key to success.

Lesson 2: Map Your Constituencies (Collect Data)

Know Your Workforce

Collecting data by canvassing each constituency in an election is critical to ascertaining what people need and why they are supporting or not supporting our team. If you do not map your constituencies, it can lead to misallocation of resources, weak understanding of voter needs, failure to mobilise support and ultimately electoral defeat.

Business Application: In an organisation, the question you are solving will lead you to begin identifying sources where data can be found. For example, based on the questions below, I would look at these sources:

1. Do we have the right strategy to attract the talent we need?                                       Data Sources: Employee feedback, Recruitment feedback, new hire quality data and recruitment data.
2. Are potential candidates aware of our existence and what our company offers?     Data Sources: Candidates’ experience surveys, external reputation data from social media or the internet, campus awareness surveys

Getting Started: If you are reading the data sources and are concerned that you have not been collecting data, do not worry. You can start now. One thing is clear: HR has a lot of data; however, is it being used? If you feel you have insufficient data, start to design and execute surveys. Use the tools at your disposal, such as Microsoft Forms, Google Forms and Artificial Intelligence (AI). If you are still uncomfortable, seek assistance from individuals with research design skills and HR and talent management knowledge. The important thing is to start.

Lesson 3: Analyse, Derive Strategic Insights and Build Recommendations

Turn Data into Intelligence

After collecting the data, you need to analyse the information. This will help you to note the patterns and trends which ultimately help to improve your decision-making.

Real-World Example: Let us revisit our question: Are potential candidates aware of our existence and what our company offers? Based on our analysis, we may find that:

• Only 23% of target candidates know about our company
• Our social media engagement is 60% lower than competitors
• 78% of university students recognise our competitors’ graduate programs, but only 12% know about ours

These findings will help us to identify appropriate recommendations to address the problem, such as increasing campus recruitment activities, enhancing social media presence, and developing a stronger employer brand strategy.

Leveraging Technology: AI can be a powerful tool to provide insights based on your data.  It can help with identifying patterns and generating recommendations as it is embedded in tools ranging from Microsoft Excel to Tableau. Just remember to avoid uploading sensitive employee data and ensure that you follow your company’s data privacy protocols.

Lesson 4: Win Hearts and Minds with Data (Visualise and Tell the Story)

Make Your Data Compelling

Storytelling is the connection between the analysis, the data and your audience. In an election, one tool which parties use to visualise and tell their story is the manifesto. A manifesto is a comprehensive document that presents the vision of the political party in a way that resonates with voters. It is supported by data and research.  

Six tips for effective storytelling include:

1. Start with the end in mind. Begin your presentation by highlighting the problem and your recommendations first to pique interest.
2. Research data visualisation principles. Visual elements like charts, graphs and maps, data visualisation tools provide an accessible way to see and understand trends, outliers, and patterns in data.
3. Synthesise the data. Pick the most important elements and leave out the rest.
4. Provide context. Connect the facts and insights of your data and analysis to provide that context.
5. Create structure. Stories without structure appear disorganised. Often, the issue is that the linkages are not clear because there is too much data and not all of it is connected. With structure, data and insights support each other in a way that makes the story simple to understand and act upon.
6. Sell it! It’s a sales job at this point; no longer an analytical project. Analytics got you this far, but your ability to tell the story is the clincher. [3]

Case Study in Action: If you reflect on the lead-up to elections and election night itself, the media houses used varying approaches to present the results and tell the stories. All efforts focused on data. This is how HR professionals need to use data to sell the impact of people to the business, i.e. demonstrating clear ROI through compelling data stories.

Lesson 5: Take Action → (Execute and Evaluate)

Close the Loop

It is crucial to monitor the implementation results over time. This will help us to determine if things worked out as we planned or if we need to re-strategise.

Business Impact: Just as political parties conduct post-election analysis to understand what worked and what didn’t, organisations must evaluate their people strategies. In Jamaica, organisations need to assess how they are getting information out internally and externally. In a few cases, organisations do not have a website or an outdated social media presence. In this era, this will no longer work.

Measuring Success: Establish clear metrics for your people analytics initiatives:

• Time-to-fill for critical roles
• Quality of hire scores
• Employee engagement improvements
• Retention rates by segment
• Return on investment for recruitment strategies

Your Next Steps: Start Your People Analytics Journey Today

The election analogy demonstrates the importance of using data-driven approaches.  Here is how you can begin your people analytics journey within the next month:

Step 1: Identify your top people challenge and frame it as a specific question

Step 2: Map one data source you already have that could provide insights

Step 3: Conduct a simple analysis and create one compelling visual

Step 4: Present your findings to one key stakeholder and gather feedback

Elections are won by those who pay attention to signals, adjust their strategy, and execute relentlessly. Business success is no different. The real question for leaders is this: are you treating your people strategy like a well-run campaign, or are you leaving results to chance?

References

1. AIHR. (2025, September). People analytics: An essential guide for HR. Academy to Innovate HR. https://www.aihr.com/blog/people-analytics/
2. Barends, E., Rousseau, D. M., & Briner, R. B. (2014). Evidence-based management: The basic principles. Center for Evidence-Based Management.

• Diez, F., Ang, A., & Ng, S. (2019). Fundamentals of HR analytics: A manual on becoming HR analytical. Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Yolande Hylton is the Managing Director of Hylton Insights, an HR Consultancy Firm with a mandate to guide businesses from the transactional to the transformational HR realm, thereby enhancing individual and organisational performance. For inquiries or to learn more, you can reach out to yolande@hyltoninsights.com or visit www.hyltoninsights.com