The Conference Board and Mercer Announce Strategic Collaboration to Launch Workforce Analytics Institute

- Platform provides business, HR with access to knowledge, insights and practical support

- Peer-learning from industry leaders and tailored research

- Combines decades of expert knowledge from both Mercer and The Conference Board

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Mar 08, 2015, 10:00 ET

SINGAPORE, March 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The Conference Board and Mercer are pleased to announce the launch of the Workforce Analytics Institute (WAI) – the first of its kind in Asia.

The WAI is a virtual platform which will provide businesses across the region and, specifically, human resources professionals, with the research, tools, methodologies and training they need to move from standard workforce planning to sophisticated workforce analytics. The WAI is designed to accelerate the progress of organizations on their big data journey and enable them to outperform their competitors.

The Conference Board and Mercer will invest extensively in research that provides organizations with a roadmap to build and implement robust workforce analytics.

The WAI, which is a membership-based platform, brings together leading edge intellectual capital from The Conference Board and Mercer, as well as peer learning from industry leaders who will be part of the Institute's councils. The councils will convene twice a year and will offer members access to the knowledge and insight of industry leaders, as well as practical support. Along with tailored research and industry access, the WAI will offer workshops, webcasts, city briefings and a range of communication vehicles.

Leading corporations expressing interest in the WAI include confirmed founding member Meralco, the largest electric distribution utility company in the Philippines. Oscar S. Reyes, President and CEO of Meralco, said: "The current and future success of Meralco hinges on how well we mine and manage our data to ensure that it serves as an effective springboard to commercial value creation. This includes human capital analytics, which drives opportunities for organizational and people value enhancement."

"The Conference Board is very pleased to join with Mercer and to contribute our decades of expert knowledge in strategic workforce planning, in order to address this critical need for our industry and to continue to lead the market in developing clear thought leadership in analytics," said Dr. Rebecca Ray, Executive Vice-President, Knowledge Organization and Human Capital Practice Lead, The Conference Board.

"We are very excited to be a part of this game-changing initiative, which addresses the divide between HR and big data analytics," said Dion Groeneweg, Partner and HR Transformation & Workforce Planning Leader for Growth Markets, Mercer.

Mr. Groeneweg added: "A recent Harvard Business Review survey highlighted that only nine per cent of companies use predictive analytics to inform workforce decisions. However, in our experience of working with organizations across the world, we are increasingly seeing that the organizations that have embraced analytics and are investing in building analytics capability for the future are better placed to succeed. The WAI will combine research with the genuine insights we have acquired over two decades in helping organizations advance their analytics and workforce planning agenda."

"A relatively small number of organizations have the capacity to manage and use human capital data," said Nick Sutcliffe, Executive Director of The Conference Board in Asia. "Leaders today report a lack of confidence in HR being up to the challenge of dealing with twenty-first century human capital needs. The WAI will provide organizations with the techniques and insights to help them articulate the impact of human capital investments and to identify future trends that will influence both their business and human capital decisions."

The WAI will offer high-level learning and its initial focus will be in the areas of:

How do human capital analytics contribute to organization performance?
What types of human capital analytics projects can organizations implement?
How can organizations build capacity and capability in human capital analytics?
How can businesses advance their human capital analytics practice?

To learn more, please visit www.workforce-analytics-institute.com.

About The Conference Board
The Conference Board is a global, independent business membership and research association working in the public interest. Our mission is unique: to provide the world's leading organizations with the practical knowledge they need to improve their performance and better serve society. The Conference Board is a non-advocacy, not-for-profit entity holding 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt status in the United States. For more information, visit www.conference-board.org. Follow us on Twitter @Conferenceboard.org

About Mercer
Mercer is a global consulting leader in talent, health, retirement and investments. Mercer helps clients around the world advance the health, wealth and performance of their most vital asset – their people. Mercer's more than 20,000 employees are based in more than 40 countries and the firm operates in over 130 countries. Mercer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE: MMC), a global professional services firm offering clients advice and solutions in the areas of risk, strategy and people. With 57,000 employees worldwide and annual revenue exceeding $13 billion, Marsh & McLennan Companies is also the parent company of Marsh, a leader in insurance broking and risk management; Guy Carpenter, a leader in providing risk and reinsurance intermediary services; and Oliver Wyman, a leader in management consulting. For more information, visit www.mercer.com. Follow Mercer on Twitter @MercerInsights.

Notes to Editors:
The Conference Board's Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) expert and Principal Researcher Dr. Mary Young has worked with Asian government bodies and corporations for more than a decade to bring SWP and analytics capacity to human capital professionals. Her recent work Nobody's Perfect is one of the first to examine the value of sources of external labor market data.

Dr. Rebecca Ray, Human Capital Practice Lead, and Dr. Patti Phillips, Distinguished Principal Researcher, continue to support the work of analytics with reports including Human Capital Analytics: A Primer and Human Capital Analytics @Work.

SOURCE The Conference Board