Empowering Their Staff with the Best Data at Kelly Services

Kelly Services is a 74-year-old global leading staffing and workforce management organization. In order to provide the best experience to their customers, they needed data that they could rely on to make accurate decisions. This required building a framework and foundation with a common language around what their data means. They needed standards and consistency in order to foster data self-service and empower visibility.

During the next Data Empowerment Experts session, I’ll sit down with Mark Hemingway, Director, Data & Analytics Governance at Kelly Services. He’ll share how their team sought to deliver measurable, sustainable, and scalable business value throughout Kelly Services. As a preview of the episode, Mark and I shared a bit of Q&A to find out a little more about his background and the environment at Kelly:

Question: What’s your background and how did you get into the world of governance?

Answer: I come from a software product management, development, and delivery background.  My primary focus was mostly application based, but the importance of the data, analytics, and standards within that was always a part of my world.  I came to governance through a combination of analytical application development, standards organizations like HR-XML, and Kelly’s need to better understand its assets.

Question: Who are the best advocates for data at your organization?

Answer: We are blessed to have advocates throughout the company, but our executive backing comes from our CFO, COO, and CIO.  Likewise, our data stewards and owners champion the cause globally.

Question: How can you help to improve data literacy?

Answer: I’m sure, like many, we’ve had challenges with consistency and common understanding.  Our hope is to institutionalize an understanding and what value our data holds.  It’s also about discovery, we want to give everyone in Kelly the ability to understand what data we own, where it comes from and how it impacts our world.

Question: What parts of your business benefit most from having trusted data?

Answer: I would have to say all.  Obviously, our frontline activities need quality timely data to make decisions, but the need for trust does not stop there.  All parts of our business, from Finance to Marketing, HR to IT, rely on quality data to help guide our decisions.

Question: How have you helped to build a data culture?

Answer: We’re just starting the journey, but helping the business understand what’s important, how it’s valuable and exposing the standards we need to uphold go a long way.  We’ve brought all dimensions of our business together to start this journey.  In doing so we’re seeing a collaborative spirit that’s helping us create consistency and harmony across many of our business units.  As a company we’re on a significant journey, and probably never more than now, has data and a culture of data been more on point.

View the Kelly Services episode of the Data Empowerment Experts to learn how trusted data has become an enabler for Digital Business Optimization and Transformation.