
In this lecture you take one number your company reports and follow it back through the four owners who produce it, so you can see the handover where it quietly breaks.
This course is built from five disciplines: metrics, analytics, the systems that store data, process description and risk governance.
The map of the course
A dictionary for reading lectures from other fields as data work
Three questions to ask after every lecture
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the Number Trail Map and fill in one line after each lecture.
The role of metrics in management
Where they typically come from, which is where quality problems start
What is needed to read and analyse them
Types of metric, types of analysis, and moving from a number to a decision
The key acquisition and onboarding metrics
What an SLA is and why it belongs in a definition
Funnel analysis through metrics
Using surveys to collect data, and calculating the real cost
Linking metrics to business performance
Tools for measuring motivation, loyalty, satisfaction and engagement
Preparing a report and an action plan from them
Ready questionnaires, automated measurement and pulse surveys
How to obtain market data and how reliable it is
Which metrics to analyse
Assessing competitiveness and the effectiveness of bonus systems
Structuring pay across locations, and analysing the budget
Which metrics assess performance
How to evaluate training
Measuring development and career movement
Metrics for high-potential employees and talent pools
How to calculate turnover, and why two teams get different numbers
Analysing it across segments
Forecasting it
Finding real causes through regression, and running exit and retention surveys
What people analytics is, and the 4S model
How analytics solves a business problem through a properly framed question
Which data is genuinely useful and which is collected out of habit
The ABC model, and how to sell analytics to management
Segmenting on basic characteristics
Visualising the segments
Analysing metrics inside each segment
Grouping segments and finding the insight that matters
What lifetime value is and how to calculate it
Calculating ROI for a workforce
Finding the most valuable segments
Making decisions on that basis and measuring the increase
Visualising the journey map
Collecting the data behind it
Using surveys at each stage
Questionnaires from hiring to exit, and raising value through feedback
The recruitment funnel as a general pipeline model
What can be measured at each stage
Analysing performance and estimating the closing rate
Which conclusions the metrics actually support
ABC analysis applied to people
Building the model
Performance appraisal
Assessing engagement quantitatively
The mistakes almost everyone makes measuring turnover
Measuring and analysing it properly
Retention rates and loyalty
Assessing intent to stay, and understanding why people actually leave
Designing a survey for analysis rather than for reporting
Key driver analysis and selecting the drivers that matter
Visual assessment of the data
Finding and calculating correlations in Excel, and moving to regression
First steps in regression analysis
Multiple regression, and running it in Excel
Interpreting the results
R-square, standard error and analysis of variance
Making a forecast and applying a trend line
Trend analysis
Designing an experiment and forming a control group
Creating the sample and analysing the results
Classification of systems and where to find providers
The evolution of systems and what to automate first
Creating selection criteria
Systems for basic records: data, organisational structure, absence
Types of applicant tracking system
Automating the analytics behind hiring
Selection criteria for one
An overview of popular solutions, and negotiating with providers
Whether to implement the process or choose the system first
An overview of goal-setting solutions
Other functions for continuous feedback
From spreadsheets and forms to advanced systems
The basics of online learning
Types of learning system
An overview of what exists
How to start, and how to integrate systems with each other
What communication and teamwork systems actually cover
An overview of the platforms
Organising teamwork inside them
Getting everyone involved, with practical experience
The evolution of chatbots
An overview of solutions
What you can build yourself
Low-budget platforms, and where AI fits
What artificial intelligence can currently do here
An overview of existing solutions
Application at every stage of the process
Systems with built-in intelligence
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
The moment that tells you an analytics function is not governed is when two departments present the same metric with different numbers and both are technically correct.
Nobody was careless. They used different definitions, and nobody owned the definition.
Where trust in data actually breaks
The metric was never defined in writing, so each team calculates it in the way that makes sense from where they sit. The process behind it was never described, so the data is entered differently by different people on different days. Two systems both hold a version of the truth and neither is authoritative. The dashboard is beautiful and nobody can trace a number back to where it came from. And when a figure looks wrong, the person who notices does not raise it, because raising it means becoming responsible for it.
That last one is a culture problem, and it is the reason most data quality initiatives stall after the tooling is bought.
What the course covers
Thirty-nine lessons following the chain from definition to trust. Definitions first, six lessons on metrics: what each family measures, where the numbers come from, how a single indicator like turnover produces different answers for different teams, and what has to be written down before anyone calculates anything.
Then analysis, ten lessons of it — segmentation, lifetime value, journey and funnel analytics, attrition analysis and its standard mistakes, key driver analysis, correlations in Excel, multiple regression with R-square and variance, forecasting and controlled experiments. This is where you learn what a dataset can and cannot honestly support.
Systems, processes and the ownership question
Then the systems your data actually lives in: core records, recruitment platforms, goal and review tools, learning systems, collaboration platforms, chatbots and AI. Seven lessons on what each one produces, how they integrate, and where the same fact ends up stored twice.
Then the processes that create the data in the first place. Describing them in BPMN, running a description project properly, and the point most people miss — inconsistent data is almost always an undescribed process rather than a system fault.
And finally governance itself, ten lessons on risk: ISO 31000, the risk hierarchy, escalation, the three lines of defence model that answers who actually owns a number, the cognitive biases sitting inside your own estimates, and the culture question of whether a bad figure can travel upward without punishing the person carrying it.
Who is teaching this
Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals. The analytics examples run on workforce data, which is the messiest data in most companies and the best possible practice ground.
What is included
Lifetime access to all course materials
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
Udemy Certificate of Completion
Practical assignments and real business cases
A section with additional courses, tools and resources
The first thing to check
Take one number your company reports regularly and ask two people from different teams how it is calculated. If the answers differ in any detail, you have found where the governance is missing, and it is not in the tooling. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.