Employee experience firm PLASTARC works to design and adjudicate the Wharton People Analytics Conference's 11th Annual Case Competition. Using original qualitative and quantitative survey data, the competition gave way to various groundbreaking, data-based approaches to flexible workplaces and policies.
PHILADELPHIA, March 27, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Organizers of the 2024 Wharton People Analytics Conference (WPAC) invited PLASTARC, a New York-based employee experience consultancy, to design and adjudicate its 11th Annual Case Competition, which awards $25,000 in prize money thanks to the generosity of Wharton alumnus, Prasad Setty. Held March 14-15 at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, WPAC 2024 featured an impressive lineup of thought leaders, such as Angela Duckworth, Adam Grant, Mary Murphy, and Danny Meyer. The two-day conference offered an exceptional opportunity for nearly 300 registrants to exchange ideas on a more holistic, vibrant vision for the future of work.
The WPAC Case Competition, which garnered over 30 team submissions, invited post- secondary students from across the globe to analyze real-life data sets and propose innovative solutions to contemporary business challenges. Using its own original qualitative and quantitative survey data, PLASTARC created a project brief that invited participants to determine how workers' stated preferences could be integrated for the benefit of employees and employers alike. Given the current debate around the benefits and challenges of co-location and return-to-office, it was particularly striking that none of the 30 teams proposed an on-site mandate in their submissions. Instead, they offered data-led approaches to workplace personalization that could also enable performance feedback and continuous improvement.
"This year, PLASTARC was delighted to share our research on knowledge-worker preferences regarding work location, a much-debated topic of the moment," said Melissa Marsh, Founder and CEO of PLASTARC. "This offered the case competition teams an opportunity to work with 'data in the wild:' a mix of organizations, locations, and sectors, all exploring topics around distributed work, telework, flexible work arrangements, activity based working (ABW), and the uncharted territories of what the future of work will look like in this increasingly digital age." The student submissions to WPAC's 11th Annual Case Competition highlight the importance of behavioral data in fostering healthier, happier, more productive workplaces.
PLASTARC won the Conference's Startup Competition Award for Most Creative Use of Data in 2018, so the team was already familiar with WPAC's emphasis on forward-thinking solutions in an ever-evolving workplace environment. This year's competition was judged by Eric Kline, Director of Global Workplace Experience at Adobe, and Catherine Coppinger, Customer Insights Leader at Worklytics. Upon review of 30 written submissions, they selected seven semi-finalists, who were invited to present their findings. MetroMinds from New York University was selected as the winner. "It was not an easy choice," noted Marsh. "Not only did the three finalists have exceptionally thoughtful results and analytics, they also balanced quantitative analysis with human insight, and even empathy. Exceptional data analytics, complemented by clear data visualization and applicable recommendations, became the key differentiator between teams."
MetroMinds was composed of four graduate students, who are studying Industrial Organizational Psychology and Computer Science at NYU: Anway Agte, Pallavi Janiani, Ananya Shah, and Aasim Yacub. Their project utilized job families and decision trees as its main modalities for categorizing and visualizing worker profiles, preferences, and the complex set of factors that drive everyday decisions. Based on these parameters, their recommendations included an emphasis on multisensory stimuli, such as vibrant colors, brightness, and acoustic variation, that could help organizations meet the expectations of co-located employees. MetroMinds also made recommendations that could cater to remote employees, including stipends for setting up home workspaces, technological infrastructure that would facilitate more seamless collaboration between remote and in-person workers, and clear protocols that could ensure consistency across remote and hybrid work contexts. "Supporting remote employees will enable employee productivity, which will directly impact company growth and development," noted the MetroMinds team, who also explained that "this will lead to about a 20% increase in profitability."
Reflecting on the work of the winning team, Marsh expressed excitement about the opportunities for customization in future workplaces. "Relevant and rigorous behavioral data can be used to simultaneously express care and optimize employee performance," she noted. Through these case study submissions, the next generation of business leaders clearly demonstrated how people analytics will prove essential as we continue building more personalized, hybrid workplaces that fuel productivity.