

Big Data, Trying to Build Better Workers - rmah
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/technology/big-data-trying-to-build-better-workers.html?pagewanted=all

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minopret
A couple of concerns:

1\. At what point (if any) does high-resolution employee data and its analysis
become subject to regulations on health information privacy?

2\. How do we control the risk that data-driven employee management may
introduce some practices with unforeseen and systematically bad consequences?
Can we expect that businesses will use the best available designers and
interpreters of psychological measurement instruments? How relevant is the
current state of that art to this purpose?

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jtbigwoo
It doesn't seem that they're trying to actually _build_ better workers, just
that they want to select against poorer workers. I'd be more interested if
someone tried to teach people the traits that make more effective workers
rather than just using this data as a selection tool

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riveteye
By selecting the right candidates for the right traits (traits previously
unquantifiable and untenable before Big Data techniques) these companies might
eventually, in the long term, build better workers. For example, if the
selection criteria for a career as a developer favours people capable of
getting a Computer Science degree, then more people who want to be developers
will get CS degrees. But in reality, getting a CS degree does not always equal
good developer. Assume there are some people without CS degrees, but with the
skills and behaviours and personality more suited to developer work. These
people would be better hires. Selecting for those criteria would not only
allow your company to hire better developers, but would (like selection for CS
degrees) encourage emerging professionals to develop the desirable traits and
skills defined by the selection criteria. (In some weird social darwinist way,
that I myself am not entirely convinced of.)

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pitt1980
I'm reminded of this exchange

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848454>

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michaelochurch
First of all, this sounds horrible.

Second... this: _It adds a large dose of data analysis, a k a Big Data, to the
field of human resource management_

Genuine, actual data scientist here. We need to talk.

 _FOR FUCK'S SAKE_. That is not what Big Data is! Big Data does not mean "data
is important". Of course it's important! No, Big Data means that the size of
the dataset is part of the problem, requiring approaches to computation that
were previously on the fringe, such as non-relational databases and advanced
distributed computing techniques, with all the concurrency fun that these
needs provide.

Also, if I hear one more person call him- or herself a "data junkie" I will
fucking lose it. _Data_ is a pain in the ass (ever clean gigabytes of the
stuff?) Sure, it's great to have it and you can do some really fun stuff once
it's clean, but man...

~~~
reaclmbs
good interfaces on data are rare

