New technology and new ways of thinking about the value of employees threaten to upend the traditional method of assessing workers.

The Wall Street Journal reports on a number of organizations conducting “organizational network analysis” in an attempt to identify the informal groups of employees that exist in every workplace. Most companies rely on them without even knowing them.

Specifically, employers are interested in identifying workers outside of the spotlight who serve as important advisers or mentors. By asking employees to name coworkers they find helpful and trustworthy, Equinix may discover people who don’t seek leadership positions but whose knowledge and support is a major asset to the team.

“Invisible stars in many cases are more powerful than the people we celebrate,” Boris Groysberg, a professor at Harvard Business School, tells the WSJ. “If you’re going to lose that person, seven other people’s performance declines.”

Various tech tools offer to reveal behavior that might indicate whether an employee is well-regarded by their peers. For instance, Workday, the HR software tool, allows people to thank their coworkers for helping them on a project. Other companies are analyzing email traffic, to see which workers are communicating with each other. Who is the person that workers are directing their questions to?

That type of data can be used by managers to analyze who their employees view as valuable. In some cases, the data may paint a very different picture than a manager’s perception.

A Deloitte white paper on organizational network analysis identified several different types of personalities in the workplace. There are “knowledge brokers,” who “create bridges between groups,” and facilitate the flow of important information. Then there are the people in the “Central Node,” who tend to know lots of different people in the organization and are well-liked.

Organizational analysis may help reveal barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace. Women often take on the role of knowledge broker, Rob Cross, a professor at Babson College in Massachusetts, tells the Journal. That can make them tremendously valuable to an organization, but that value often goes undetected.

Read more:

Instant Insights /

Employers look to organizational network analysis to find hidden talent

More From HR Executive

Related Stories

Recommended For You