A good graph is worth a thousand words

One of my favourite blogs is Storytelling with data. Cole Nussbaumer from the People Analytics team at Google does a great job of explaining how we present data in a graphical manner can underline and reinforce our message. With time, I have started doing more presentations for Boards and other top executives, as well as…

How to create a drop-down list in Excel

In this edition of Sunday Skills, I want to show you how to create a drop-down list in your Excel sheets. This is really useful when you are collecting information from multiple sources and you want to ensure that the data you collect is easy to compile and use for analysis. For example if you…

The 5 questions to test the validity of a statistical analysis

In this instalment of Sunday Skills, I want to direct you to a podcast from Stephanie Thomas at The Proactive Employer. What to do when your results are statistically (in)significant lasts about 15 minutes and you won’t regret spending this quarter of an hour listening to Stephanie expand on the 5 questions you should ask…

Two Excel functions to save time in compensation files

Two functions in Excel can help you save time when performing analyses on big compensation files : conditional formatting and sorting. Imagine you have big file with salary information and you want to find out who are the lowest paid of managers in the organisation. But titles are all over the place, not specifically tied…

A practical tip for your Compensation files

Today I just want to share a quick, practical tip for preparing Compensation files. It’s nothing complicated but it comes straight from the experience of preparing tens (if not hundreds) of these files over the years. If you follow this simple advice you will save yourself time and stress when you are asked to include…

How to do it in Excel

In today’s edition of Sunday Skills I am delighted to share with you an article that was originally published on the excellent blog from Cole Nussbaumer, Storytelling with Data. “How to do it in Excel” will show you step by step how to move from the traditional, boring line graph to one that is visually…

Even pictures have fine print

I’ll keep it short today and will share a picture from the always excellent OneFTE.com. In the post Even pictures have fine print, Stuart makes an excellent point about how presenting data in graphics can convey a different impression based on the scales you choose to use. Make sure to try different versions of your…