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People Analytics That Reveals What Actually Drives Performance

People analytics that only measures what people do cannot explain why performance looks the way it does. Marlee adds the why — using the Marlee Motivational Analysis, built on 25 years of research and measuring 48 distinct work motivations with up to 98% analysis reliability, to give HR leaders a human layer that activity data alone cannot provide.
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194+ countries · 25 years of research · Up to 98% analysis reliability

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Why People Analytics Often Raises More Questions Than It Answers

People analytics has matured enormously as a discipline. Organizations now hold more data about their workforce than at any point in history. The insight that data generates, however, remains largely descriptive. It tells leaders what the workforce looks like. Explaining why it looks that way requires a different kind of data entirely.
The result is analytics that describe problems rather than explain them. People leaders can see that turnover is rising in a particular team, or that engagement is declining in a region, but the data offers no reliable signal about what is actually driving it.
The insights that would most help people leaders are not the ones sitting in existing dashboards. They are the ones that explain why the trends in those dashboards look the way they do, and that kind of insight requires a different type of data entirely.

How Marlee Turns People Analytics Into Decisions, Not Just Reports

People analytics becomes useful when it explains rather than just describes. Marlee adds explanatory power — mapping 48 distinct work motivations with up to 98% analysis reliability, so the patterns in the data have a human foundation that helps people leaders understand what is actually driving what they are seeing.
Marlee's people analytics capability is built on the Marlee Motivational Analysis — 25 years of research measuring 48 distinct work motivations with up to 98% analysis reliability. Unlike behavioral or engagement data, it surfaces the motivational patterns that explain why people perform, collaborate, or disengage, giving people analytics leaders insight with a human foundation.
For people analytics leaders, this adds the human dimension that activity data cannot provide, explaining not just what the workforce trends show, but what is driving them.
Here is what that looks like for leaders:
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Understand what drives performance across your teams

People analytics leaders gain access to motivation data for every person in the workforce — a precise, reliable view of what drives collaboration, performance, and engagement at the individual level, complementing the behavioral and sentiment data they already hold.
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Apply analytics insight at the moments that matter most

Surface the right understanding when it counts: during team formation, onboarding, role changes, or periods of organizational pressure.
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Scale people insight across the entire organization

People analytics insight should reach the people managers who can act on it, not only the analytics team that produces it. Marlee puts motivational understanding in the hands of every leader in the organization, making better decisions about people a distributed capability rather than a specialized one.

What Changes When People Analytics Reveals the Why Behind the Data

People analytics teams that use Marlee alongside their existing data infrastructure report a shift in the quality of conversations with business leaders. The analytics stops describing what happened and starts explaining what drove it — which makes those conversations shorter, more conclusive, and more likely to result in action.

People analytics that explains, not just describes

HR leaders who use Marlee alongside their existing analytics report being able to answer questions the data alone could never resolve.

Clearer answers to the questions that matter most about your people

HR leaders with access to motivational insight can answer the questions that workforce data alone cannot resolve: why is engagement declining in that team, what is driving the retention gap in that function, what should we actually do about it.

A people analytics function that advises, not just reports

A people analytics function that advises rather than reports changes its relationship with business leaders. The conversations shift from explaining what happened to advising on what to do, which is the contribution that HR leaders are trying to make and organizations need from them.

People analytics with the explanatory layer that tells leaders what to do

People analytics with an explanatory layer changes the conversation between HR and business leaders. It moves from reporting on what happened to advising on what to do about it — which is the conversation HR leaders are trying to have and business leaders need them to have.

People Analytics That Explains the Why, Not Just the What

Most people analytics platforms report what has happened. Marlee helps leaders understand why, and what to do differently. Motivation science gives analytics a human layer that activity data alone cannot provide.

Beyond people analytics platform

People analytics platforms surface workforce data. Marlee surfaces what drives it, adding a layer of motivation science that explains the patterns in the data and gives leaders something they can act on, not just report on.

Motivation science that explains what the data shows

People analytics insight is most useful when it reaches leaders at the moment they are making a decision, not weeks later in a report. Marlee surfaces motivational understanding at the points in the talent cycle where it can actually change the decision: hiring, onboarding, team restructuring, and performance conversations.

Built to explain the trends, not just to surface them

Marlee connects people analytics to how leaders make decisions, giving the data a human layer that helps organizations understand not just what the numbers show, but what to do about them.

Motivational insight for every team, function, and geography in the organization

Marlee gives enterprise people analytics teams a consistent motivational data layer that works across the entire organization, giving HR leaders the same quality of insight about what drives performance and collaboration in every team, function, and geography.

See how Marlee works for your organization

Schedule a demo to find out how Marlee adds human motivation insight to people analytics and helps enterprise leaders make better decisions.
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Research and Evidence

Marlee's people analytics capability is built on 25 years of research into the motivation patterns that drive workplace performance — the most extensive dataset of its kind in the world. With analysis across 194+ countries, the Marlee Motivational Analysis gives people analytics leaders a human layer of insight that no activity metric can replicate.
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There's a lot of focus on hard skills. But at a company, what's absolutely critical is communication and soft skills — the things most companies don't spend enough time focusing on. Marlee has been an amazing tool to help us do that.

Melanie Perkins,

Co-founder & CEO, Canva
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Marlee’s deep insights allowed us to focus on actual needs naturally embedded with inclusion and deep consideration as to achieving a complete experience. All subjectivity is removed and we can focus on the employees needs and growth to foster an environment of inclusion, support and belonging.

Lorraine Longato,

Senior Innovation Strategist & Co-Lead, Partnerships APJ/GC - SAP

Frequently Asked Questions

See what people analytics can do when it explains the why behind the data

Schedule a demo to see how Marlee adds human motivation insight to your people analytics and improves how your teams perform.
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