Faculty in 5: Alan Benson
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Q: What is/are your current area(s) of research? What business challenges are you helping to solve?
A: My research is in empirical personnel economics—I use the tools of microeconomics to analyze companies' HR data, helping them make more informed decisions about who to transfer, who to promote, how to manage turnover, how to design incentive plans, and other topics germane to HR. Much of my work has been on salespeople, but I've also analyzed police, nurses, firefighters, factory workers, and others.
My most recent work is with a national big box retailer, where I'm trying to uncrack the DNA of their high-performing stores. I'm looking at who they hire, who they transfer, how they promote, and whether the highest performing stores are better at getting these patterns right. Right now, much of these decisions are done at the discretion of the individual store manager, and this is an opportunity to leverage the collective wisdom of all of their stores to make smarter HR decisions.
Q: What current business issues or stories in the news are you following and why?
What makes compensation so interesting is that it's not just something we can analyze, but it's also a topic that's so politically, culturally, and emotionally charged.