How to Talk about HR ROI

Alexis Fink has spent decades working at the intersection of data, people, and strategy. She’s helped build workforce systems at massive scale for companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Intel, and is now bringing those lessons to organizations navigating the future of work through her company, Propeller Insight.

In the latest episode of our Daas Cool podcast, our CEO Ben sat down with Alexis to discuss workforce strategy, people analytics, and one deceptively hard question: how do you talk about ROI in a way that actually matters to the business?

When ROI comes up, it’s easy for the conversation to default to cost-cutting or incremental efficiency gains. But the most meaningful returns don’t come from shaving a few minutes off a process.

Real ROI shows up when organizations use data to expand their capabilities - whether that’s getting more value out of existing systems and teams or making smarter, more targeted investments in new ones.

As Alexis puts it:

That might mean enabling teams to ship more products, launch into new markets faster, improve customer outcomes, or confidently invest in capabilities that unlock growth.

And this is where workforce strategy and HR leaders play a uniquely powerful role.

Workforce strategy teams operate at a rare intersection: they see the talent, the systems, and the business constraints simultaneously. And when that perspective is used well, people data becomes a strategic tool, not just a reporting function.

Across her career, Alexis has seen how connecting talent data to real operational decisions can create an outsized impact across organizations. Sometimes that impact shows up as success, and sometimes it shows up as hard-earned lessons, for example:

The common thread wasn’t better dashboards or cleaner metrics; it was relevance. The work mattered because it is grounded in how the business actually runs.

That’s the difference between reporting on the workforce and shaping strategy with it.

One of the most consistent pitfalls Alexis sees is teams stopping at the insight: great analysis, a polished presentation, maybe even a mic-drop-worthy concluding insight.

But as she shared: “The places where I’ve had the biggest impact are the ones where I’ve been able to tie to something that was operational.”

The real gains come when data and insights are tightly connected to action. Workforce data informs what gets built, staffed, launched, and funded. These are real business-level impacts, and this is how ROI becomes concrete.

That’s the secret to talking about HR ROI at every scale of your business, whether you're a small 10 person startup or a multi-national organization.

This post scratches the surface of our chat with Alexis. The entire conversation is definitely worth a listen and packed with more great topics and insights like:

Watch the full podcast here:

If you’re thinking about how data might help your work - or help your team tell a clearer ROI story - we’d love to chat!

We’re data nerds, we enjoy these conversations, and we’re always excited to help teams put data to work in the real world.

And if you’d love to nerd out with us on one of our next podcasts, definitely reach out!

Till next time!