What R&D behavior looks like in analytics

Check out this episode of the #1 people analytics podcast with special guest, Tyler Weeks, Managing VP of People Technology, Research, and Analytics at Marriott!

In this wide-ranging and intellectually electric conversation, host Cole Napper sits down with one of the most original thinkers in the people analytics and HR technology space to explore where the function is really headed—and what most organizations are still missing. Tyler brings a rare blend of deep technical R&D experience, systems thinking, and practical leadership insight from operating at scale inside one of the world’s largest and most complex hospitality organizations.

The discussion starts at the macro level, tackling the future of people analytics and why the field risks becoming overly focused on dashboards, reporting, and polished narratives rather than real impact. Tyler argues that people analytics teams should think less like traditional insights groups and more like true R&D organizations—designed to rapidly test ideas, discard what doesn’t work, and scale what does. Using vivid metaphors and analogies, from ESPN tickers to Moneyball, he reframes success as a series of small, compounding wins rather than grand, one-time “transformations.”

From there, the conversation moves into how credibility is actually built with executives. Tyler shares how his team at Marriott deliberately avoided big promises, instead focusing on solving obvious, painful problems and shortening the distance between insight and action. Rather than building static dashboards, they focused on lightweight applications that allowed HR partners to do something with the data, fundamentally changing how work got done across the organization.

AI features heavily in the second half of the episode, but not in the way you typically hear it discussed. Tyler is candid about his concern that many teams are simply “slapping AI” onto existing processes and calling it innovation. He explores why documentation is becoming executable code, why HR may soon be managing something closer to an open-source software problem than a policy library, and how people analytics can help organizations navigate this shift responsibly. The conversation also dives into uncomfortable but necessary territory around surveillance, performance measurement, and the ethical boundaries of increasingly granular data—drawing on Cole’s “The Camera” thought experiment and Tyler’s concept of “terraforming the future” of work so that it remains human-centered.

Along the way, Tyler connects ideas from physics, entropy, collective intelligence, and social science to explain why work is fundamentally a team sport, why focusing solely on individual brilliance is misleading, and why social cohesion remains one of the most underestimated drivers of organizational performance. He also offers refreshingly blunt advice on preparing for an AI-driven future: stop theorizing, start using the tools, and cultivate a “hold my beer” mindset across your team.

This episode is packed with sharp insights, provocative takes, and practical lessons for anyone serious about building people analytics, HR technology, or AI capabilities that actually matter. It’s a conversation that challenges comforting narratives, replaces buzzwords with first principles, and leaves you rethinking what progress in this field should really look like.

If you like this episode, you’d also love exploring prior episodes—visit colenapper.com for the full archive and show links.