Basic Descriptive Statistics

Measures of central tendency: mean, median and mode.

Once data collection is complete, it is necessary to organize and summarize the information in an informative manner using descriptive statistics.

Measures of central tendency are used to identify the typical or central point of a data set.

The average or mean is obtained by adding all the values of the sample and dividing the total by the number of observations.

The median represents the central value when the data are ordered from smallest to largest, being a very useful measure when there are extreme values that could distort the mean.

Finally, the mode is the most frequently repeated value in the data series.

These tools allow the talent manager to understand, for example, what is the average level of employee satisfaction or what is the most frequent score in a performance evaluation.

Measures of dispersion: Range, variance and standard deviation

To get a complete picture of the data, it is not enough to know the center; it is vital to understand how spread out or concentrated the values are through measures of spread or dispersion.

The range is the simplest measure, calculated as the difference between the highest and lowest value in the set.

The variance indicates the average of the squared deviations from the mean, showing how far away the information is from the center.

Finally, the standard deviation is the square root of the variance; it is the preferred measure of dispersion because it is expressed in the same units as the original data, making it easier to interpret.

A low standard deviation indicates that employees are performing similarly, while a high standard deviation suggests a large disparity in performance that requires investigation.

Summary

Descriptive statistics organize and summarize the information collected in an informative manner. Measures of central tendency, such as mean, median, and mode, identify the typical data point.

The mean is the average, while the median is the ordered central value. The mode indicates the most frequent value, helping to understand levels of satisfaction or performance.

Measures of dispersion, such as range and standard deviation, show the concentration of values. A high deviation suggests disparity in performance that requires further investigation.