Putting Workforce Analytics to Work: Achieving Objectives and Realizing Outcomes

Putting Workforce Analytics to Work: Achieving Objectives and Realizing Outcomes

Workforce analytics turns people and business data into actionable intelligence. If you re in HR, you ve no doubt noticed that, these days, you can t do much of anything without coming across an article, blog or presentation focused on workforce analytics. Up to now, the primary emphasis has been on raising awareness of the benefits and value that workforce analytics can bring to HR and the business. For instance: We ve learned that analytics can help HR teams reclaim time and resources, can shift time and energy towards thinking and acting strategically, and can raise the profile and influence of HR by equipping teams with the means to speak the language of the executives. We ve also learned that workforce analytics can contribute significantly to business outcomes. By having access to accurate, easy to understand and inthe-now data, HR professionals can make evidencebased decisions and act quickly to positively impact the people and the business.

Given the push to validate workforce analytics as an imperative in HR, it s unlikely there are many HR professionals still in the dark about the value it can bring. Despite this, there are still many organizations who have yet to take the plunge. And maybe that s why because we think of it as taking the plunge when really, we should be approaching workforce analytics in a more conservative way, by dipping a toe to start. In this document: we ll move beyond the why of workforce analytics (because we all know this by now) and get to the how we ll present a powerful and proven way to think and do workforce analytics we ll illustrate how starting small and having a clear focus on objectives is the key to putting workforce analytics to work for you.

SPOILER ALERT: The meat of the approach is this: in order to make sure workforce analytics are leveraged in the most appropriate way, it s essential to carry out analytics within the context of business objectives and outcomes. The key is to start small and to set specific objectives for analytics. That s right, make Big Data smaller. Without this, workforce analytics can be overwhelming and it can be easy to get lost in all the numbers and data.

Situating a workforce analytics initiative within a broader context, flanked by business objectives at the one end and business outcomes at the other, ensures you are acting with purpose, rather than executing analytics for the sake of analytics. Here s a diagram that shows analytics in context:

1 Identify and Prioritize Your Business Objectives and Goals To be most effective you need to link workforce analytics to your business goals. This means spending a bit of time articulating and prioritizing your business objectives, goals and desired outcomes. Your objectives may be related to reducing turnover and gaining a precise understanding of turnover by segment, by department, by hiring manager, by recruitment source, by location, etc. and the costs associated with this. You may have succession planning on the agenda. Whatever your top objectives, you need to keep them at the forefront and use your analytics solution to bring insight to these specific areas. And remember, you don t need to tackle everything at once. In fact, a best practice is to identify 1 or 2 priority areas where you want to understand more. Select objectives that are financially relevant ones you know matter to the business. This is important because you want to make an impact and create a quick win for analytics. If you like, talk to your business partners and find out what their biggest data challenge is make this one of your objectives at the outset. Think of your strategy here as going an inch wide and a mile deep that is, really digging in to understand 1 or 2 top areas. Be targeted and be patient as you begin. You ll quickly build understanding and before you know it you ll be moving on to all those other areas of interest.

The next 3 steps fall under the umbrella of Analytics:

2 Identify and Capture the Data & Metrics that Align to Your Objectives Identify the metrics you need to capture that align to the objectives you ve set as priority. Depending on your objectives, this may require seeking data outside of HR as well as within your own systems. This is a great opportunity to work with other stakeholders and expand your reach. If you re looking at turnover, you ll need to bring together HR data, performance, engagement, compensation, and more. You may notice there is data you d like to have but don t. That s okay, now is the opportunity to start collecting new data to feed your understanding. For example, you may want to assign the hiring manager to each new recruit and begin tracking this. With this additional data, you ll be able to link it to turnover, performance, Quality of Hire and other 1 st year outcomes. You may decide that you need to introduce a new hire survey at the 30, 60 and 90-day mark to begin collecting data on the candidate, recruitment, onboarding and early employee experiences. Don t worry if you don t have every piece of data you need a the outset. By starting with a targeted objective you can begin identifying the data you have in-house, the data you d like that resides elsewhere in the business, and the data you need to start collecting. It won t be perfect at the beginning but the key is to get going and fill the gaps as you move along. And it s a guarantee that you have enough data at your disposal right now that you can start building insight.

3 Segmentation Slice and Dice your Data Any Way You Like This is where the heavy lifting takes place. Once you have all the metrics and data relevant to your objective, and these data points and systems are connected in meaningful ways (this may require help from an analytics partner with expertise in HR), you can start to slice and dice the data across the variables. With connected data, you can dig deeply into turnover. No longer do you have to rely on broad numbers such as a company-wide turnover rate of 12%, but you can start dissecting this with precision. You can look at turnover by demographics, tenure, performance, engagement, learning, location, job/role really any area where you capture data. This turns a generic understanding of turnover into a very specific one. Imagine being able to identify that top performer turnover for a particular job role is 33% and the impact of this is $1.5M in lost revenue per year. Instead of talking about one number with little context (a global turnover rate of 12%), now you have the ability to understand turnover by performance and role PLUS the business impact and hard cost of this. You can start to understand the variables that impact turnover in ways you never imagined. And you have a targeted place to start making decisions, taking action, and making a difference to the business.

4 Draw Insights from the Data & Analytics Once you have segmented the data, it s time to start drawing insights from it. This means looking for patterns that support business objectives as well as looking for anomalies, hotspots and areas out of alignment with business objectives. The data and analytics provide a solid picture of what s happening, say, with turnover in the organization, but making sense of it requires your input. You need to think about what the data is telling you within the context of your own organization. In the drill-down discovery of a turnover rate of 33% among top performers in a particular role, you need to really think about the variables at play in this scenario. Draw insights from the data and your knowledge perhaps there is something going on within recruitment, onboarding, at the manager level, related to learning and development, etc. that needs to be modified? This is where you can start to say this is what s happening, and here s the reasons why. If you don t know the reasons why, it may be necessary to dig a bit deeper consider going to the source with some qualitative research (e.g. an employee focus group or a pizza lunch) or a short targeted survey to build understanding of the why behind that number.

5 Take Action Armed with the analytics and insight relevant to your business objective, you and your HR team are equipped with the knowledge to take action and drive towards improving business performance. This is where real business problems get solved, where you act on your new found data and insight. In the case of turnover, this could mean updating or changing a process, reviewing learning and development opportunities, building support mechanisms, or more. It s at this stage where you can say with confidence this is what s happening, here are the reasons why, this is why it s important to understand this issue, here s what we re going to do about it, and here is our expected outcome. That s a whole lot of business value and a great springboard for dialogue and decision making.

6 Evaluate, Rinse, Repeat Of course there is a 6 th step, which involves: evaluating the action taken making any necessary changes celebrating your successes (yay!) and carrying on towards your next objectives with workforce analytics.

Remember: by being diligent at the outset of your journey into workforce analytics and identifying 1 or 2 key objectives you can start tackling these areas headon and in the most efficient and effective ways. So there you have it our simple and straightforward approach to thinking about and doing workforce analytics. Remember our turnover example from earlier? If, through segmentation, you can pinpoint that turnover is a particular problem among three specific groups of employees and you know that the negative impact to the business is higher in one area than in the others, you know where to place your initial focus on driving improvements. Being able to sharpen your focus on the specific areas that matter most should have significantly more business value than trying to solve an overall turnover rate of 12%.

Let s sum things up so you can get started: The world of applying workforce analytics to HR data can be very exciting. It can also be daunting, and it s easy to get lost in all the data. That s why it s essential to approach workforce analytics within the context of defined business objectives and outcomes. Take the time to articulate your business objectives and use your analytics solution to powerfully segment and gain deep understanding of these priority areas. From here, you have the evidence you need to tell the story of what s happening, the insight to chart the way forward, and the ability to act with confidence, speed and dexterity towards solving real and relevant business problems.

If you d like to learn more Download our ebook: Get in Touch: It s your workforce data. You should use it.