For years, HR has lacked the data to make strategic, informed business decisions about talent management. However, by managing every stage of the employee lifecycle, from hiring to departure, HR leaders are naturally collecting raw data on the workforce around them. A people analytics strategy helps them unlock this goldmine of data by consolidating it to identify trends and provide actionable insights.
What is people analytics?
People analytics refers to the collection and analysis of workforce data to strategize, track and optimize people-related business outcomes. To put it more simply, people analytics helps HR make better decisions about their people.
This data can be as broad or as granular as your organization requires, with people analytics metrics that track:
- Employee sentiment, engagement and retention
- Compensation and benefits
- The effectiveness of your tech stack
- Employee time tracking and performance
- Workforce demographics and more
These advanced people analytics can be applied to a range of scenarios, whether you’re trying to increase tech stack adoption or reduce employee turnover. What's more, people analytics can be used to plan for changes in the workforce, such as promotion and succession planning.
Implementing a people analytics strategy can be challenging, but the benefits are clear. Companies that use a people analytics strategy are better positioned to attract and retain top talent, improve organizational performance and prioritize work that offers the highest ROI turnover.
Why your people analytics strategy matters
Any business will tell you that their people are their most important asset. After all, it is employees who are responsible for carrying out the day-to-day operations of a company. They are the ones who interact with customers, generate new ideas and drive results. That is why having a strong people analytics strategy is so important.
Beyond that, here are five reasons people analytics is important:
- People analytics is a powerful tool that can help organizations make better decisions about their workforce. By analyzing data about employee behavior, organizations can identify trends and patterns that can improve workplace efficiency and effectiveness.
- It can help to improve communication and collaboration within an organization by providing insights into how employees interact with each other.
- It can also help identify potential issues before they become problems, saving organizations time and money.
- People analytics can help create a more positive work environment by identifying ways to improve employee satisfaction and engagement. This improves employee retention and productivity.
- Ultimately, people analytics is a valuable tool that can help organizations achieve fair play, increase diversity and attain their goals.
How to build a people analytics strategy for your business
People analytics has the potential to transform the way you do business. But before you can start reaping the benefits, you need to develop your initial strategy. Here's how to get started:
Identify your goals and desired results
The first step of any well-executed people analytics strategy is to identify what you’re trying to achieve with it. What problem are you trying to solve? Do you want to improve retention rates? Boost employee engagement?
Once you've pinpointed the challenges and aspirations of your workforce, you can start developing a plan to support employees accordingly. Think about:
- If the challenges you’re focusing on affect team performance
- The results you expect to achieve
- How the outcomes will impact your company
- Who the outcomes will affect
- How to to template better processes across your organization
Review gaps in your data sources to unlock insights you’re not currently monitoring
The second step of your people analytics strategy should be clarifying where you’re going to pull data from. Keep in mind that this step is essential to ensuring that your business is referencing unbiased and unskewed data. It’s also the most difficult step for various reasons.
Firstly, you must identify blindspots in your organization’s data sources to ensure you capture an accurate picture of your workforce. Are you lacking tech stack analytics? Missing employee performance tools that maintain visibility into your organization’s insights on digital work processes? Your insights won’t be comprehensive until you find out.
Fortunately, there are a variety of available sources to collect comprehensive datasets for your people analytics strategy. These include:
- Employee surveys
- Performance reviews
- Exit interviews
- Time tracking applications
- HR solutions
- People analytics platforms
Analyze the data
This is where things get interesting. You'll need to use the collected data to identify patterns and trends. This analysis can be done using various methods, including statistical analysis, machine learning, and text mining.
- Statistical analysis is the most traditional method of data analysis and is often used to identify trends and relationships between different factors.
- Machine learning is a newer method that enables computers to learn from data without being explicitly programmed. This approach can identify patterns that would be difficult to spot using manual methods.
- Text mining is a technique that extracts valuable information and tone from unstructured text data, such as job descriptions or performance reviews, so you don’t have to skim large quantities of text
Of course, you can leverage a solution to complete these complex computations for you. For instance, WNDYR’s people analytics platform calculates employee sentiment using proven indicators that an employee is experiencing unproductive, stressful work. These factors include:
- An increase in sick days, tardiness or absenteeism
- A rise in emails, messages, notifications and calls
- A rise in logged working hours
- And more
To learn how Pattyrn calculates people analytics across time, tasks, meetings, documents and communications, request a demo with our product expert.
Use the Data to Make Data-Driven Decisions
Once you’ve defined a reliable way to collect people analytics, you can begin executing your strategy. To do this effectively, get buy-in from your leadership team by keeping them in the conversation and regularly syncing with them on your findings. Further make sure that all your desired outcomes follow the SMART framework, meaning they are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-based
Once you combine the right data sources with the right goals and align leadership, you’ll be ready to realize significant improvements in your people-related business outcomes.
Transform your people analytics strategy with Pattyrn
If you want to advance and simplify your people analytics strategy, consider implementing a people analytics platform to do much of the work for you. For instance, Pattyrn syncs with your tech stack to simplify collecting employee data across a remote organization, no matter its size.
With Pattyrn, you can quickly identify patterns and trends in employee behavior. This allows you to make data-driven decisions about everything from recruiting and retention to training and development. As a result, you can create a more engaged and productive workforce, which is good for your business and your bottom line. Request a demo of our platform today to see how we can help you take your business to the next level.