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.
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:
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.
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 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:
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:
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:
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.
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:
To learn how Pattyrn calculates people analytics across time, tasks, meetings, documents and communications, request a demo with our product expert.
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:
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.
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.