For decades, industries and companies around the world have known talent can serve as one of the best competitive advantages. It is also clear identifying the right talent for your business is vital because not everyone is going to be a perfect fit.

1. Salil Mehendale
Future belongs to People Analytics

2. Introduction
For decades, industries and companies around the
world have known talent can serve as one of the best
competitive advantages. It is also clear identifying the
right talent for your business is vital because not
everyone is going to be a perfect fit.
A 2015 PwC Annual CEO Survey found that 34% of
U.S. CEOs are extremely concerned they will not find
talent with the key skills they need to compete. The
same survey found the rate of high performers leaving
one organization for another is increasing, while
investment in HR to stop this migration, increase
diversity, and get more of the right type of talent is
increasing.

3. Challenges
Finding those people has become the biggest challenge in the sea of
potential candidates. ERE Media also found that finding this talent is
time-consuming and expensive.
For example, a recent survey by the company found that "the speed to hire
is now averaging 50 days, with recruiters reporting an even longer 57
days.
The cost per hire is also increasing in several industries. The survey
average was $4,200 per hire, with costs per hire increasing in the hi-
tech, financial and manufacturing industries. Cost per hire did decrease
in the business and professional services industry. An eye-opening 28%
of respondents do not currently track cost per hire, and nearly 10% said
they had no idea how much their cost per hire was.“
However, these challenges may be answered in the form of people
analytics, which aims to apply science to the HR function and provide
the equation you need to find the perfect talent that will catapult your
business above and beyond the competition. It becomes the Big Data of
the recruiting and hiring world. While people analytics has actually been
around for quite some time, the ability for data scientists to work with the
data in different ways to uncover previously unseen patterns is new and
creating the enterprises of the future.

4. Defining People Analytics
In a world where there is more data floating around about all of us--
from our social media profiles and search engine results to
results from new types of surveys, questionnaires, and games.
The data from these sources can then be poured into one pot
and then run through various calculations to provide a list of the
traits and potential behaviors of each candidate you are
considering.
The data from people analytics can also be used to determine the
optimum team of individuals for a project or how to structure an
organization based on certain types of talent you want to
onboard. For example, the available analytics can provide a way
to assess how different personalities would or wouldn't be able to
collaborate on a project. This data has also been pegged as a
way to determine if those already in the organization are focused
on the right priorities and have a mindset that aligns with what
the organization is framed around.
Other uses for people analytics includes addressing customer
issues and framing new metrics for the organization to operate
from. On all counts, this data can match the attributes you are
looking for that drive higher performance, innovation, and
collaboration to the candidates that you want to hire or those

5. Applying People Analytics to Your Organization
People analytics links the "what" and "how" together for an
organization in order to better understand the behaviors
and motivations that do impact performance and determine
the degree of competitive advantage. Figure out what is
more effective and how to be more responsive at a faster
rate than the competition and you have the advantage you
need in the market. To do that requires access to data the
competition just doesn't have or does not realize how to
use.
In 2010, an article in the Harvard Business Review focused
on what talent analytics would be able to achieve for an
organization. It mentioned six ways to apply analytics to an
organization, including recognizing key indicators of a
healthy organization, which areas needs more attention,
which actions create the most impact on the business, how
to gauge when to add staff or scale down, whether or not
employees are likely to stay with the company or not and
how the workforce may need to adapt to the changing

6. Fast Forward – People Analytics
Fast-forward five years to the current workplace environment, and
you will find that more organizations are starting to employ
people analytics in the hopes of gaining an edge. I've even
applied people analytics to hiring the best remote freelance
talent too. The PwC survey noted numerous trends that are now
impacting how people analytics are used within an organization:
 86% of those surveyed said they are focused on developing or
adding a people analytics function to their business over the next
one to three years. There was recognition that formalizing this
function would help to better understand and integrate the data
into HR and talent strategies.
 Only 6 % of the organizations are currently satisfied with the
quality of their people data, which illustrates the level at which
technology has to go in terms of advancing the analytics available
for firms.
 The on-going investment in HR includes investing in what existing
people analytics tools are available and in creating their own
tools.
 There will then be a greater focus on what to do with the data
once it is compiled and understood in terms of the skill gaps or
retention issues that will need to be addressed.

7. Closing…
In the present business environment, there is still a way
to go though in order to totally transform HR to take
on this new role as data scientists, requiring a move
from the softer perspective to an analytical mindset.
As a 2015 Oracle report on people analytics stated,
 "There is still a significant gap in our ability as HR
professionals to be data-driven and evidence-based in our
decisions (for example, our HR Outlook data for winter 2013-
14 indicate that while 63% of HR leaders think they draw
insight from data, only about a fifth of their non-HR business
counterparts share that confidence)."
Just in the last two years since that survey, strides have
been made and benchmarks like Google's Analytics
department have emerged to show industries around
the world what is possible.