This deck was used to deliver a session in TA Pai Management Institute, Manipal in their annual HR Conclave in Aug 2015. Read the excerpts of the talk here: https://ibm.biz/BdXTRk
Original deck by - Sanjiv Jain, IBM
It is not a simple headcount, or attrition numbers, or data reporting, it is more than that and insights that are not otherwise available to take business decisions
Bersin by Deloiite 2013
Analytics is a hot topic across all industries and disciplines and HR is no exception. Analytics gives companies the competitive edge when it comes to making talent decisions. Studies have shown that companies that leverage analytics outperform their competitors who don’t. A 2013 study from Berson by Deloiite, show that more than 60% of companies are investing in big data and analytics tools, however, these many of these investments are not showing ROI with only 4%( see stat above).......and only 14% (see stat above). That is because analytics is not always easy.
Externally
Labor market trends - The nature of the global workforce is changing rapidly and making it more challenging to understand where and how work is performed across an organization.
Regulatory - Regulatory and compliance issues require companies to become more transparent in how they classify their employees and demonstrate how they are reducing bias and risk in hiring and promotion decisions.
Emerging data sources - Emerging data sources such as external labor market data and mobile and social applications provide new opportunities to gain even deeper insights into workforce issues.
Internally
Shifts in strategic direction - Study participants highlighted the importance of shifts in strategic direction, including mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, as internal forces that require a more insightful view of the workforce. These and other large-scale transformation efforts serve as catalysts to better understand shifting capabilities requirements and manage the inflows and outflows of people in emerging strategic areas.
Pressing workforce challenges - Challenges such as talent retention, employee engagement and the need to increase productivity are driving the need for analytics
Company-wide analytics maturity - Data Governance, analytics investments and experience using analytics within other parts of the organization stokes greater demand and expectation for HR analytics capability.
A notable theme emerging from our interviews was the importance of applying workforce analytics to solve business problems, through HR actions and interventions, such as identifying the best hiring sources or optimizing employee engagement.
Highlight one or two of the quotes.
From our research, we found companies applying workforce analytics to address six primary business issues:
While all are important, the need to optimize costs is among the most cited business challenges. Examples include a business optimizing its number of employees – neither too many nor too few – in key functions and locations, and lowering the costs associated with employee attrition.
Similarly , we saw numerous examples of organizations applying workforce analytics to enabling large-scale transformation efforts. For example, several organizations we spoke with from a variety of industries are using analytics so that they have people with the required skills in the right locations to develop digital products and services.
Important but mentioned less often, the organizations we interviewed were using talent analytics to enhance the customer experience, increasing the quality of service by boosting employee engagement and making sure the right people were in the right roles with the right skills.
Similarly, organizations apply talent analytics to accelerate sales, enabling the sales force to be more effective through actions like using analytics for smarter goal setting and identifying the traits of successful sellers and sourcing them more effectively.
We did see a smaller number of companies exploring the use of workforce analytics to foster innovation. This included visualizing the social networking patterns associated with sharing knowledge and developing new ideas, as well as understanding the diverse makeup of project teams.
We also spoke with organizations using talent analytics to understand risk-related issues, such as determining whether there is sufficient labor to support the company’s growth agenda.
Our research included organizations that are starting to focus on talent analytics as well as those more advanced in their analytic capabilities. This maturity curve yielded important lessons. For companies taking initial forays into the use of analytics, four areas were identified as potential pitfalls:
Being too “HR-centric.” Ultimately, talent analytics should solve business performance problems. Conducting analytics “in a vacuum” not only weakens its potential impact, it threatens acceptance of its outcomes.
Seeking “data nirvana” before beginning talent analytics. Perfect data is a utopian ideal that rarely, if ever, occurs in practice. While organizations agreed that data quality is essential, no data set can achieve 100 percent accuracy.
Positioning analytics as a substitute for human judgment. While analytics can certainly challenge conventional wisdom, ultimately the responsibility for decision making lies with the end user. Successful efforts position analytics as a tool that can augment, rather than eliminate, the knowledge and experience of those in positions of responsibility.
Ignoring the need for trust. Business users must view those responsible for conducting workforce analytics as credible – in terms of both analytic prowess and business acumen. A basic level of confidence in the integrity of the data and validity of the analytic models is also required. Failure to demonstrate any of these capabilities can easily undermine a project no matter how insightful the ultimate conclusions.
Once an organization has built credibility through initial successful analytic efforts, it should pay attention to these guidelines:
Link to the overall business strategy. Demonstrating the value of talent analytics through projects that are “under the radar” can build confidence. But ultimately, analytic efforts need to address key business challenges that are significant to strategic outcomes.
Take action based on discovered insights. The most sophisticated analysis is meaningless if it doesn’t influence some form of change. Follow through on the results of decisions taken based on analytic efforts.
Demonstrate ROI. Eventually the investments in people resources, systems and other areas needed to deliver analytic insights have to provide payback. Communicate positive, tangible results using ROI metrics and share success stories so that workforce analytic groups can justify continued investment.
Build the capacity to scale. Early wins often bring a flood of requests from business users seeking to obtain similar benefits. While it is easy to handle initial efforts with a small, ad hoc team, a true analytic capability requires a defined operating model. Decide how to prioritize projects and resources, and develop distinct roles and responsibilities. Otherwise, analytic staff can be quickly deluged and unable to manage demands from the business .
With analytics we can improve employee and business performance through evidence-based decisions.
Helping us answer questions like:
What is the propensity for my top performers to leave the business?
Which candidates will likely succeed in a new leadership role and why?
What are the top themes and issues being discussed across the organization and what insights can I learn from this?
How do I quickly find the right experts?
HR is sitting on a mountain of data that we can help you mine to better understand your workforce and make decisions about your programs.