People Analytics
People Analytics is gaining significant importance in the business world. It has moved up through the value chain of digital HR from HR analytics, now transforming to Workforce Analytics, that includes both Humans and Bots. The fact is that, there are significant investments for cloud HR platforms and integrations over the last few years. However, HR managers and business leaders are not getting the right results that they want to steer the organisation for the next orbits of growth.
Digital HR and business transformation needs the right insights into people who drive growth. ‘People Analytics’ is re-calculating the route to the new directions of organisational analytics for growth and sustenance. People Analytics provides a holistic view and uses big data in human resources functions, which is the most significant resource of any organisation. Not only stored personal data from HR applications, but also information from other business units and data from public sources are processed and analysed.
Business Facts: Now it is a known fact that 70% of Fortune 1000 companies in 2004 do not exist today, as per #Gartner reports, and 90% of organisations believe current digital trends, will disrupt their industries as per #Deloitte studies. Last two decades have taught organisations that “data is the new oil” that was coined in 2006 by Clive Humby, British mathematician and architect of the Tesco Clubcard. Now political leaders and country heads are using it to thrive and grow their economies.
People Analytics & Definitions
There are many definitions given by many authors, leaders and thinkers. One definition of People Analytics that attracts my attention is “People Analytics refers to any form of data analysis that is related to people in their work environment ( by Reindl & Krügl boAnok, 2017, p. 17). “The new digital possibilities for data acquisition and evaluation as well as the possibility to link the HR data with external data have created new application possibilities,” which are given in their work (Reindl & Krügl, 2017, p. 17). Another definition by Marler & Boudreau book (2017, p. 15) refers more to today’s technological possibilities in the area of people analytics. “An HR practice enabled by information technology that uses descriptive, visual, and statistical analyses of data related to HR processes, human capital, organisational performance, and external economic benchmarks to establish business impact and enable data-driven decision-making.” Fundamentally, People Analytics explores to uncover possible data connections and to clarify the interaction between a cause and its impacts. The point is to prove a causal relationship between a cause and its impacts with accurate analysis data, that gives insights into the future scenarios, that are having predictable outcomes.
Early Adopters
The Google, IBM and Wal-Mart of the world have understood the significance of People Analytics, and they want to know in which department their company has new employees needs or in which teams the teamwork is not aligned. Google Inc was one of the first companies to start using People Analytics back in 2009 for HR functions. These analytics provided deep insights and resulted in positive business impacts on controlling as well as the strategy and development of the company.
A few applicational areas with people analytics are
Recruitment of New Employees
When recruiting new employees, such analysis tools help to find the right applicant profile for an advertised job. Besides, you can analyse whether promising applicants match the culture, working conditions of your company and match your organisational visions and goals. Recruitment is, therefore, faster and effective, while ensuring the skills and qualities of successful candidates, matches with job analysis, goals and culture.
Binding Performers and Trusted Employees
Business leaders want to assess both performances and trusted team members. HR Analytics tools can help filter out key employee retention factors and anticipate potential termination promptly. People Analytics can cull-out performers and as well as trusted resources with meaningful insights. This process will significantly increase employee satisfaction, retention & build a brand. It will collect and analyse the behaviour or characteristics of employees based on data. After all, companies are only successful if they exploit the potential of their employees, design the processes efficiently and be proactive to the expected problems.
Predictive Succession Planning
HR analytics tools also help clarify what the current age distribution looks like in the workplace, which employees will retire when, and where knowledge sharing is needed. These data analyses enable forward-looking personnel planning that includes possible future scenarios for five to twenty years.
Organizational Impact
The share prices of organisations with mature People Analytics capability outpaced the S&P 500 by 30% over three years: Source: Bersin by Deloitte. There is a considerable value proposition in having People Analytics process and tools for your organisation. Every analytics pays back $13.01 for every dollar spent – as per studies by Nucleus Research. The more a company invest in People Analytics, the superior the company performance and more investors are attracted to invest in good companies.