Big data has become increasingly important to businesses. While that data might give your marketing team an edge, you might be surprised how much it can help your Human Resources team. The right analytics can give you insight on employee retention, help you track how much an individual employee is costing the company, and more.
Here are just a few vital metrics to keep in mind when looking to improve your strategic planning, with the help of your HR analytics.
Identifying Potential Employees
Hiring the right team is essential to your organization and using your HR analytics can streamline and automate your hiring process. By examining the traits and work history of your current team members, you can build a profile that can help you find potential applicants who will best fit with your company’s culture.
Training and Assessing Applicants
There's no doubt about it: high turnover rates cost you money. One of the biggest reasons employees report leaving a job in the first months is inadequate training and support. By using your analytics, you can find the gaps in your training and determine the necessary updates needed to allow your new hires the time and tools they need.
You can also track additional training and certification that members have acquired through your organization while keeping informed on any training or certifications which may be necessary for the future.
Tracking performance and attendance
Speaking of retention. The right analytics make it faster and easier to keep track of key performance indicators such as attendance, projects, hours worked, and whether a given team member is in line for a promotion, vacation, or simply need to have a conversation with HR or management. By measuring employee performance and attendance, you'll be able to catch problems early and adjust accordingly.
Tracking Health and Insurance Claims
Not only can the right HR metrics measure how much an individual employee costs the company, but they can also help prevent injury and illness, improve productivity and save you money. For example, if you know that at a certain time of year road conditions make travel more dangerous, and you have a fleet of trucks on the road, it's a good time to implement proactive hiring strategies to ensure you have extra drivers on hand.
Your HR analytics also can help if you know you have extra projects coming up by telling you who is best equipped as a team leader or project manager, as well as any gaps in your team. This will help you avoid burnout, stress-related mistakes or even injuries.
Track Employee Satisfaction
We've already mentioned the role of analytics when it comes to finding the right teammates and ensuring that they stay. In addition to using big data to help you with hiring and training, pure HR analytics has a lot to offer when it comes to transparency and employee satisfaction.
The data provided from your HR analytics can tell you the best financial model for each department and each individual member of your team, based on their experience level, work history, and your company’s goals and projections.
The ability to offer a competitive and reasonable salary is important to most employees. And with the right data, you’ll be able to accurately predict the opportunity for growth that will retain loyal and talented members of your organization. Your human resource team will also be able to accurately predict your own return on investment with each hire.
Increase Communication
There's a misconception that the use of big data analytics in Human Resources makes the process impersonal and leads to a breakdown of the work culture. The reality is, the ability to automate aspects of the hiring and training process leads to more communication and transparency in the workplace.
The right data can show you patterns in hiring, training, and employee satisfaction that can help you stop problems before they start. It can also make you more aware of breakdowns in communication, allowing management to address concerns more directly, and anticipate upcoming changes sooner and with better accuracy.
The trick, of course, is knowing how to utilize your HR analytics.
Track Relevant Data
As you’ve seen, your human resources software and systems can cover a lot of data. Always focus on the metrics that align with your business goals.
For example, if your company is dedicated to its customer service, good metrics to measure may include tracking your employee’s positive reviews or comment cards.
Ensure You're Using the Right Tools
There’s an endless array of HR software available for analyzing everything from employee performance, schedule and even estimated worth in dollars. Consult with your IT department to customize your analytics to suit your needs and ensure you have a safe and secure option for storing the relevant data long-term.
Finally, ensure the reports generated by the data are easily readable and accessible to any management teams or stakeholders in the company that may need to access the information at a later date.
Always Ask Why
Data is only as good as how it’s interpreted. Pay attention to the data you are collecting and ask questions.
- Why is there a high turnover rate among the younger members of your organization?
- Has a pay scale jump positively impacted productivity?
- Have you seen the growth you’ve expected this year in response to changes from the last year?
Clarifying your company culture and values can help ensure you’re putting the information gained through your HR analytics to the best use while keeping it at the forefront as you plan for the future. Overall, HR analytics allows you to take a proactive approach to hiring and managing employees, while accurately tracking how your HR practices line up with your business goals.
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