The Importance of Adopting People Analytics 

January 17, 2023

We live in an increasingly tech-based world where data is continually generated and processed everywhere around us. Technology, coupled with statistical methods is effectively used to gather and provide insights on people data which enables leaders to make rational, well-informed decisions that help to improve the workforce and employees’ well-being.  As such, many companies are now fully embracing advanced people analytic techniques as a key tool to helping them gain business success. 

Even though people analytics is currently trending around organisations, adopting and maintaining its strategies efficiently is not that easy. Please read through this article to gain more insights on people analytics, why your organisation needs to start adopting it, and the ways in which you can be great at people analytics.

Contents 

What is People Analytics?

Importance of People Analytics

5 Pillars of People Analytics

FAQs 

What is People Analytics?

https://What-is-people-analytics/

People analytics is defined as the gathering, application, and interpretation of talent or human resource data to improve decision-making and overall business outcomes. It simply involves using data-driven patterns to effectively manage employees in the workplace.

 Some examples of people analytics include; improving employee morale, and using data collection methods like surveys and feedback to gather and analyse data that predict employee retention as well as to measure and improve employee performance.

When used well, people analytics is useful in determining consistent patterns in the behaviour of workers and also ensuring compliance in the workplace.

Importance of people analytics 

https://benefits-of-adopting-people-analytics/

There are many reasons why in recent times so many organisations and agencies are rapidly adopting people analytic techniques. Some of these benefits of people analytics include:

Rational Decision making 

People analytics enables managers and employers to make decisions that have nothing to do with their personal opinions but instead are unbiased, evidence-based, and data-driven. This rational decision-making goes a long way in solving business problems, enhancing employee well-being as well as improving performance in the workplace.

Enhanced productivity

People analytics help organisations to measure and analyse the effects of their policies and tools on employee performance. This helps leaders to implement decisions aimed at increasing productivity at the same time-saving money and time.

Moreover, people analytics enables leaders to interpret and effectively use workforce data to get more insight into their employees’ wellness, review employee performance and determine whether they have the right talent in the right roles or whether there’s a need to change.  It also helps them to determine if there’s a need to provide training sources or to recruit new talent to help carry out business objectives. This data-driven, goal-focused procedure results in increased productivity and better business results. 

Retention

Another benefit of people analytics is that it helps organisations to understand factors that make employees perform their best while remaining loyal to the organisation for a long time. Analysing feedback they get from surveys and other data collection methods also helps to know their employee turnover rates and ways of reducing them. This also enables organisations to start implementing effective retention strategies aimed at; reducing turnover of highly skilled workforce, as well as reducing time and revenue spent on recruiting new staff.   Retention is very beneficial as it also improves productivity.

Improves diversity 

In this current generation, gender equity and inclusion in the workplace are some of the most common issues of concern.  It is now mandatory for organisations to avoid gender inequity and inequality at all costs. People analytics is one of the important tools that enable human resource to understand whether there are biases within the organisation, check the state of diversity and ultimately solve as well as implement effective diversity initiatives in the workplace.

5 Pillars of people analytics 

https://pillars-of-people-analytics/

Even with the availability of vast amounts of data about employee behaviour and the human resource, some organisations are still finding it hard to interpret and use this data to solve their business problems. They may not know how to effectively recruit and acquire new talent, how to train workers, care for employees’ well-being, and also how to increase employee performance in the workplace.

For an organisation to successfully benefit from people analytics, it is important to properly interpret and depend on the following pillars :

  • Talent Management 
  • Workforce Planning
  • Performance management 
  • Employee well-being and wellness
  • Engagement analytics

FAQs

How to be great at people analytics?

In order to get the most out of people analytics, thorough planning, advanced systems, and techniques are required to produce useful insights. So, to design and implement effective people analytics techniques, the following practices should be followed :

• Promote fair, evidence-based decisions that are also based on the analysed data.

• Practice effective data management. 

• Monitor compliance standards.

What are some roles of people analytics?

The main aim of people analytics is to collect well-researched and analysed data that provides insights into employees’ behaviour and performance, so as to make data-driven decisions. This helps to increase productivity, talent, and employee satisfaction as well as to move the business forward.

How can HR use people analytics?

HR can use people analytics to identify attributes that favours business success.  Also, they can use it to drive HR policies such as improved hiring processes, training, performance management, and talent acquisition. Enhanced employee retention, diversity, inclusion, and productivity are some of the benefits that can be reaped by HR leaders who rely on the appropriate use of people analytics.

What are some of the disadvantages associated with people analytics?

Some of the challenges and problems associated with people analytics include:

  • Compliance and security issues
  • Lack of Proper resources
  • Lack of data analytics skills

As we have explored in this article, there are many reasons why people analytics is very important for every organisation. Whether you have already experienced the power of people analytics or you have just learned about it, we hope you agree that the techniques of people analytics can aid leaders to make well-informed decisions to improve productivity and move the organisation further up.

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