5 Ways Harnessing Talent Analytics Can Improve Your Bottom Line

Talent analytics can strengthen your company’s hiring, evaluation and retention efforts

According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends Report, 75 percent of companies surveyed believe that HR metrics and analytics use and impact is “important,” but only eight percent would consider it an area that their company is “strong.”

HR teams everywhere are well aware that talent analytics are useful and “should” be integrated into their hiring, evaluation and retention plans, but they may be unsure of how to get started, uncertain of the specific applications, or too busy with their workload to spend a significant amount of time on the setup of a data-driven approach.

Learn About The Importance of Analytics in Talent Assessment

5 Ways Harnessing Talent Analytics Can Improve Your Bottom Line

Before HR managers can begin integrating workforce analytics, a complete understanding of how data can be applied in an effort to improve the hiring, evaluation and retention processes is essential. Here are five key ways human capital analytics can make a major impact on your bottom line.

1) Using Talent Analytics to Build an Employee Model for Success

Pre-hire assessment tools do more than simply tell you if an individual will be a good fit for a job. This type of data can predict whether or not a potential employee shows all the markers that indicate they will have success in their role. How? Because workforce analytics help you build a model for success for each position before you even post a job listing.

Data and analytics show the specific qualities and competencies owned by the top performers in any given role. Instead of hiring out of a pool of random candidates, you’ll hire from a pool of candidates who have passed the initial screening test confirming they have the specific traits you know are required to thrive. Depending on a defined model versus chance and intuition is statistically going to increase your odds of making the right choice in the hiring process.

2) Hire Individuals and Shape Teams

Pre-hire assessments help HR leaders select individuals with a statistically higher chance of success in their role, but the benefits of workforce analytics don’t begin and end with the individual. When you are searching for new hires to fill a role on a team, you’re looking for qualities that are difficult to identify on a resume.

When you write a job listing and create interview questions with an informed analytical approach, it’s easier to identify the personality traits and social intelligence level of the candidate, ensuring you pick the right person for the role, but also for the team as a whole.

3) Assess Knowledge and Form Training Plans

Much attention is given to how workforce analytics can improve the hiring process, but what about improving the productivity and expertise of the employees already on staff?

Here’s another question – why invest in training programs before you’ve identified the actual knowledge gaps that need to be addressed?

Using data drawn from employee and manager surveys where each individual is asked to assess their own knowledge and the knowledge of others can help you discover how to build training programs that have an immediate positive effect on employee productivity and efficiency.

4) Evaluate Performance and Design Career Paths

According to IBM’s Getting Smart About Your Workforce: Why Analytics Matter report, 34 percent of businesses surveyed do not use analytics to evaluate workforce performance. 28 percent of companies surveyed do not use analytics to determine strategies for reduction in force, redeployment and retraining.

5) Reduce Turnover and Retain Talent  

High turnover is costly. The Society of Human Resource Management estimates that it costs employers six to nine months’ worth of an employee’s salary every time they quit.

Learn how to calculate the true cost of attrition with FurstPerson's interactive worksheet.

Engagement is one of the top indicators of an employee’s likelihood to stay

As a company leader or HR professional, you already know that engagement is one of the top indicators of an employee’s likelihood to stay at your company. Your employees know it too, and their attitude towards analytics as an engagement evaluation tool is changing.

According to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, approximately one third of workers (primarily those from Generation Y) would be happy to share their personal data, such as their social media profiles, with their employers in order for the company to better understand what motivates them and use those findings to improve their well-being.

Use analytics to survey employees on job satisfaction and engagement

You can start simple by using analytics to survey employees on job satisfaction and engagement, then make the necessary changes to improve those metrics.

Are you using talent analytics to strengthen your company’s hiring, evaluation and retention efforts? What areas could you improve using data and workforce analytics?

Learn more about harnessing the power of analytics to kick-start your hiring process by downloading your free copy of the article below.