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Recently, we talked you through the ins and outs of an intelligent and sophisticated HR Analytics Dashboard. Now, we want to share some stories of why these data-driven models are so important. And how they can make your decisions more successful for your organization. Read on to dive deeper into data-driven HR, how it makes your job easier, and how Employee Cycle can help!
Building a Strong Foundation
Just like building a house, you want your data-driven team to be built on a strong, supportive foundation. However, with the ever-changing workplace environment, this can be more challenging than it appears at first glance. So often, it’s easy to get lost in the multitude of metrics and analytics. Without a clear path, it’s difficult visualize the data your teams work so hard to collect and manage. This isn’t because data-driven HR is the wrong solution, it’s because the method of approach is inefficient. Evan Hughes of Academy to Innovate HR relays that after performing surveys and digging deeper into the results, “over one-third of HR departments are challenged to move beyond basic measurements of data…”. Now, what exactly does this mean?
The reason there is a disconnect between HR’s data and its value to its organization is because the data is under-utilized. To truly utilize HR data, you need to make it work for you from the time the data is collected to analysis to an action or result. This is called a Data Plan; a cyclical process that turns data from information with no meaning to organizational insights driving results. The best-made data plans start at the end and work backward. First you identify the key stakeholders and understand what metrics matter to build the visual for their business role. To ensure the data plan is creating quality data-driven outcomes, you need the following:
- Proper Data Governance. To work with your data, you need an appropriate process allowing the data to be available, usable, integrated, and secure in the system it’s utilized.
- Analytical Capability. You will get nowhere without the ability to work with the data and transform it into the story of your organization.
- Data Adoption. What’s the point of doing all the work if you’re not using the data as a driving factor to decisions? Your organization needs to adopt data as part of the decision-making process.
Once you’ve laid a solid foundation, it’s time to get focused and shift your organization to a data-driven model. Not only will you be able to show why your data and metrics matter, but you can become an integral part of business-impacting decisions.
Why You Should Shift to an HR Data-Driven Model
Interestingly, the latest Conference Board survey rates human capital as the top challenge for global CEOs. Upon first glance, being #1 looks great, but don’t be deceived. Human Capital was ranked as a challenge, not an asset. That means it’s viewed as a negative by global executives. Of course, the value of human capital is understood. But there’s still a disconnect between the understanding that HR possesses on how to work with human capital and that of executives.
So how do you change this perception and make it an asset? HR Data-Driven Business Models.
Without your analytic capabilities, HR cannot become an impactful business function. Here’s a place to start: begin by analyzing other high impact business functions such as finance, IT, and marketing to find common drivers of success. (Spoiler alert: one of the top drivers is data-driven, analytical decision-making). Once you’ve gained insight and built a selling point by shifting HR to the data-driven approach, you’ll need to promote the value of investing in a new HR method. Here’s a few reasons to help you sell why analytics and an all-digital model just make sense.
- Measure and improve business impact. With digitally managed data, you can show where HR impacts business goals. You can also highlight where the organization can funnel resources to better support high-impact business areas.
- Increase workforce productivity. Data allows you to quantify the critical jobs to the organization further allowing you to identify factors that impact productivity. You can identify what’s not working versus what is and go from there.
- Contribute to the need for increasing corporate speed and adaptability. You and your organization have to adapt quickly, otherwise you’ll be left in the dust by some other organization who hopped on the bandwagon earlier. Digital, data-driven decisions take you away from paper-and-pencil errors and into real-time monitoring. Essentially you can watch the organization’s heart as it beats day-to-day.
- Communicate more effectively with managers. As you may know, business area managers are all about the numbers. Well guess what? Now you can communicate with them and influence them to the most sound decision. You can also uncover root causes of unease, turnover, etc. in the workforce and relay the information to help managers adapt.
- Prepare for the future. With data at your fingertips, you can predict trends and opportunities, or uncover problems before they occur. You can stop guessing at the future, instead working off of predictive trends and numbers. This will also help increase the efficiency of hiring and recruiting when the time is right for your organization to do so.
Putting it All Together
According to McLean & Company, organizations utilizing data-driven HR analytics strategy are 45% more likely to produce desired outcomes and 86% more likely to enable innovation. Those numbers can’t be argued with!
We’ve said this before, now we’ll say it again. To secure the investment that HR deserves for a sophisticated, integrated data management platform, you have to be able to show the story or your organization. Investing in HR data analytics is a value-added no-brainer. To make this even easier for your endeavors, Employee Cycle is changing the way HR leaders use data.
We begin by taking disjointed employee data and transform it into a user-friendly, centralized, real-time HR analytics dashboard. If you want to learn more and make the switch to an HR data-driven decision-making organization, schedule a demo today! We can help you tackle the first step in your journey to being a data-driven decision machine – starting with a solid foundation.