With conversations surrounding HR Technology and People Analytics on the rise, one thing is certain: HR leaders and professionals are acknowledging the value people analytics adds to their organisation’s growth and success. The increasing automation in the collection and analysis of large datasets, AI and other analytics based tools offers the promise of improving every aspect of the HR function, from recruitment and compensation to promotion, training, and evaluation. 

But this is only the beginning of the story. The second yet important stage in implementing people analytics is to check the digital readiness of the employees within the organisation. With the HR function steadily expanding its areas of operation and responsibility, digital tools and technologies become fundamental for efficiency and speed.

It has also been found in the results of a PwC human resources survey that 82% of HR personnel struggle with adoption challenges, most of which can be linked back to the planning phases. 

This is why it becomes absolutely essential for organisations to invest time and energy to ensure that the planning phase happens smoothly. Processes are an integral part of ensuring that systems operate with efficiency and adds value to the organisation and business goals at large. For companies to truly reap the benefits of people analytics, their employees must be on board with not just the plan but truly understand the intentions behind having this intrinsic, cumulative data system in place.

Some of the key steps that becomes critical to influence the digital readiness of employees towards the usage of people analytics are as follows:

Conversations centering on purpose and goal alignment: 

Implementing a business case for people analytics is what happens even before the planning and implementation phase and largely concerns the leadership. But it is equally important to have that conversation with your employees as well because they will be the ones most interacting with the systems that will record their data and translate them into key organisational trends.

They must understand the purpose behind why this data is being recorded, how it will serve the business purpose and what benefits the company expects. Goal alignment is also a critical part of this conversation. If employees have to adapt their processes to the new software in place, they need to recognise how it aligns with the business goals as well as their own professional goals. 

Reassuring against data security risk:

Security concerns are an inevitable part of the process of implementing people analytics. And employees are right to be concerned about it because vast amounts of sensitive information regarding their day to day tasks and responsibilities will be now made accessible to others. What then becomes urgent is to have a strong cybersecurity system in place along with having transparency regarding who gets access to the data.

There needs to be the right balance in implementing a data culture within any organisation. Although data must be transparent, what data gets made transparent is the question that businesses need to answer. There are two reasons for this: one is to prevent employees from an information overload, and the second is to maintain relevance. Every kind of data insight will not be relevant to every employee so accordingly these decisions need to be made to ensure a ‘tailored ease of access’ as spoken about by Abbas Jalis Rizvi, Head of Workforce Planning & Analytics-SEA, Oceania and India, Ericsson. 

Implementing solutions for overcoming digital skill gaps:

With digital skill gaps still a pressing challenge for organisations as they urgently seek to hire digital talent, implementing people analytics as a practice and software will have its share of challenges. This will negatively impact the digital readiness of employees as well. So one of the things that needs to be done is to upskill your employees digitally so that they can become comfortable with people analytics. This sense of comfort is important because it allows them to actively participate in the process of data collection and data management for a business purpose. And it also increases the chances of utilising the real value of the software system in place, to ensure that it truly serves its purpose. 

Having  a synchronised platform in place: 

Another cause for concern is the presence of multiple platforms for data collection. This synchronisation of data from disparate sources also impacts data mining and the insights gathered. To ensure quality and efficiency plus ease of operations, it is best that organisations have a singular system in place that can collect data from multiple HR functions. With AKRIVIA HCM, organisations have the benefit of a singular platform that takes care of all data which has to do with the employee life cycle. Through their software, all this data will be translated into key insights that will drive business and people-centred decisions at the workplace. 

Digital readiness is an important part of the journey of implementing people analytics and it requires careful attention. Ensuring that the processes flow smoothly and your people are ready to take on the system will play a fundamental role in truly reaping the benefits of the software. We know the advantages of people analytics, now it's time to ensure that our people and processes are ready for it.