Article: Impact of People Analytics on Business Management

Strategic HR

Impact of People Analytics on Business Management

It has become extremely important for the organisations to start embracing data driven technology, because if they do not, they might become obsolete in this fast changing world.
Impact of People Analytics on Business Management

We are living in an era wherein technology-based predictions have taken over the gut feel and even the gut feel is being micro-analyzed for the categorization of external stimuli which led to that gut feel. As complex as it may sound, fortunately, all this progression is happening in real-time before our eyes. Take the example of the recent presidential elections of one of the most influential countries where data analytics based psychometrics played a defining role in generating political interests and opinions amongst people. 

Tracing the origin

The smallest unit to which this entire disruption boils down to is data and that is why, it has become the biggest treasure for mankind, especially, for the technology and corporate fraternity. Till some time ago, big data was the buzz word and everybody was overwhelmed with the possibilities which it brought with itself, however, lately, the other buzzword – small data, has also come up which is helping us understand the deep insights of big data. With all this ongoing transformation, the way businesses function is changing altogether and the impact can no more be overlooked on their people management arm as well. No doubt technology has changed the way people communicate with each other, even the speed at which data transfer happens has also inflated. Combining the derivatives from these communication patterns with the vast insights available on human behavior, the resultant piece of information can be applied to the workforce for better people management. While all this above stated is possible with the amount of data which is being generated, companies are often overwhelmed with the size of data, and fail to analyze it against critical workforce questions. This is where people analytics comes into picture – one can say, it is the datafication of HR practices.

Making In-Roads in the Corporate World

In an age where even a facial image is nothing short of a metadata providing further insights into personality and intrinsic personal traits – people analytics opens a huge pool of opportunities for human resource professionals to position themselves as fact-based strategic partners in any organization. Using state-of-the-art techniques to recruit and retain great talent, they eventually add value to the entire business model. Basically, when such data-driven insights are available, organizations can make more informed decisions on how talent has to be attracted, developed, compensated, etc. Alongside the business impact, the use of people analytics helps to transform the relationship amongst the employees – leaders, and subordinates, with the fundamental goal of developing happier and more productive workplace culture. As a fast-growing trend, people analytics is, therefore, being adopted by organizations so as they are able to drive better return on people investment than what they reap at present. 

Impacting the way organizations function

With its base lying at the fact that it is the employees after all who constitutes an organization and not vice-versa – people analytics has the potential to impact the business practices and outcomes in a major way. This holds all the more true in the realm of sales organizations where behavioral skills and people personalities are as important as domain knowledge and expertise. A couple of them are listed below:

Target Talent Pool: By mapping the parameters like performance, longevity, fitment, skill command, emotional quotient etc., organizations can put together an evolving talent pool report and do data-driven recruitment instead of basing the hiring decisions on individual perception and personal analysis only.

Retention and Attrition:  Data gathered from analytics can highlight factors which affect employee longevity in an organization; evaluation and treatment of those factors at the right time will help organizations in reducing the attritions and increasing retention, thus, saving not just the talent but time and money as well.

Engagement: With knowledge around the reaction-response dynamics of the workforce based on predictive behavioral analytics, organizations are better equipped to drive targeted and customized employee engagement exercises which positively impacts their performance and productivity.

Budgeting: Having intelligent insights for decoding the salary benchmarks, industry standards for employee-engagement spends, outsourcing tactics etc. based on various factors such as profile, performance et al helps an organization to plan an effectual budget. 

Risk Mitigation: With advanced analytics, a company can mitigate the people-centric risks by conducting intelligent and deep-rooted background checks on employees, thus, eliminating the risk of probable abrupts like abscondment or treachery.  Also, wasting a paycheck on an unproductive employee sounds no good to any organization. 

The use of people analytics falls in the ambit of advanced HR analytics and all key decisions – be it related to hiring, salary benchmarking, skill-profile matchmaking, career progression, engagement generation etc. can be based on the output of advanced analytics findings. In the coming days, with the help of predictive analysis instead of just showcasing patterns and performance; behavioral data capture will be able to help companies to develop transparent and intelligent practices of talent acquisition.

Embracing the change

With such critical impacts, people analytics is certain to make inroads into those organizations very soon who have not yet realized its potential while the companies already practicing this technology, will further augment their usage. Fact that organizations are now hiring data scientists, not just for their technology processes but for their human resource departments as well, is an enough proof of the percolating realization. After all, having the right people onboard, those who have the same vision as the leaders have, makes all the difference and organizations are ready to go that extra mile for ensuring that nothing but the right talent comes in. The solace lies in the fact that the firms which are exercising a stronger emphasis on analytics today will be in a more stable position to benefit as the technology matures.

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Topics: Strategic HR, Talent Acquisition, Technology

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