Introduction
Deep-dive analytics tools have completely transformed the way many organizations do business, helping to remove the guesswork from major areas of operations and provide everybody with the clear, actionable answers they need to make informed business decisions.
The benefits of sophisticated analytics are being reaped across the business. However, according to Deloitte, HR is lagging—only 14 percent of companies use analytics in HR, compared to 77 percent using these tools in operations.
With the speed of change increasing and new business models emerging every day, modern organizations demand faster and more precise actions from HR than ever before. Today’s employees and candidates expect their experiences from internal systems such as HR to be as simple and convenient as
those they receive in their personal lives (such as when they’re buying things online). As the war for the best talent grows increasingly fierce, HR simply cannot do without the insight and agility delivered by modern analytics.
How analytics tools are helping increase the efficiency and strategic value of HR
Today, talent is your business’ top competitive differentiator. The people you employ and the skills among them determine your ability to innovate and respond to market and business changes at speed—and ultimately define your capabilities as a business.
The HR department is tasked with the incredibly difficult and important task of attracting, retaining, and managing that talent effectively. It’s a tough job—and as competition for talent increases, it’s only getting harder—but modern HR analytics can make it more manageable. The Boston Consulting Group says that prioritizing data-driven insights is one of the three hallmarks of truly great modern HR departments, and when you consider how inefficient paper-based workforce analysis is, it’s easy to see why.
For decades, key HR decisions have been made using complex spreadsheets of raw data that staff have to manually examine by hand and spend hours trying to extract insight from. This isn’t just massively time-consuming; it can also lead to inconsistent or incorrect decisions that end up costing the business millions
in both mistakes and missed opportunities.
One of the big questions HR constantly has to ask is whether the business has the right people to support development projects and achieve its strategic goals. With access to the right analytics, HR can stop asking questions about its data and cut straight to the answers. The deep workforce visibility granted by analytics offers immediate insight into skills gaps, performance, potential future issues, and development needs at a glance—all through a simple, visual dashboard.
Evidence-based decision-making will replace the “educated” guess. With that information at their fingertips, HR professionals are equipped to take on a more strategic role within their organization and become agents of business change and success.
The team can make well-informed decisions for the organization’s future instead of deducing from anecdotal information and experiences. Precise analysis also frees HR professionals from repetitive, manual information analysis to focus more time on more strategic priorities, e.g., attracting talent that can help the business rise above the competition and stay ahead.