People Analytics: The Inside of HR technology that Drives Businesses!

When technology evolved and there was data everywhere, the traditional HR department felt the pressure to make the business decisions that benefited not just the organization but also the workforce.

While the HR technology brought respite to most of the old and outdated practices, there was a huge pile of workforce-related data that grew at an unprecedented rate. Unfortunately, the growing pile of data was not the way to success.

It was important to make the right insights from the data gathered to solve the issues, apply solutions that were appropriate thus anticipating future developments based on reliable proof.

This is where people analytics commonly known as HR analytics and workforce analytics comes into practice.

With people analytics, the HR professionals were able to make better decisions and that too at a quicker pace. It is a given that people analytics helps the organization to question their data and reach to the bottom of the problems. It also helps the organizations in finding appropriate solutions while empowering the businesses to manipulate data and optimize the experience of their workforce.

Result: A better organization structure and increased productivity.

However, the question is: What is people analytics and what do you need to know before you apply HR analytics in your organization?

People Analytics: The Definition!

People analytics also called HR analytics or even workforce analytics is defined as nothing but the practice of gathering and changing the HR data and other organizational data into insights that would improve the overall quality of your business and business practices.

These insights are gathered using the HR technology and tools that the organization is already using and is presented in the forms of ‘

Graphs that are easily understood

Charts

Other visualizations

Questions asked and the answers sought from the internal customers i.e. the workforce

Incidentally, people analytics not only helps in uncovering the problems plaguing the HR department and improve its functions but also helps in driving the overall success of the organization and achieving their goals.

People Analytics More than an HR buzzword!

It’s been a decade now since the phrase People analytics came into being. However, initially, it was something that only large organizations with more than 1000 people were employed or the organizations that had the budget to match.

The changed scenario!

Currently, that’s not the case as more than 70% of the organizations have invested in HR analytics solutions so that they are able to integrate the gathered data into their decision-making.

As more and more organizations are realizing the importance of HR analytics and also with the advent of some sophisticated HR technology, the HR functions in numerous organizations are modifying the people analytics solutions. This modification would help mid-size and even startups to gain meaningful insights that would help them grow and improve their workforce.

Interestingly, with just one person acting as an HR analytics team, a global consumer goods company had rolled out a robust people analytics platform successfully.

It is unfortunate to know that despite numerous organizations digitizing their HR functions with the technologies including ‘

• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
• Digital engagement surveys
• Human Resources Information System (HRIS)

The advantages of HR analytics have still not been felt on an organizational level.

Even the numbers are alarming According to Deloitte’s 2019 Global Human Capital Trends about 74% of the organizations revealed that HR technology would be important to them, yet the only handful of them about 26% of the organizations revealed that they were effectively using HR technology and HR analytics to better their teams and results.

The benefits of using people analytics are plenty, however, initiating into it could be a task, so here is a checklist for you to prepare for the HR analytics journey and putting your organization on the path to success.

1. The first step is to determine whether your organization is ready for people analytics solutions. There would be some hard truths that would be unveiled. So this step is crucial.

2. Scrounge your organization for leaders, managers, and even employees who are data champions.

3. Clarity about the questions you seek the answers is another important step to check whether your organization is ready for people analytics or not.

Once you have gone through these three steps thoroughly you would then need to proceed with another step of applying people analytics to see the results you seek.