Analytics
Analytics is the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data and applying those patterns towards effective decision making in order to improve performance and productivity.
Since analytics can require extensive computation, the algorithms and software used for analytics harness the most current methods in computer science, statistics, and mathematics. Whilst analysis is focused on understanding the past or what happened. Analytics focuses on why it happened and what will happen next.
The 2008 financial crisis forced almost every company to re-evaluate how they utilised their talent, as staff cuts across numerous industries resulted in skeleton teams being tasked with operating as efficiently as before. The use of workforce analytics, or the use of advanced data has enabled companies to position their employees to operate at optimal productivity levels.
A company’s talent is its most valuable asset, yet many companies are unsure how to maximize the value of that talent. They choose to make mission-critical personnel decisions based solely on qualitative assessments, and the lack of reliable data prevents them from being proactive.
Reaching new levels of productivity through exceptional talent management is a complicated process, which is why creating a robust culture of data supremacy through workforce analytics is so crucial. There are so many variables that go into building a sound strategy for talent utilisation that it would be impossible for managers to account for all possibilities without the help of quantitative analytics. By incorporating workforce analytics software into the organisation, you gain real value from studying human capital management data, thereby maximizing the productivity of staff and positioning the company for growth.
One of the most significant benefits of workforce analytics is that you’re able to automate so many processes that can reveal important details about the work habits of your team. These processes may seem trivial when observed individually, but comprehensively they can have a huge impact.
It’s important to point out that using data collected from workforce analytics programs to make better strategic decisions isn’t synonymous with treating your employees like robots. No management team is going to be optimally successful by using data as an excuse to have employees shave fractions of a second off of their process times. Rather, this collection of big-picture data allows you to see how and when your employees are most productive, and to take advantage of this information by getting the most out of these times.
Workforce analytics data allows you to go beyond the recognition that an employee is not working as productively as they could be, and begin to understand why that is and how to correct it.