By Jeff Furst
Big data is a big success in the world of HR. From helping businesses determine the quality of hires to predicting which employees are higher quit risks, big data and talent analytics are benefiting small and large organizations everywhere.
Despite its popularity and effectiveness, Randstad’s 2015 Talent Trends Report, a survey of 350 global HR leaders, found that 44 percent of organizations are not using talent analytics as part of their talent strategy and workforce planning process.
Why not? Larger organizations may have the time and internal resources to devote to these kind of initiatives, but small and medium-sized business don’t know where to start.
If you want to take advantage of everything talent analytics has to offer your business, here are five steps to get started:
Step 1: Do your research.
You wouldn’t buy a car without doing your research first, would you?
Well, you shouldn’t dive into talent analytics without doing a little reading, either. It’s best to start with basic resources that cover how talent analytics can help your business, what analytics are best for understanding your organization, and how to measure success with your talent analytics initiatives. Some great resources include:
HR Analytics: The What, Why and How… by Tracey Smith
Making Human Capital Analytics Work: Measuring the ROI of Human Capital Processes and Outcomes by Jack Phillips and Patricia Pulliam Phillips
Keeping Up With The Quants by Thomas H. Davenport and Jinho Kim
Step 2: Establish your maturity level.
Building an effective talent analytics strategy is a journey, and every journey has to start somewhere.
If you’re reading this, then you probably fall into what Bersin by Deloitte calls the “Reactive, Operational Reporting” level of its maturity model. You may have some data to analyze, but it is isolated and difficult to understand. Since most organizations fit into this description, the important thing is to determine exactly where your business fits in.
Has your HR department already started keeping track of traditional metrics like time-to-hire and cost-per-hire, or are you completely new to the game? Do you keep track of where you source new hires, or do you just find candidates and forget about it?
Think about exactly how “new” to data your business is to help determine exactly what you’re looking for from your talent analytics strategy.
Step 3: Develop your strategic plan.
You need a plan. Talent analytics can help you do so many different things, but you shouldn’t try to get them all done at once. Consider where you are maturity-wise and where you want to be after year one, year two, and beyond.
This is where you get specific and determine what data you want to use, how you want to use it, and how you’re going to implement your strategy. Think about what key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to measure to build a talent analytics strategy around those metrics.
Step 4: Build your data governance foundation.
Before you actually implement your talent analytics strategy, it’s important to establish guidelines and governing bodies to manage your efforts. Consider the following questions:
Who is in charge of monitoring success?
How will your organization approach ethical issues regarding its data use?
Who will ensure your talent analytics strategy is implemented ethically?
Who will be the point person with any third-party talent analytics support you may employ?
By implementing strict guidelines and transparent data quality standards, you’re building a strong foundation for talent analytics success.
Step 5: Record your baseline and get started.
Once you’ve mapped out your strategic plan, determined your KPIs, and built your foundation, take a snapshot of your business’s current status to compare against every three months. This snapshot will provide critical insight into the performance of your talent analytics strategy over time.
Obviously, your KPIs and other HR metrics are important for this benchmark, but don’t forget to take a baseline of business metrics as well. Including things like total expenses, total revenue, and revenue-per-employee will help you understand how your talent analytics strategy is affecting your business performance long-term.
When you’re a small or medium business, talent analytics can be daunting, but the benefits are worth the effort.
About the Author
Post by: Jeff Furst
Jeff Furst is the founder, president and CEO of FurstPerson, a provider of job candidate assessment tests, web-based hiring systems, and analytics for companies that hire frontline service, support, and sales employees. Connect with Jeff and FurstPerson on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Company: FurstPerson
Website: www.furstperson.com
Connect with me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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The post How to Use Talent Analytics in Your Business appeared first on AllBusiness.com.