People Analytics: What It is and Why It’s Important

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What is people anayltics?

People analytics, also known as HR analytics and talent analytics is all about gathering data from employees. This data allows your company to gain actionable insights. Actionable insights just mean choices that you can take by looking at the data collected. These choices are all taken to increase your company’s success.

Why people analytics are important

People analytics is necessary in making sure your company runs at its best due to the advantages it brings. These advantages directly impact company success. There are four main advantages you get by acting on actionable insights from data collected by people analytics:

  • Increases talent hiring effectiveness
  • Boosts employee mood and happiness
  • Reduces employee turnover
  • Improves employee training methods

Increases talent hiring effectiveness

People analytics allows the person hiring new employees to easily screen for suitable candidates. For example, let’s say you wanted to hire someone for a position at your company. When you receive the applications for the position, instead of sorting out each one manually and checking whether the candidate is what you are looking for, you could rely on people analytics. You could do this by finding out what attributes are the best for the position through past employees and what to hire based on. This process can all be automated to create a list of candidates that fit the position and it could outline each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. Using people analytics in this way saves both time and helps eliminate bias.

Boosts employee mood and happinesss

One of the most important things to productivity is making sure that your employees are happy and satisfied. This is why most companies go all out in creating the right workplace culture. Creating a sense of identity in the workplace and a culture where everyone fits and feels included goes a long way in boosting happiness. This in turn makes employees happy to come to work and ultimately boosts productivity. The way that people analytics comes into play, is that it gives actionable insights through measuring how employees feel about the company and its current structure. These actionable insights then allow you to hire people that fit within the culture of the workplace, or to change the work environment to better fit what employees want.

Reduces employee turnover

Employee turnover just means how many people leave your company during a certain time period. If your employee turnover is high, there might be something wrong with how your company is run. If lots of people are leaving the company, this could mean that people are dissatisfied with the company. Using people analytics you can find out how satisfied employees are with the way the company is run. Then you could make choices to increase employee satisfaction by addressing parts of your company that are lacking.

Improve employee training methods

If your employee training program is lacking, then it doesn’t matter how talented your new employees are. Positions require training, and if the training programs aren’t up to standard then the employee will not be able to bring their best to the role. People analytics allow you to check how well your training programs are working by measuring how much knowledge was learned from the program. An example of this would be having surprise quizzes go out to new employees after the training program, to see how well the program works.

Legal requirements

Be careful when collecting data from your employees because there are certain legal requirements and guidelines you have to follow. There are also legal requirements that take place after collecting the data. These relate to safely storing the data to protect against data breaches. If thinking about collecting data for people analytics you should consult a lawyer to make sure that you are following all legal requirements. Feel free to reach out to our network of expert lawyers specializing in the area.

Conclusion

People analytics is a great tool that helps companies to operate at their best by providing actionable insights. Through actionable insights, companies are able to make choices that would lead to better employee satisfaction, workplace culture, and increased employee efficiency. As data collection is at the core of people analytics, it is important to consult a lawyer to determine whether your following the law when collecting and storing data.

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