How HR can make the case for workforce analytics

Table of Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Introduction
  3. But first, the price tag
  4. Using workforce analytics to address attrition
  5. Beyond industry benchmarks and bonuses
  6. The soft side of hard data
  7. Finding the right tools
  8. Next steps: new models, greater cost savings
  9. Recommendations
  10. About Cindy Waxer

1. Summary

Once known for its online job boards and newspaper classified ads, talent management is now a $4 billion industry. Helping to redefine this age-old HR practice is workforce analytics, a powerful combination of highly sophisticated computer algorithms and predictive models. But while deep-pocketed vendors like Oracle and IBM compete for a share of today’s talent-management market, HR professionals are facing an enormous hurdle: how to make a business case for a high-priced technology that can often lead to IT headaches, hardware expenditures, and overturned HR processes.

This paper will examine the business benefits of workforce analytics. Linking these advantages to business success can help HR professionals convince corporate bean counters to bankroll the crunching of human-capital data.

Key strategies for HR leaders include:

  • Reduce attrition. Leaders need to leverage data to glean insights that lend corporations a competitive advantage, such as which training programs are most likely to retain top-performing employees and the connection between employee satisfaction and compensation rates.
  • Predict performance. HR departments must replace age-old metrics like employee turnover with innovative indicators such as employee longevity and the personality traits of high-potential employees to make a compelling business case for workforce analytics.
  • Rethink compensation. Companies need to take the pulse of employee satisfaction via surveys, and they need to connect these scores to hard numbers such as churn rates, subscription activations, market share, and the likelihood of contract renewals.

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