Making People Count: Workforce Analytics | Org Vue

While 89% of organizations say that HR analytics are already a part of their planning process, 21% of organizations are still at the early stage of piloting workforce analytics. In this report by Org Vue, they provide insights to help organizations avoid many of the pitfalls in developing an HR analytics capability. Topics discussed include 1) Improving collaboration between HR and Finance, 2) Escaping spreadsheets by adopting specialist software, 3) Acquiring the skills to master analytics and modeling. Concerning 1) HR and Finance, both functions claim to have responsibility for workforce analytics. However, there is still a gap in how these functions partner together to deliver HR analytics. Part of the issue here is that only 28% say they have integrated reporting systems to report and share this information. The other contributing factor is that both functions, in some cases, are working in silos due to the feeling that they “own” analytics. One way to overcome this challenge is by having a strong partnership between an organization’s CFOs and CHRO. When that partnership exists, it seems to trickle down throughout their organizations. Regarding 2) spreadsheets, otherwise known in the report as “dreadsheets,” it goes without saying that technology (specialist software) is needed in order to aggregate and visualize HR analytics data at scale quickly. However, I often speak with colleagues at other companies who have run into the pitfall of selecting a technology provider without fully thinking through the capabilities that they need the technology to enable. Before selecting a provider, I recommend asking: what types of questions about our workforce, if we knew the answers to, could enable us to make better, faster decisions that impact important outcomes such as business performance, retention, engagement, and employee experience to name a few? Page 7 of this report provides a few good questions, such as a) Are the right employees doing the right work to deliver the strategy? b) Is our workforce aligned with our operating model and investment strategy? Lastly, 3) acquiring skills to implement analytics will require capability building in “analytical mindset” within the HR function. Other insights are provided in the report, such as, using Organizational Planning and Analysis (begins on p.19), which leverages analytics to inform organization design choices that are more likely to drive meaningful business outcomes, such as revenue, growth, and cost reduction.