THE FUTURE OF PEOPLE ANALYTICS

 We live in an era of digital transformation. Technology has pervaded every aspect of running an enterprise and has even made its foray into human resources. HR practices have changed over the last few decades. Analytics and big data have become important areas of consideration for HR professionals, who are pushing for the transformation of traditional HR practices. Data in our age is like what oil was earlier, basically a catalyst for growth and change. Companies, however, need to be rich in both data and information.

The problem with the business fraternity is that even though most organisations believe that human capital is the most important factor for a firm’s success, very few firms actually invest in people analytics. This sets up challenges for HR professionals.

As a competent and thorough HR professional in today’s day and age, you must know what jobs are affected by automation, what technology trends are most relevant for your business and what HR data your firm lacks. Workforce analytics hence plays a major role in helping HR professionals figure out important factors and have a real impact on the business.

Well here are some trends that shed light on the future of people analytics.

Smaller Companies Will Implement This Concept

Earlier, people analytics was only possible in large enterprises, focusing on organisations that had more than 3,000 employees, and the capacity to hire data scientists and analysts. Thanks to recent advances in cloud and analytics technology, organisations can subscribe to people analytics solutions, without forgoing of a hefty investment. Vendors are realising the profits in offering people analytics solutions to support the goals of mid-sized firms.

Increase in Use Among Line Managers

Line managers are at the front lines, making important people decisions daily, like deciding to accept or reject a counteroffer, or who to promote. Managers sometimes rely on gut feeling and end up making a poor decision. Data-driven decisions are reserved for HR and senior management and leaders. Organisations will slowly break this mould, and people analytics will be implemented to put data directly into the hands of decision-makers to help them make sound decisions.

Renting Will Become More Frequent

Since the pace of change in organisations and business is getting quicker every day, outsourcing of processes that cannot be completed in-house is common. Hence, IT will be wondering how to deliver the best time-to-value for people analytics. Renting a platform might deliver significantly better time-to-value at a fraction of the cost. Hence, building a people analytics solution might become an obsolete practice.

Intertwining With Other Technology

When people analytics mingles with other cool trends like machine learning or blockchain, endless possibilities arrive, which can make decision making in business easier. Thanks to machine learning, we can understand Big Data patterns, and quicken business processes by implementing advanced automation. Resume-matching is an example, where candidates with the best skills and education are identified, and the screening process is fast-tracked. Artificial Intelligence in HRM also helps reduce human error, removing any personal bias in the screening process. Other concepts permit matching qualifications and skills of job seekers, to come up with a list of ideal jobs. One can also create personalised learning opportunities based on an individual’s learning history, preferences and goals. Blockchain can help people manage data with reliable certifications.

Increased Use to Measure the Employee Experience

Employee experience will see people analytics combine qualitative and quantitative employee data from a range of sources helping organisations get an insight into what makes their employees tick. Methods employed include continuous listening, personas, employee journey mapping, sentiment analysis, and data-driven customer-centric tools that are deployed to improve the employee experience. This results in improved employee engagement, performance, well-being and retention, and consequently a bottom-line boost.

Growing Ethics, Privacy and Trust Concerns

The huge and constantly-growing volume of people data that organisations hold, can be both a mine-field and a goldmine. The former, because the data can be misused, individual rights ignored, and cause an employee to be wrongfully terminated. A goldmine because these metrics help companies unlock their employee’s full potential. If the companies lose their employee’s trust, they risk losing employees themselves. Hence, ethics, codes of conduct, data privacy and security will be of chief priority as people analytics heads into the future.

People Analytics Moves toward Data-Driven and Continuous Performance Management

Have you recently heard of an annual performance review? Well, managers, today are moving towards using real-time data analytics and HR technology to find the key touch-points of employee performance. With this, they provide immediate feedback and participate in employee promotions, compensations, career path guidance and skills development. The future of performance management is set to be data-driven, more flexible, more development-oriented and more continuous. The solution provider’s market is becoming more aware of the potential of combining performance management people analytics.

Recruiting Will Remain a Top Focus

The recruitment process yields a bounty of data that, if analysed carefully, reveals whether or not a candidate will be the high-performance employee your firm is seeking. CIPD claims that 66% of organisations are using people data to attract and retain high-performing and talented individuals. Analytics can give valuable insight into how effectively a company’s hiring strategy is working, and whether there is room for improvement.

There Will Be a Focus on Workplace Diversity and Inclusion

Workplace diversity has been a major point of contention worldwide. Organisations are now depending on people analytics to remove bias and promote diversity. Analytics can help find diversity gaps, and point out actions that can be taken to induce improvements. One may note that analytics, after all, use algorithms that may very well replace one bias with the other. However, diversity happens to be the main focus area for people analytics experts, as organisations strive to master this area of staffing.

Hence, the future of people analytics is bright, as organisations rely more on technology and data-driven solutions. More and more mature organisations are leveraging analytics capabilities, and are marrying the concept to AI, and applying it to a broad variety of people policies like learning and development, employee experience and performance management.