Use data effectively to align people strategy with business goals

Citation

Langley, J. (2013), "Use data effectively to align people strategy with business goals", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 12 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2013.37212eaa.004

Use data effectively to align people strategy with business goals

Article Type: How to … From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 12, Issue 5

Practical advice for HR professionals

The amount of data in our personal and professional life will continue to grow as we interact more online. The analysis of that data can help organizations get actionable insights to improve business. HR professionals are often sitting on a gold mine of employee data but very few know the value of it and how to use it to help inform and shape their people strategy.

Global management consultancy firm, McKinsey, predicted in 2011 that data will become a key basis of creating value for business – increasing its competitiveness and underpinning new waves of productivity, growth and innovation (Manyika et al., 2011). This has become a reality in 2013, as analyzing and using employee data to inform business decisions and strategy remains on top of the priority list for HR managers and business leaders.

The following steps are aimed at those HR professionals getting started on the journey to make the most of their data.

1. Look at the problems you need to solve

In order to properly use data to positively impact business strategy, you need to align the data to the problem that you aim to solve. For example, if acquisition of top talent is a business priority, you will need to focus on selecting data that will help form best practice for recruitment.

This is particularly pertinent for many companies given the current war for talent and changing strategies for selecting and retaining the very best. In fact, many are already changing their thinking around recruitment decisions – focusing on potential to learn rather than an already established skill for the role. The right data that provides insight into how past candidates and current employees have been hired, with which skills and how they have progressed in the business, will help many companies to understand if this is the right approach for them.

One company did just that. Josh Bersin, founder of Bersin by Deloitte, a research company that advises on HR strategy, talks about one of its customers who applied data analytics to its recruitment strategy in a recent Forbes article (Bersin, 2013). The customer, a large player in the financial sector, had placed a strong seven year emphasis on recruiting people with a proven track record of academic success at the top US colleges. However, data analytics found that where employees attended university or the grades they received had little to no impact on their success in the job. Instead, previous proven success in a similar job and the ability to multitask and move a project forward with little instruction helped make them better candidates and, ultimately, employees.

2. Use HR software and analytics tools

Yet, understanding which data is needed is only the first part of the solution – extracting the right data can be a challenge. As anyone in HR knows, taking data from several different tools and compiling the information in one place can be a huge admin burden. Furthermore, finding relevant data in this scenario can become a taxing process. HR software and analytics can aggregate and connect the data flow of the employee’s journey – from the first step in the recruitment process right through to the different stages of the learning process – to help HR departments spot trends and patterns to identify both challenges and opportunities.

3. Look for the patterns

One company using these tools to shape their people strategy is Google. Google has been “crunching” people data and working with HR to understand how employees respond to benefits and adapt their strategy accordingly. By analyzing data in the USA, the business found it had a 50 percent higher attrition rate amongst mothers than in the rest of the business. Acting on the data, the company extended maternity leave and its attrition rate for new mothers dropped down to the average rate for the rest of the firm (Manjoo, 2013).

4. Start small and monitor impact

While not every company has the same skill demand as Google, the data lesson is similar and can be applied on a smaller scale. For those at the first step of putting a data driven HR decision into place, it is often best to make the case for using data in one crucial scenario or department first. By monitoring the impact on the business of the data driven decision, HR leaders can make a case for a more widely spread data centric approach to aligning strategy with business impact.

5. Continuously monitor and adapt data usage

By analyzing the links between people practices, productivity, recruitment and talent retention, you will be in a better position to put in place a strategy that aligns with the business and ultimately improves the bottom line. However, data, its use and application in the business must be consistently monitored so that you can continue to inform and adapt your people strategy on an ongoing basis – keeping up with ever changing people complexities and needs.

Jeremy LangleyMarketing and Business Development Director at Lumesse.

About the author

Jeremy Langley is Marketing and Business Development Director at talent management solutions provider, Lumesse. He is responsible for ensuring the company stays front-of-mind with those organizations that would benefit from its solutions and that they understand the value that it brings. He joined the company with 16 years’ experience in the talent management software industry. He has held a variety of roles within Lumesse – starting as marketing director, moving on to lead the WEMEA region as the regional managing director and returning to marketing in January 2012.