People Operations: The Key to Progress for Employee Engagement

Operations leaders (especially people ops) is a business function that can profoundly influence employee engagement and productivity. The best leaders create a positive employee experience, humanize business operations, and take a holistic approach to understanding and supporting employees. This makes people ops leaders uniquely positioned to drive success for people-first culture and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). But if people data isn’t easily accessible, people ops professionals can get bogged down by time-consuming manual reporting. This post explores how to access the right data and technology so you can spend your time on more impactful activities– creating a highly engaging and inclusive workplace. 

Building an effective people ops program starts with access to the right data. It’s more than a warm and fuzzy HR role. Getting insights and visibility into trends enables a data-informed strategy that aligns with organizational goals. This supports collaboration with business leaders across the organization that intersect with DEI concerns and outcomes (like the c-suite, hiring managers, and heads of talent acquisition). In addition, people ops can help implement equitable hiring and promotion practices and work with IT to invest in technology that supports employees.

Using Tech to Advance Employee Engagement & DEI with People Ops:
A 3-Step Approach

Technology is critical in supporting workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion. AI and automation can help remove bias in hiring and promotion decisions, support engagement, and streamline performance management processes. Using tech to help operationalize inclusive actions for critical stages of the candidate and employee lifecycle is crucial for promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Here are three steps to take now:

• Centralize people data: Gather HR data from multiple systems to enable analysis and insights. This can be a manual process, or you can use software for speed and precision.
• Embed DEI metrics: Include diversity, equity, and inclusion metrics with your people analytics to support a holistic approach and inform strategy. Ideally, a solution would offer access to real-time data for reporting and predictive analytics to help with goal setting. 
• Share data with stakeholders: Provide key stakeholders access to data and insights to drive awareness and action. People ops leaders can leverage this data to get buy-in and alignment with executives and board members as they progress toward DEI goals. A recent case study from BARK highlights just that. Their company used targeted sourcing and candidate diversity data from Included to move the needle with hiring managers and increase the speed of hiring top candidates.
  

The Financial Benefits of People Operations and DEI

Investing in people ops and DEI tech is a no-brainer from a business case perspective. According to research by McKinsey, companies in the top quartile for diversity are more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians. Additionally, a Josh Bersin report found that inclusive companies get 2.3 times more cash flow per employee and are 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market. It’sIt’s the moral thing to do, and investing in people ops and DEI leads to better business outcomes. As the workplace evolves, people ops will play an increasingly crucial role in supporting and fostering an inclusive culture that protects the bottom line.

AI & The Future of People Ops  

If you want to use AI to improve your workforce and drive people-focused digital transformation, you don’t need a technical background. Included.ai makes it easy to generate predictions, embed DEI metrics, and get instant, easy, and DEI-enriched people analytics to support agile people ops. You can develop better strategies and drive continuous improvement by leveraging these insights. Our expert team can help you evaluate your current situation and match you with the right technology to support diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Join us on the mission to build a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce.