12 Dec, 2022
by Rhiân Davies
Without data, workforce planning is just guesswork. Workforce analytics is essential for modern businesses who want to dive deeper into their wealth of employee data and use it to make smart, data-driven decisions.
Here, we take a look at how workforce analytics is used, its importance in improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and some of the software solutions available to businesses that want to future proof their businesses by making decisions based on real, relevant data.
Workforce analytics is a subset of HR analytics that focuses on the management, analysis, and interpretation of employee data with the goal of improving the business at large.
The main objective of using workforce and talent analytics is to better understand which factors are affecting business, department, and individual performance and decision-making, including the analysis of trends and risk factors. In short, workforce analytics add value to organizations by helping them align workforce planning strategies with HR strategies and the business’s key objectives.
Workforce analytics focus on several business areas, including:
Workforce analytics help businesses address the challenge of identifying the gaps and factors that might be preventing them from achieving their goals. Without delving into the data for granular insights, businesses can’t be sure of exactly which factors are hindering their progress.
In particular, workforce analytics help businesses mitigate risks and manage their workforces by:
Workforce analytics draw out multiple insights from hordes of employee data, including insights that can be used to ensure that inclusivity is embedded within their HR practices.
By analyzing talent pools and pipelines, workforce composition, compensation structures, and performance reviews, workforce analytics highlight gaps in organizational DEI, and help leaders address any inequalities.
However, for a truly DEI-centric approach to workforce planning, businesses should enlist the help of a dedicated DEI analytics platform to help them augment and scale their DEI initiatives.
Let’s take a look at just some of the software solutions that can help you begin your workforce analytics journey.
Included is a one-of-a-kind people analytics and DEI analytics platform that provides businesses with actionable insights to help them make the best, most inclusive workforce planning decisions.
As well as workforce analytics such as employee retention, acquisitions metrics reporting, and candidate feedback reporting, DEI is baked into the platform to help businesses spot trends across the entire employee lifecycle. Businesses can use these insights to augment their recruiting, hiring, and retention strategies to ensure that their DEI initiatives are making a difference.
Included’s unique diversity assessment tool helps companies analyze their current DEI performance, providing them with a data-driven overview of their strengths and opportunities to improve. This tool is invaluable in helping businesses develop workforce planning and DEI strategies and plan for intelligent resource allocation.
The AI-powered platform continuously trains itself to learn about each organization’s business goals and analyzes data on an uninterrupted basis. This enables businesses to access workforce insights and analytics that are always current and delivered in real time.
At its core, ADP DataCloud is a “guided analytics experience” that helps organizations identify workforce patterns and trends with HR metrics.
The solution’s dashboards also help businesses identify potential issues in areas such as pay equity, turnover, and compensation. Businesses can also tailor analytics to their own organizations for more relevant insights.
Businesses can also explore pay trends, talent market insights, and organizational benchmarks to help them better understand their workforce.
Qualtrics is another experience management solution with a dedicated people analytics tool that aims to give HR leaders real-time insights into their workforce.
It helps organizations identify skills gaps, pinpoint future leaders, and spot early warning signs of employee disengagement. The solution also enables organizations to collect and connect data from the entire employee lifecycle, meaning that workforce planning decisions are facilitated by evidence rather than hunches.
Businesses can also benefit from Qualtrics’ analysis of key drivers of engagement, retention, and employee benefits to help them better shape performance management systems, employee rewards programs, and future job descriptions.
Sage HR’s people analytics feature helps businesses gain a full and instant view of their global workforce and provides them with tailored insights to help them make better workforce planning decisions.
Its platform offers organizations customizable dashboards to help them monitor metrics and KPIs, provides them with data visualizations to enable them to identify workforce trends, and helps them gather continuous employee feedback to aid decision making.
Rather than taking a top-down approach, Sage HR’s platform allows organizations to personalize dashboards for different leaders and functions so that every stakeholder can receive highly-relevant workforce analytics that matter to them.
Protecting and future proofing your business starts with workforce and DEI analytics. Without these powerful tools in your arsenal, you can’t cut through the noise of your employee data and gain valuable insights into where you can and should make improvements to your workforce planning strategies.
Included helps you meet both your DEI and workforce planning goals by drilling down into your data and helping you hire and recruit the best candidates, retain top talent, and enrich your workplace culture. To see what Included can do for your business, schedule a platform demo with our expert team today
Here is the audio version of this article:
Rhiân Davies is a content writer and digital marketing specialist, specializing in HR and recruitment. Her work has appeared on MarTechSeries, HR Technologist, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Learn more about Included, book your demo here.
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