Benefits Of Talent Analytics - A Story Of Impact And Success

It's 3 P.M. on the last Friday of the month. Time for your monthly HR review meeting with the IT Department Head, and his team

 

The proceedings of the last meeting still torment you. The sly remark by an AVP stung. You are unclear if his comment on the HR team’s contribution towards lowering the high attrition rate was the problem. Or, was it the smirk from everyone else.

 

The same day you interacted with your mentor to understand how differently you could have handled it. Lo & behold - he introduced you to the world of Talent Analytics - a systematic analysis of workforce data. This time you were well prepared for the meeting.

 

"How are we doing in terms of Attrition?", Mohit, the department head, asked 10 minutes into the meeting.

 

"23% YTD", you answered.

 

"That's 1% higher than where we were last month, right? Anything new that we are doing to address it?"

 

You pause before answering. In those 2 seconds of silence, you observe how those AVPs have now turned off their camera thinking that you'll come up with a usual response. This time around, however, you know better.

 

"Actually Mohit, starting this month my team can tell you the names of the employees who have a high chance of leaving. This should give all of us enough time to talk to them and jointly create a retention strategy”.

 

“How is that possible?", asked a curious Mohit. The cameras that were turned off are now switched on because of the impact of the statement you made.

 

Now that everyone’s attention is on you, you start again by explaining how your team has utilized the power of Talent Analytics to develop a model that is capable of predicting attrition with significant accuracy. How it uses loads of dynamic data points to come to that conclusion. You then explain the detailed nuances of the model and how it will help in reducing attrition.

 

Although everyone in the meeting was a bit taken aback, they were excited and happy with what they were hearing. The HR department was finally talking about predictive trends and outcomes. 10 more minutes into the meeting, you lay out a plan of action for the coming months. The meeting ended on a positive note with a deeper respect for the HR initiatives.

 

4 months go by.

 

Today you have a meeting with the HR Head. The agenda reads 'Talent Analytics Projects'. The HR Head showers praise for the corrective measures taken to reduce attrition in the IT department using the power of Talent Analytics. Now, he wants to know how we can tap the potential of talent analytics in other aspects of HR.

 

You open up the mini-presentation you made on this agenda.

 

Talent Analytics - In Action

 

1.Providing better hiring insights

2.Employee attrition prediction

3.Improved Quality of Hire

4.Establishing Culture for Tomorrow

 

“All this sounds nice, but aren’t you going to need a lot of resources to undertake any of this? What about the process and the timeline involved?”, asks the HR Head.

 

You are prepared with all the answers and you start with a detailed discussion on your favourite topic :Employee attrition prediction model

 

As a starting point, you will create a laundry list of all the relevant parameters and then track those for a couple of months. The process is pretty direct:

 

All these are easily available and system-generated data points. However, what separates an average Model from a good one is to track and collect the unorganized data.

 

 

In isolation, none of these questions has a significant impact, however, put together, these questions determine much more about an Employee’s behaviour than even an Employee knows about. The good part is that you don’t require a lot of resources to manage a seemingly complicated project like this.

 

While much of this data is system generated, for the remaining data points your single biggest asset is the Reporting Managers for every employee. And thus you need to speak to the respective business/department head to have a proper chain of command for regular data supply.
Once the patterns emerge, ask which of the employees at risk need to be retained and jointly create a retention strategy for them.

 

That's the thing with talent analytics, it opens an entire world for your organization. You can make predictions in not just the areas which need improvement but the ones which have a probable upcoming threat. You can draw insights for budget allocation for employee training or can predict which sales vertical is the least engaged. The options are humongous.

 

Leading-edge companies such as Google, Best Buy, Sysco and others have understood the relevance of people analytics and the power it beholds. RippleHire is one such platform that uses data-driven insights to deliver strategic hiring outcomes.

 

At the end one should always remember the following - "To handle yourself use your head, to handle others use your heart, but to handle everyone together for everything, use data".