Every company wants better insight into their workforce. But what exactly are the insights that companies are looking for? We’ve organized them into the Top 10 most commonly requested workforce topics.
- Productivity
- Performance
- Turnover
- Mobility
- Labor hours (like overtime and ACA thresholds)
- Engagement
- Diversity
- Talent bench (skills strength and weaknesses)
- Quality of hire
- Absenteeism
While some of the topics on the Top 10 list move around in order of priority, the same three always seem to be the most important to companies: employee productivity (what work gets done), performance (how well work gets done) and turnover (who stays at work).
Let’s take a look at a few factors that impact these three primary workforce metrics.
Workforces Are Affected By Both Internal And External Factors
When companies want to measure and analyze their workforce, they’re looking for factors they have some control over. Influences, however, come from both inside and outside the company.
Employee turnover, for example, can be driven by the economy. In a strong economy where unemployment is low, competition for talent is high and employees jump to companies offering higher pay. In a tight economy with fewer jobs, people tend to hunker down and stay where they are. The least predictable factor in that equation is a young workforce. With time on their side, they don’t care so much about the economy; they’re going to jump around to new jobs no matter what. Having insight to these trends will help you determine if you have a problem with turnover.
In terms of work performance, both physical and psychological factors are at play. A company’s internal atmosphere and culture correlate to engagement. The more engaged employees are, the better they perform. Analytics allow you to quickly find the root cause of engagement issues and take action sooner.
When Changes Call For Better Company Insight
When employee productivity, performance or turnover visibly changes, a company needs to know why those things are happening. Are there new government regulations for how your company delivers a product or service? These can either increase or slow productivity depending on whether the regulation makes the job easier or more difficult than previously. Having a baseline from which to compare these measures will tell you in which direction your company is going.
A change in ownership or leadership can change company culture, which affects performance related to engagement and commitment. A change in the financial conditions of a company can alter perception of job stability, leading to greater turnover.
These and other impactful scenarios call for companies to analyze the situation and make good decisions based on the outcome.
How Workforce Analytics Help Companies Make Better Decisions
Workforce analytics help companies make better decisions. Automated tools gather data across disparate people systems and produce metrics that compare and contrast. Analysts use the data to look at patterns and relationships that aren’t obvious otherwise. If a company has a problem they can’t see, workforce analytics give them both sight and insight.
In future blogs, we’ll drill down into each of the Top 10 workforce insights that companies want. Find our blogs at ZeroedIn on LinkedIn
