HR has seen an awakening in recent years – moving from an administrative function that has often been seen as a cost centre, to a core strategic asset which directly affects the bottom line.
That’s why HR professionals are starting to consider HR and people analytics as imperative to their overall business strategy.
HR analytics can be daunting, though, to say the least. For businesses that have never dabbled in this field before, it’s difficult to know where – or how – to start.
Here are some key steps that will help you begin your journey towards implementing HR analytics in your business successfully.
1. What are your goals?
Ask yourself why you want to implement an HR analytics function in your business. What key metrics would be useful to find out, which you are currently unable to find out? Whether it be gender pay gap, employee turnover levels, absences per day or per type of absence, your HR analytics strategy needs to be able to cover the metrics that matter most to you.
2. Plan, plan, plan
Everyone loves a good plan! That’s because implementations so often fail due to a lack of successful planning & preparation. Once you’ve sorted your goals, it’s time to get into the details of how you will be implementing HR analytics in your business. Some key steps in this plan should be:
- working out who is responsible for HR analytics in your company or HR department
- working out how often your reporting & analytics will take place
- working out how you will address each finding & what steps you will take to improve.
3. Select the right technology
There are loads of tools out there designed specifically for workforce analytics. Sometimes it can be overwhelming coming to a decision on which is best for your business because there are so many out there offering slightly different solutions. If you have succinct goals, though, it should make the job of selecting an HR software (which has in-built analytics functions) that much easier. We’ve even written a blog post specifically about choosing the right HR software for you – read it here.
4. Execute & follow up on findings
Analysing your employee data is only half the process – the next half involves actually taking actions to remedy any issues you’ve found, and drive change through improving the way your company manages its employees.
5. Drive change
A successful HR analytics strategy should ultimately come full circle – analyse, act upon, and analyse again to measure the results. You’ll start to see significant changes and positive results which can be easily measured and presented to directors, adding significant value to the HR function in your business, and transforming HR from a cost centre to a core strategic asset.
Youmanage HR has the best and most comprehensive in-built workforce analytics tool of any HR software system on the market
Dynamic & sophisticated reporting & analytics functionality helps you to identify the links between business problems and workforce trends by providing real-time insight into employee data, delivering business-critical analytics data when it’s needed most to dramatically speed up commercial discussions and decision making. Request a demo of Youmanage today, or take out a 30 day free trial.
