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Analyzing people

Sometimes it would be easier if we had a spreadsheet with hard data to tell us what happened with certain employees and why they went from loving their job to unproductive. It would be fantastic if we could open a file and find out which of our employees were about to quit and what we could do to keep them. With a click of a button, we could be served statistics on how much turnover our company experiences each year.

That’s the power of people analytics.

Key takeaways:

• What are people analytics
• How people analytics can benefit your company
• How it can help strategize your HR department
• How it benefits hiring

What is it?

People analytics is a data-driven way to analyze your staff so you can determine issues within your company. In fact, data is the best way to show you these issues because data doesn’t lie to save your feelings or because it doesn’t like confrontation, as employees often feel. It’s all there, in black and white: what’s happening, who’s leaving, and who you’ve already lost that you really wish you hadn’t.

But can data truly help you in the HR department?

Yes, it can. Just think of all the information your HR department already collects and logs about your employees, environment, and regulations.

HR is a hub for data that you’re not tapping into. When most of us think of data and analytics, we think of customers and marketing. We don’t think of our employees and internal working, but as we’ve shown time and again, happy employees make happy customers.

In this thinking, people analytics for your employees is just another way to use data to make your customers happy by making employees happy.

Start strategizing your HR

You wouldn’t use guesswork when it came to marketing, and you shouldn’t use guesswork when it comes to your staff. People analytics helps you determine how effective new policies are, and how your employees are adapting to the change. Data can also help you create future policies that tailored to your staff because you’ll have a better understanding of them and how they work and what they’re receptive to.

Data allows your HR department to be proactive instead of reactive. You can fix problems before they arise. You can cut tensions before they explode. You can fix processes that are a drag on your employees. Instead of merely creating reports and logging incidents, HR can now use all of that gathered information and create a plan to reduce the same problems from happening in the future.

People analytics as a hiring tool

People analytics can solve most of the hassle of hiring. You won’t have to wonder any longer why top talent passes you by, or how you could streamline the process.

You will have data at your fingertips, showing you what your employees already like, and what you can offer to entice new recruits who fit your company culture. It can even help cut down on the expenses of hiring.

How? Easy. It analyzes your current staff. By using your current staff, you’re able to determine where some of your best talent has come from, and you can determine which characteristics are vital to making a great employee, what their skills are, and what knowledge they have. This can help you create a smaller pool of potential candidates to interview for the position and leads to a better hire that fits well with your team and your culture.

One of the big advantages of people analytics is your ability to minimize turnover. Most employers don’t enjoy the hiring process, and they hate to see great employees leave. When you understand why they left, then you can improve, or even eliminate, those conditions and keep hold of your best employees, so hiring becomes easier.

At CrewHu, we love employees, and we love helping employers keep those employees happy, productive, and excited about going to work each day. Does a more productive, happy crew sound good to you? If so, check out our services page and see how we can help you help your company.