People Analytics Trends: What To Expect In 2023

How and where to maximize talent ROI in the new year

Organizations across the globe are looking for ways to maximize headcount and productivity during these uncertain economic times. At the same time, companies are faced with increasing employee burnout. It’s a fine line, and identifying the balance between talent satisfaction and ROI is essential.
 
Partnering with Atomik Research, Sense recently conducted a survey of over 1,000 candidates who are actively seeking jobs (or have been in the previous six months). While headlines of layoffs are everywhere right now, many companies continue to hire.

At the same time, candidate expectations and demands have permanently shifted. How can your organization meet those expectations? What people analytics trends are poised to impact your business most significantly in 2023? 

People Analytics Trends Versus Buzzwords

Be careful not to chase buzzwords when analyzing people analytics and defining or refining your talent engagement strategy for 2023. We found some surprising results in our candidate survey. For talent engagement budgets and teams that are lean or could get leaner in 2023, prioritizing what’s most important to talent right now could make a massive impact on the efficacy of your strategy and the success of your team. 
 
While there will be no shortage of trends and predictions for the New Year, these are the trends to prioritize in 2023: 

The People Analytics Trends You Should Prioritize First in 2023

While understanding there are many people analytics trends worthy of your attention, put your attention and action on these five trends first to be poised for the best results in the year ahead.: 

01. Focus on More Than Candidate Experience

There has been a (rightful) push toward creating better candidate experiences; however, as teams tighten and the need to keep top performers happy, productive, and working for you, expanding that mindset and looking at talent engagement as not a funnel, but a talent engagement flywheel, prepares organizations to better develop and deploy engagement strategies.

02. Invest in Performance Management and Career Mapping

In a previous piece, I wrote about bleak employee engagement numbers across the country and the need for employers to invest in reskilling and upskilling, and their impact on retention (and productivity) in your workforce. The Great Reshuffle, rather than the Great Resignation, put a laser focus on talent not just quitting jobs altogether, but searching for opportunities that are more fulfilling and in alignment with their goals and values. Subsequently, companies that are upskilling their internal employees and that are using internal mobility to move them into new, exciting projects are seeing better engagement and as a result, higher retention and more, better referrals.
 
Our candidate survey data backs this up. When asked about top non-negotiables when considering a new job, career advancement and upskilling opportunities were second only to salary (and landed ahead of trendy perks like remote work, which remains a fixation by many companies). 
 
Additionally, there is a significant mindset shift among talent today, particularly when it comes to their relationships with recruiters. Rather than the traditional “transaction” of “candidate finds and applies to a specific job, the candidate is (possibly) interviewed, the candidate is either hired or not,” talent today expects recruiters to serve as a matchmaker of sorts.
 
That means talent expects your organization to continue to “woo” them and sell them on your company. But now they also expect recruiters to help them identify and apply for the right jobs with your company, jobs where they are most likely to thrive.
 
To meet these new expectations and demands, companies are using performance management to move underperformers out of roles that aren’t a fit and uplevel new hires into more appropriate ones. The notion of “earning your keep” and sticking out roles that don’t maximize value is outdated and will cost stubborn organizations in 2023 and beyond. Getting the right people into the right roles as quickly as possible is essential. 

03. Faster Hiring Processes

It feels like this people analytics trend will never go out of style. With the eradication of “candidate markets” and “employer markets,” all that remains is the new normal (even in an economic slowdown). And as I’ve touched upon, candidate expectations have permanently shifted. They simply won’t accept poor experiences, which include sluggish hiring processes. 
 
‘Candidate experience’ remains a top to-do on many company priorities lists for 2023, but in my conversations, I’ve found that many lack the tangible steps needed to actually deliver on that. In our candidate survey, faster response time from recruiters was ranked as the top way for companies to improve the candidate experience, cited by 80% of respondents.
 
The culprits dragging out hiring processes are unsurprising: Too many interviews, slow follow-ups, waiting for the “purple squirrel” (aka, the one-in-a-million candidate) and more. Even scheduling interviews often take days (or longer!). Most candidates today are going to move on due to these unnecessary roadblocks. Our survey found that slow response time from recruiters is the top reason candidates quit applying for a job. Only 19% of candidates report hearing back from recruiters within 24 hours of applying for a job.
 
With AI and automation as powerful as it is today, leveraging cutting-edge recruitment technology is one of the simplest ways to shorten the hiring process and deliver better experiences, prescreening and even automatically scheduling interviews, eliminating unnecessary back and forth, and creating better experiences for talent and recruiters. 

04. Refine Your Talent Experiences to Address Uniqueness Among Generations

Many talent engagement strategies do not account for different generations of workers, and it’s never been more important. Our data showed distinct differences in expectations and priorities among generations, and in conversations with businesses, it feels like many organizations have yet to address those unique needs, at the risk of alienating talent and unnecessarily taking hits on productivity, retention, and recruiting.
 
There were stark differences in the responses among various generations in the survey as well.  Candidates ages 18-24 value career advancement opportunities, strong leadership, and DEI programs, while candidates ages 35-44 place greater emphasis on work-from-home roles. 
 
Some other compelling differences:
 

• Younger candidates were more likely to be looking for a new job so they could progress their career (21% of the 18-24s said this versus 9% of the 35-44s saying the same).
• Older respondents were more likely to be looking for a new job so they could work from home (20% of the 45-54s said this versus 9% of the 18-24s saying the same).
• 55% of the 18-24s said they had applied for 1-3 jobs in the past six months (the most likely age group to have done this). Older respondents were the most likely to have applied for 6 or more jobs (27% of the 45-54s said this versus 15% of the 18-24s saying the same). 
• Stronger leadership and DEI programs were more likely to be mentioned by the 18-24s when asked about their top two non-negotiables when looking for a new opportunity.
• Older respondents were more likely to say it took them longer to get a response from companies after reaching out for work – 20% of the 35-44s and 21% of the 45-54s said one week or more versus 14% of the 18-24s and 12% of the 25-34s saying the same.
• The 45-54s were the most likely age group to mention that too many forms to fill out, requiring creating an account to apply, and slow response times from recruiters as reasons for removing themselves from consideration for a job.

 
A one-size-fits-all talent engagement strategy cannot address all of those needs at once. Talent across your organization has unique backgrounds and experiences, and to succeed in 2023 and beyond, your talent engagement strategy needs to meet the needs of all of them. 

05. DE&I Continues to Be a Top Priority 

Although cumulative results show DE&I a bit lower on the priorities list than we anticipated, DEI programs are a top-two non-negotiable among 18 to 24-year-old professionals. This finding could be especially relevant for those organizations looking to hire and retain talent in industries like healthcare (particularly home healthcare), manufacturing, and retail/hospitality. 
 
It’s important to note that successful DE&I strategies require real action, not just lip service. Analytics should shed light on diversity within your organization as well as in your recruiting efforts – it can highlight gaps and show you opportunities to improve, while also helping you identify where you’re succeeding. 
 
New research from ICIMS shows that nearly 60% of workers rank their company's DE&I initiatives as effective, yet most respondents are not seeing these practices in place at their workplace frequently. There is a tremendous opportunity for organizations looking to define or refine their 2023 DE&I strategies to leverage today’s recruitment technology, which can reduce or eliminate bias and provide critical data to help you reach your goals. 

Now What? 

If you haven’t already, examine your own analytics and see how they stack up against these trends. Are you well on your way to success in prioritization and execution in 2023? Or are there opportunities to improve processes or technologies to better align yourself with New Year’s most important trends? 
 
If you are lacking in the data necessary to make the best strategic decisions, it may be time to assess and/or change your talent engagement platform.  

Anil Dharni is the Co-founder and CEO of Sense, the leading AI-powered talent engagement and communication platform. Before founding Sense, Anil was co-founder and COO at Funzio, which was acquired by GREE in 2012 for $210M. Prior to Funzio, Anil led product and design at the third-largest Social Networking company, hi5. He is an international speaker and thought leader known for developing the best candidate engagement tools in recruiting.  Connect Anil Dharni