You have likely heard the whining or bashing around the topics of “Why isn’t HR doing more with Workforce Planning and Workforce Analytics?” If you are in these conversations you know there is a lot of banter about “people-people” not pursuing the science of the numbers in analytics; or that HR has a fear of the numbers, etc.

There are times when this positioning or these opinions are accurate. I have seen it myself when talking to human resource professionals about their analytics and workforce planning initiatives. There were times when I was really surprised at how ill prepared professional HR departments were to answer tough scenario questions about their workforce of the future. So, I went on a quest to figure out why they were unprepared? Why were they scared to tackle the numbers.

Just like our advice to HR departments launching workforce planning projects, you have to ask the right questions to get the right results. In this case, it was asking the questions of ‘Why?” It opened up an entirely different perspective.

They are not ready to attach workforce planning and workforce analytics, because they have not had the right tools to do the job. A melon-baller can create great holes, but you wouldn’t use it to dig a ditch. So, why are companies pretending that reporting tools are giving you data in the right context or that they are providing you with analytics, when they are providing you with rows of data? Why are companies telling their HR departments that their BI tool that is used for data mining customer data or manufacturing details is good enough because there is a shiny little HR dashboard and a few tables dedicated to employee data included?

Workforce analytics are a breed all their own, and they require the focus and dedication of those tools that are designed for their purpose and are usable for far more then the finance department’s analyst. They need to be understandable for the managers that are dealing with the people. They need to be secure so that you can get to the right data and drill down to the information that allows you to make decisions, without a PhD. They need to segment the data by the types of demographics and organizational structure, so that you can get to the root of the troubles or triumphs you are studying.

In a conversation with Bill Kutik, he asked me why there is a need for standalone solutions for workforce analytics, when it would appear more critical to build analytics into point solutions. I agree that nearly all talent management and HRIS systems greatly need to improve theirreporting and their representation of trends and data in their vast tables of data. However, analytics, especially those that are going to support workforce planning initiatives, need to contain far more data than is typically housed in one system. You need talent management data in context with the HRIS data, in connection with corporate
scorecard trends and productivity numbers. Costs from payroll and financial data need to lay alongside the performance management data and the satisfaction information of many stakeholders. To unify this type of data, you need a powerful analytics tool that can take the information from these disparate systems and position them in a logical, meaningful representation that allows comparison and contrast leader by leader throughout the organization.

Frankly, this is why Aquire built our offering of InSight and offer it with specialist and technology in our “InSight as a Service”. You have to have the right tools for your HR department, if you want them to deliver the promise of powerful workforce planning and analytics.

Cheers,

Lois

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