“If you can’t explain it simply,
you don’t understand it well enough.”
– Albert Einstein

As a result of the evolution of HR Tech in recent years, a key element at the level of the HR department is the use of data and statistics in order to intuit the trends and better understand the behavior of one’s own employees, thus optimizing human resource management. Decisions that are based on data analysis generate a better performance in many of the HR department’s activities.

But what do we use this data for? How does an HR Analytics component, integrated into the software platform that you use, support the activity of the human resources department? What version of HR Analytics could you use in your company?

We intend to give you a few ideas below.

How do the data processed with an HR Analytics solution actually help you improve your business decisions and increase profit?

An HR Analytics instrument allows you to analyze the data from the HR software platform that you use, in order to improve the quality of the decisions that you make and to support them with concrete figures, changing the companies’ approach to human resource management from reactive to proactive and innovative.

How will you be able to use this data?

1. In the recruitment process.The analysis of the company’s existing data will lead to a better understanding of the profiles of the necessary candidates compared to the ones existing in the data base or sought; thus, based on a comparison between what is actually necessary and what is available, the quality of the candidate database can be increased by accessing different communication channels and recruitment sources. All in all, the quality of the recruitment decisions will be increased.

This type of instrument can provide detailed information, such as the actual recruitment costs at the level of the entire organization. This includes, for example, the staff turnover cost caused by recruitment cases that were successful in theory, since a new employee was hired, but failed in practice, because of the incompatibility between the candidate and the company in terms of values, culture or business principles.
In the long term, the application screening time can become shorter, by defining profiles that are as detailed as possible and automatically eliminate unsuitable candidates.

2. In order to increase employees’ efficiency. With the help of an HR Analytics tool, you can analyze the employees’ key performance indicators on an individual, team, department or company level. A comparison between these figures may reveal hidden problems or overlooked potential. Whatever the case, the figures will indicate a direction that you should focus on in order to generate positive change. The data will also provide indications about potential process bottlenecks or mistakes that repeat themselves, so that you can offer feedback or make the necessary modifications at the level of the organization in order to remedy the situation.

3. In training activity management. In all types of business, motivating employees by offering them access to professional development courses yields positive results. However, to find out how positive the results are you’ll have to monitor this activity, measure the results and the progress and compare the costs and benefits.

As such, data analysis can help you identify, for example, what training programs are necessary for each individual employee, based on the knowledge that he or she needs for the respective position, and based on the personal profile and level of knowledge of each employee. Over time, personalized training programs result in employees that are more confident, more motivated and feel they have a clear direction within the organization. This has a direct positive impact on integration and on their retention rate.

On the other hand, the HR department will be able to carry out an exact cost-benefit analysis for each selected training and motivate each decision based on data.

4. In order to increase employee retention. High employee turnover should be a warning sign that shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s true that the reasons leading to high employee turnover are usually varied, that a combination of factors leading to this situation may arise and that, in order to address it, several elements, including the company’s culture, organizational structure, remuneration, internal communication, career plans or performance management need to be analyzed simultaneously.

In the course of this process of identifying problems, an HR Analytics tool can help by offering insight based on real data about the reasons why persons remain loyal or choose to leave. There may be multiple causes, including lack of skills, their performance not meeting the expectations, dissatisfaction with the compensation or other circumstances. Therefore, by analyzing the data, you will be able to understand your employees better and to identify the gap between what the company offers and what they expect, from all points of view.

Addressing these problems, rather than ignoring them, has a chance of contributing to increasing the company’s profit, leading to the reduction and avoidance of the costs generated by a high employee turnover, costs that may otherwise escalate, causing further negative effects.

5. In order to establish the most appropriate compensations for employees. The financial aspects of the collaboration with the staff are essential in order to motivate and retain it. All the aggregated data will offer you a clear image of the compensation necessary for each position and department, making it possible to develop a financial profile aligned with the individual performance, as well as with the market and the other positions inside the company. Especially in corporations, it’s important to have a clear image and to be able to maintain a dynamic balance of salaries on all levels.

Using an HR Analytics tool can therefore result in an increase in the profitability of the entire company, generated by: saving time and resources in the recruitment process; an increase in the retention rate, through better alignment of the company’s offer and the way in which it treats its employees with the values and expectations of these people; better motivation, including from a financial point of view; the optimization of the training budget.

How to use an HR Analytics instrument

HR Analytics is relatively new in Romania and many HR officers are just starting to become aware of the value of the data that they hold, hence, many start to build an analysis strategy.

There are a few simple steps that must be taken for this process, you can start with our proposals and, over time, develop your own system for data analysis and interpretation:

1. Establish clear objectives. What question do you want to answer using the data?

With a clearly defined objective in mind, your analysis will be much easier. Don’t try to answer several questions at once – establish a clear objective, something that needs to be improved, a piece of information that needs to be checked, a strategy that needs to be developed using the data that you hold.

2. Identify the sets of data that will best answer your question

Once you’ve defined the problem or the question, you’ll determine the data that you need in order to get an answer. Based on it, you may need the data contained in the human resources software platform with regard to recruitment, performance management, etc. You may also use the various surveys with regard to employee motivation or engagement, as well as the exit interviews.

Other important indicators that you can use come from the financial or marketing research area – you can consider the turnover, the performance of the sales team, the money spent on training programs, the employees’ compensations, etc.

3. Analyze and interpret the information

This takes experience and technology can certainly be of help here. You can use various reports, dashboards or diagrams in order to group the data and analyze the information obtained, that you can then easily send to other colleagues.

4. Draw conclusions and establish the strategy to be followed.

When you can draw conclusions by combining information based on data obtained from a diversity of complementary sources, you will obtain valuable insight for the entire business. This can help the HR department develop a strategy to be followed in the future, coming up with proposals, predictions or recommendations.

The HR Analytics tool from Sincron HR Software

The HR Analytics functionality offered by Sincron HR Software uses one of the top business intelligence tools on a worldwide level – Microsoft Power BI – in order to integrate and use the data stored in the human resources application. Use the access to this modern business analysis tool and join the global trend of using and interpreting data in order to get business insights that could put you one step ahead of the competition.

This functionality is offered as a tool that complements any HR process management module in the Sincron HR Software human resources application, with no additional costs. Our software platform is cloud-based, so your data can be accessed at any time and from any device.

Intuitive and easy to use, the HR Analytics tool from Sincron HR Software will bring your data to life, transforming them into information presented in the form of well-documented reports, as input for making future business decisions.

© 2019 Sincron HR Technologies Inc.