HR Analytics

This HR Analytics book is intended to educate those that are not familiar with HR Analytics and who do not have a numbers background. It is useful for educating HRBPs or HR leaders who are unfamiliar with analytics.

In the past few years, the topic of gender gap has received great focus in the news. Unfortunately, there is often a large difference between fact and opinions. This document aims to present scientific research on gender gaps to provide companies with a better guide into the absence of women in certain professions and leadership positions. Armed with this knowledge, companies can align their diversity goals to realistic expectations.

The Strategy of Metrics eBook by Tracey Smith is a quick reference guide to clarify measures, metrics and KPIs. In addition, this document provides advice on selecting metrics.

Some of our workshop alumni:

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HR Analytics, People Analytics, and Diversity Analytics

HR analytics, also known as people analytics, workforce analytics and talent analytics is transforming HR departments.

What is HR Analytics?

HR analytics refers to a specific area of analytics where data analysis is used to help managers, leaders and executives make logical decisions about their employees or workforce. HR analytics applies data visualization, statistics, and technology to a wide range of data sets. Examples include:

• Hiring and terminations

• Employee performance and salaries

• Employee surveys

• Recruiting performance and channels

• Attendance records

• Promotion data

• Demographics data

The application of data analysis to this data, and the combination of this date with core operational data, allow companies to make better management and business decisions.

HR analytics is a growing domain for most HR departments. As the cost of the workforce increases, CFOs and CEOs are looking to create an increased return on their investments in people. It has become crucial that HR departments move away from the old approach of making gut feel decisions.

What are the Benefits of HR Analytics?

HR analytics enables leaders and professionals to make data-driven decisions to improve the performance of HR processes such as talent acquisition, employee retention, workforce management and strategic workforce planning. Additionally, data analysis helps leaders make decisions to improve the work environment and increase employee productivity. It can improve the bottom-line when applied to key business problems.

HR leaders must align HR data and initiatives to the company’s strategic objectives. For example, a company may want to improve its success rate in recruiting technical professionals or decrease the number of safety incidents each year. To determine how to improve these activities, HR analytics can be used to examine correlations (numerical relationships) between activities and the factors thought to drive them.

For example, a company with a goal to decrease the number of accidents in the factory, will gather data on employees, factory conditions, training records, employee schedules and other factors that are thought o impact safety. Once data is gathered, analysts can create data models, algorithms, and tools to test the hypothesized factors that may be impacting safety. These analyses can produce actionable insights to reduce the number of safety incidents, to reduce the cost of safety accidents and improve employee well-being.

These tools provide insights in the form of customized dashboards, data visualizations, and reports. An ongoing KPI measurement system can be developed to measure the success of the continuous improvement actions.

Case Studies in HR Analytics

Companies have sought the expertise of Tracey Smith for HR analytics because she knows, first-hand, the challenges being faced in HR. Tracey has led and supported HR analytics teams in multiple industries and countries. She has helped clients answer workforce questions such as:

• How many times will an employee apply and get rejected internally before they leave the company for an external role?

• How long will employees stay at their current level before they seek opportunities elsewhere?

• Are our hiring, promotion and performance appraisals fair or skewed across our employee base?

• Are our training programs effective? Which purchased training programs are effective?

• What should our diversity goals be and what needs to happen to accomplish those goals?

• Are the needs of HR aligned to the needs of business leaders? How effective is HR at delivering on the needs?

Additional case studies published in magazines such as the Harvard Business review answer questions such as:

• How are store sales and business performance tied to employee engagement?

• How are restaurant sales tied to employee engagement and customer satisfaction?

• Which employees are a flight risk and are they top performers?

• Can we reduce the recordable case frequency of safety incidents by determining the common factors?

Ms. Smith has been recognized as one of the "Top 15 HR Analytics Experts to Follow" and one of the "Top 50 Global Influencers."  She is described as “the voice for practical analytics” because her 25+ years of engineering and business experience have provided her with the unique ability to judge the practical/useful applications of analytics vs. the theoretical discussion of analytics. If it’s not of practical use, Ms. Smith will tell you.

Ms. Smith has helped clients…

• Design and conduct custom analyses to answer key business questions impacting HR

• Align measures, metrics and KPIs to strategic initiatives

• Design and create online data portals to make HR data visible and transparent to enable better decision-making

• Conduct customized, on-site HR Analytics workshops to educate your team

• Provide online 1-hour webcast introductions to HR analytics

• Provide an online class to expose HR generalists and non-mathematical leaders to the topic of HR/People Analytics

diversity analytics and Adverse Impact analysis

Ms. Smith has conducted scientific research and analytical studies for clients with a focus on diversity (gender and ethnicity). These studies focus on the gender gap and the fairness of the job application process, hiring, promotions and terminations. She uses established statistical methods to test the fairness of processes in Human Resources . These analyses also help companies make better decisions regarding diversity initiatives for the many companies seeking to attract more women into leadership roles and STEM careers.

In addition, Ms. Smith has helped clients tell the story of their gender pay gap reporting and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting. By the nature of the formulas being reported, technology and STEM-based companies will have a substantial gap. At Numerical Insights, we use statistical processes to clearly explain why those gaps exist and in doing so, providing companies with the ability to be transparent with their employees on this topic.

She has also assisted companies with the calculations associated with adverse impact analysis. In large companies especially, the rapid change of needed skill sets sometimes makes a job role or area of the company redundant. We help companies conduct an impact analysis to determine whether any specific employee group will be adversely affected.

customized, ON-site workshops

Numerical Insights can provide customized workshops on the topic of HR-People Analytics to beginner level audiences for the same cost of signing your team up for a program where you have no ability to choose the content. Contact Numerical Insights today to talk about what your team would like to learn. Here are just a few ideas:

• Data privacy and protection

• Adverse impact analysis / RIFs (reductions in force)

• Metrics and analytics

• Strategic workforce planning

• Analytical tools (dashboards, statistical tools)

HR Analytics Online Class

HR Analytics, also called People Analytics, talent analytics and workforce analytics has been increasingly used in corporate HR teams.

Learn how HR teams are using analytics to improve the workplace for employees, to increase the bottom line for their business and to ensure fairness in the workplace.

This class is a beginner level introduction and does not require advanced mathematical knowledge. If you are seeking a highly mathematical or statistical class, then this is NOT the course for you. This course is intended for Human Resource business partners, generalists, beginner analysts and anyone from other functional areas curious as to how businesses are using analytics to study employees.

Additionally, this class will explore some of the ethical concerns that come with making decisions about people and why studying people is much different than studying machines.Numerical Insights has created a brief, online training course on HR Analytics intended to provide generalists and non-mathematical leaders with a gentle introduction to the topic.

Click here to visit the course landing page.

Strategic Workforce Planning - Online Class

Strategic workforce planning aims to proactively put the right people, in the right place, at the right time at the right cost in order to mitigate workforce risk now and in the future. The dynamics of a global economy have made strategic workforce planning one of the "most sought after skills in Human Resources today."

This class is based on the book, Strategic Workforce Planning: Guidance & Back-Up Plans and will:

• Teach you the framework of strategic workforce planning

• Provide you with multiple implementation approaches

• Outline how to successfully sell the concept and tell you what to do if selling the concept fails

• Demonstrate ideas for measuring success

• Clarify the connection to other HR functions

• Discuss how to define the roles and responsibilities

• Show you practical tools and approaches for successful implementation

• Outline the major challenges facing strategic workforce planning leaders today

"Simple and practical."

"If you are looking for a straightforward guide to strategic workforce planning, this could be it. Brings together ideas from lots of sources with pros and cons."

"I've been through a number of workshops, formal training events related to SWP and have always come away with a different perspective or tool to use for the groups I support as a business partner."

Click here to visit the course landing page.

Strategic workforce planning

Times have changed and the world moves at a much quicker pace that it has in the past. That makes it even more important to plan your workforce. If you don't, you may:

• Get caught without the skill sets your company needs to execute your strategic goals,

• Get stuck with obsolete skill sets that you no longer need,

• Accidentally downsize the skills you need when your company becomes financially challenged,

• Find that your workforce cost is increasing faster than your revenue forecast, and

• Risk a large loss of knowledge if your baby boomer workforce resides in key job roles.

The types of risk that exist in your workforce are numerous and exceed the few examples shown above. Strategic workforce planning is about identifying the biggest risks in your workforce and setting plans to address those risks before they impact your business substantially.

Workforce planning is unique to each company because each organization, each location, each business unit and each functional area will have different priorities when it comes to the magnitude of the risks identified. This is why Numerical Insights works with clients to customize solutions for workforce planning.