How to use people analytics for decision making

Your people analytics tells the story of your organization’s past and can help you map out its future. In this post, we’re going to show you how to use your analytics system to make better decisions on training, attrition and remuneration.

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Training

A good HR analytics system can show how your people are spending their training budget, but a great HR analytics system can show you where you should be spending your training budget.

Training gaps are something that every organization seeks to fill, usually with a new starter. But this can be an inefficient use of resources when the gap could be filled with a team member who is looking to expand professionally or increase their responsibilities.

So, how can you use your analytics system to predict and fill these training gaps?

Add a question in your monthly check-in around training requirements and see if there are trends in the requests. A great question to ask could be “have you found any skill gaps in your day-to-day work” or “do you think added training could give you extra capacity for new projects?”.

Look at your skill index and see what areas your people are already trained in, and then compare this with gaps you’ve identified. Your skills index should show what the skills and expertise your current staff has and also where more attention is needed.

Analytics skill

A great analytics system will also help you identify gaps that you didn’t know existed. Add in questions to your check-in that encourage team members to share their own ideas on how to fill skill gaps.

Happiness

We’re not talking about making decisions about your workers’ happiness, but rather finding out what makes your team members unhappy.

Use your analytics system to identify if there are discrepancies in happiness between teams. Perhaps some are really happy and others aren’t.. If teams are consistently ranking low on their happiness you may need to investigate further and see if there’s an issue with their workload, leadership or internal culture. This investigation can be done through your analytics system to see what issues teams with low sentiment in their check-ins.

Additionally, there’s nothing stopping you from taking the learnings from the happy teams and applying it to the others. Look to see what is working well and replicate it where possible. Perhaps it’s a certain culture or processes that can be shared to increase productivity and overall happiness.

A great analytics system can help you make decisions that will further the happiness of your employees, helping them become productive and active members of your team.

Attrition and turnover

Attrition in a business is part of the natural employee cycle as team members retire or move on. However, unexpected turnover can be quite costly to your bottom line and you should try to halt it at its cause.

A good analytics system can provide you with your attrition rating. A great analytics system can predict your attrition rate, but also identify when there is a risk of unwanted turnover and the costs associated with this.

Discover if your new hire is at risk of leaving due to a bad onboarding process or general disengagement. Take action with their manager to get them back on track and included in the team.

Retention is important, and as HR professionals, it’s your responsibility to raise this to your key decision makers. Your HR analytics system will be able to predict the cost of turnover to your business so that issues of performance management and re-engagement can be tended to.

Predictive analytics can also assist when planning natural attrition; if employees are nearing the end of their tenure it may be prudent to start succession planning. Your analytics capabilities will map out where employees sit on the life cycle so you can plan when to hire replacements and assist with exit processes.

Remuneration and capacity

Your people are your best assets. A good analytics system will show you how much you spent in the last quarter, but a great analytics system will predict how much you’ll be spending and account for new starts and pay increases.

Make decisions about expenditure based on the reality of your future spend, rather than relying on guesswork based on the past. Find out how much extra you have to spend on building capacity and training so that you can plan for the successful future of your team.

Identify pay disparities with your HR remuneration analytics system so that you can deal with any inequalities that may be present. Your remuneration analytics are the best way that you can risk-proof your business and look after your team.


An analytics system is the gateway to decision-making for HR managers and teams. Your business decisions should be powered by facts and data from your own organization, not assumptions or guesswork. If you want a powerful analytics system, our analytics suite is the key to unlocking the future of your business. Talk to our solution experts about how intelliHR can bring your business to its full potential today.

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