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THE ULTIMATE

HR ANALYTICS
HANDBOOK
Everything you need to know about a career in HR Analytics
Index
The Beginner’s Guide to HR Analytics and Data Powered Talent Management

5 ways you can reduce attrition using HR analytics

How Workforce Analysis will Change Your Life as an HR Manager

6 Critical Analytics Concepts You must Know as an HR Professional

8 Key Facts You Should know if You are an HR Professional

Become a Data Savvy HR Professional

Do these Things if you want to succeed as an HR Professional

5 Must-Know Workforce Analytics as an HR Manager

The Best Methods to Calculate Attrition Rates

What Your HR Dashboard is not Telling You

Top 10 Things to Remember when Tracking Your HR Metrics

How can HR Analytics Boost Talent Management

Here is why you should consider competency evaluation using HR analytics

Using Analytics to Optimize Your Cost of Hiring

Things to do Before Choosing an HR Analytics Course

What makes for a great HR analytics course

Become a Competent HR Professional with HR Analytics

Can Analytics Help You Become a Better HR Manager?

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


THE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO HR
ANALYTICS AND DATA POWERED
TALENT MANAGEMENT
When Chandler said he was into data reconfiguration and stuff, he passed it off as
dull and boring. But the fact is that data has always been crucial to mankind in
business operations since then and even before. Today, data has become a key ingredient
to the successful operations of many companies, businesses and startups. As more organizations
wake up to the inevitability of data, this is the time businesses also pressurize one of the core
departments of any business – the HR – to implement data analytics into its operations as well. Data
is seen as a crucial aspect in not just recruiting and training new people but also in maintaining the
existing talent pool in terms of job satisfaction and pay.

WHAT IS HR ANALYTICS?

In simple words, it is the use of analytics and statistics to identify patterns in HR data and come up
with perspectives that aid in the enhancement of existing HR operations, find flaws in the workflows
or simply produce better results. HR analytics is all about providing insights to concerns that the HR
associates never knew existed and help them identify key patterns that could have a huge impact in
the operation of businesses and departments.

If you notice, HR is a treasure chest of employee data. Some crucial information about employees
that even the reporting managers are unaware of rests with the HR personnel. With such access to
data that can influence the business, it is upon them to analyze the data, identify insights and pave
the way for an optimum work environment.

So far, most of the decisions the HR people come up with are instinctive with no proper data to back
their reasoning or action.

BUT NOW, WITH HR ANALYTICS, THEY HAVE PRICELESS DATA LIKE AN


EMPLOYEE’S WORK HISTORY, ATTENDANCE RECORD, JOB COMPLETION
STATISTICS, ERROR-FREE DELIVERANCE, ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE JOB
AND MANAGER AND MORE. WITH THESE CHUNKS OF DATA, SEVERAL
CRUCIAL CONCERNS CAN BE SOLVED AND BETTER PRODUCTIVITY
COULD BE BROUGHT IN.

These could also be used to solve office politics, cold wars between departments, ego clashes and
other psychological factors that disrupt productivity - even before they begin!

One of the best areas where HR analytics can work wonders is in the difference in the payscale
between women and men. Instead of considering just experience and eligibility as a criteria to make
decisions on fixing the payscale, if the HR can work on the finer details of the employees, this could
fix the inequality in gender based payments at the grass root levels.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


METRICS IN HR ANALYTICS

Since some of us are new to HR analytics, let’s just brush up on the few important metrics that can
bring about significant changes in the workplace. Metrics like resignation rate, performance
appraisal involvement rate and time taken to hire can impact the way recruitment happens in an
organization, employee retention and attrition management, performance in sales, safety and health
of employees and probable talent gaps.

However, HR analytics and data powered talent management is not without its challenges and
hurdles. To attain the perfect work environment, conditions and talent pool, a lot of factors have to
be considered and many regions have to be explored and exploited for the benefit of employees. We
will be discussing them in the coming weeks from a beginner’s perspective and see how data can
challenge and change conventions in the HR function.

Click here to know what you need to learn to become a competent HR Analytics professional.

Many HR professionals understand that


analytics can greatly help HR contribute
more to the company’s bottom line, but the
function may not have the proper skills to
effectively apply analytics.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


5 WAYS YOU CAN REDUCE
ATTRITION USING HR ANALYTICS
One of the major misconceptions revolving around the human resource department is that it’s one
of the most chilled out departments in the entire organization. Most people (I know you do too) think
that the folks at HR have an easy life and that their primary responsibilities include organizing fun
activities, team lunches, secret Santa games and more.

To clear off those misconceptions, the HR is one of the toughest departments to be in. Just like yours,
HR too has targets and monthly goals to achieve and they are the ones who probably have a
perpetually challenging task at workplace – controlling attrition.

With the startup fever becoming an epidemic of sorts, this is perhaps the worst time for human
resource personnel. Every month, there are employees quitting their job to pursue their passion and
finding an alternative for them immediately is a challenging task. They then have to look for new
candidates, recruit them, get their forms filled, orient them to the company culture and work on their
confirmations only to set the wheels spinning again. To offer some statistics for this, research states
that close to 1/3rd of the new recruits quit the workplace after close to 6 months of employment.

HOWEVER, WITH THE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY,


THE HUMAN RESOURCE DEPARTMENT CAN ACTUALLY NOW PREDICT
ATTRITION AND CONTROL IT THROUGH DATA ANALYTICS – OR RATHER
HR ANALYTICS.

By offering crucial insights on employee metrics, contentment levels, happiness index and more, HR
analytics helps you come up with proactive measures to keep attrition under control. Here, we have
compiled the 5 best ways to control attrition using HR analytics.

HAVE THE RIGHT DATA TOUCHPOINTS FOR THE RIGHT RESULTS

A good data set is the one that is built with a goal in mind. The more focused your data sets are, the
better your analytics reports will be. When working on an attrition report, make sure you consider
all the metrics and touchpoints that are directly related to the satisfaction levels of an employee. By
employee, we refer to the person in both the highest and lowest levels of your company’s hierarchy.
Only when their happiness is considered that it will reflect the happiness of your entire workplace.

Consider factors like age, monthly income, years or months since last
promotion, marital status, job involvement, gender, compatibility or rapport
with the reporting manager, work-life balance, job involvement, years or
months since your last pay hike and more.

All these factors boil down to the emotional levels of an employee and results on these will give you
a clear picture on possible attritions and the time, allowing you to take any corrective measure.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


LOOK AT EMPLOYEES’ HISTORY

Sometimes, it is easier to find patterns in an employee’s work culture and career and predict if he or
she would fit into the organization or last long. For someone who has worked in more than four
companies in a short span of five years, it is easy to come to the conclusion that the maximum
duration the employee works before getting bored is one year. Records, patterns and data on this
can give HR a new perspective on possible turnover and even analyze the reason for his actions. If
the employee kept switching companies for better pay or better work culture, the HR can easily fix a
meeting and take measures to control attrition when the time of the year for the employee arrives.

INDIVIDUAL RECORDS FOR INDIVIDUAL DEPARTMENTS

When you have a database as a whole and then work on attrition reports, the results can be
bewildering. To control retention in the most precise way possible, we suggest you classify the
reports by departments and work on analytics. This will further refine your requirements and see
better insights on which department has more attrition, why, any pattern that can be spotted, fault
with the managers, team morale, challenging tasks, monotony and more. For instance, the
satisfaction level for an employee in sales can be different from the one in project management.
Breaking down the factors into fragments will give you crucial insights that will help you come up
with better and distinct results and insights and help you take predictive and preventive measures
for every department.

EMPLOYEE’S PERSONAL EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT

Often, our mornings and mid-afternoon thoughts are on home, family concerns, relationships, EMIs,
and more. This greatly affects the day’s productivity and keeps an employee’s morale and
satisfaction levels down. To get the spirit up and flowing and to ensure the employee feels valued and
recognized, the HR should take into consideration data factors that touch upon a few personal
spaces and talk to them to offer any assistance. The results should be entered to the employee’s
report and analyzed for inferences. When this is done for three straight months with corrective
measures, you can see a change in the employee and his or her work.

IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT PAYHIKE OR PROMOTION

Also, the HR should understand and take into consideration that employee satisfaction and attrition
are not always connected to payhikes and promotions. There are values beyond them on emotional
and personal levels that can be causing increased attrition rates. Keeping the two factors aside, the
personnel should also work on other sidelined factors to get a deeper understanding of what’s
happening within their workplace and set the place right for possible new recruits.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


So, these were some of the factors you should definitely consider while working on your attrition
reports. If you haven’t started off with HR analytics yet, well, this is the perfect time for you to upskill
and make 2018 the best year for your career and organization.

Click here to know how you can become a data driven HR Analytics professional.

Soon, CEOs will start asking the HR teams


the real questions. HR leaders will need to
answer ‘so what’ of their activities and
demonstrate the value of the work they
perform, and how it adds business value.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


HOW WORKFORCE ANALYSIS
WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE AS AN
HR MANAGER
Every plan and forecast needs a basis – a basis on which the plans will be
estimated and discussed for efficiency and execution. You have to consider several
factors and criteria to explore the possibilities of executing your plan and this requires a lot of
data. By implementing data analysis techniques into workforce management and HR job
processes, you can now analyze many aspects of your organization including staffing,
retrenchment management, job satisfaction levels of employees and more. From having no idea
of how to go about planning your workforce to getting the most optimized direction for
workforce analysis, data will set you on the right path, with comprehensive insights.

AS AN HR PROFESSIONAL, NOBODY ELSE CAN UNDERSTAND BETTER THE


NEED FOR A SOLID WORKFORCE FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION.

Not your CEO, the CTO, or your company’s funding but your workforce is your business’ biggest
asset and with data analytics, you can now plan all your strategies for the coming year or for a
general business period effectively. To help you understand how workforce analysis can save a
lot of time on your schedule and let you focus on other equally important tasks, here is our
compilation of the biggest pros of implementing workforce analysis.

PROACTIVE ELIMINATION OF DELAYS

One of the biggest challenges in workforce analysis is coming up with plans that are precise in terms
of deadlines and delivery dates. Without coming up with vague deadlines, you have to actually
consider a project completion that makes sense and is foolproof. With workforce analysis, you can
do just that. Properly analyzed data will give you insights and patterns on absenteeism of employees
in general and in a particular department you are setting up tasks for.

You can also refine the data to know the rate of absenteeism under a particular manager. Once you
know the pattern and estimate the probable absenteeism, you can make a data-backed decision on
the precise project delivery dates. This can help you avoid delays and unforeseen disruption.

RETENTION

Some of the biggest shockers in workplaces come in the form of unexpected resignation letters.
When you think your senior employees are happy and doing really well, you get a letter from one of
them about their exits. It is at that time you regret speaking to them about their satisfaction levels,
motivation factors, pay hike and more. Workforce analysis lets you predict such retentions with the
help of data.

You can pull out datasets that directly reflect on an employee’s satisfaction
levels and commitment to the job and take proactive decisions on how you can
make the place better for him or her and retain the employee from leaving. This
will not just keep your current pool of talent intact but help your organization
save on expenses as well.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


BENCHMARKING

If you intend to establish an environment which is just and fair for all your employees, workforce
analysis will help you come up with benchmarks for performances. Instead of the regular metrics like
exceed expectations, average and other classes of performance standards, you can bring in effective
metrics like commitment levels, attitude towards job and management, productivity index,
attendance, punctuality and more to decide on promotions, pay rise and other incentives. This will
not just decrease the politics in your organization but ensure your employees know the
transparency of your benchmarking standards.

PILOT PROCESSES

It happens often that your business receives several pilot processes and you need to come up with
an effective team that can pull off the initial requirements and convert the pilot into a business deal.
It is at that time that you need to plan your workforce for the best performance. You need to build a
team of doers and not place bets on your gut instincts. You need to make an informed decision on
who can be part of the project and actually get results. Workforce analysis will give you the right
approach to selecting your team and getting things done. Thanks to the work history of your
employees you will have a set of benchmarking standards ready for use.

As HR Leaders, sometimes, our proposals to the organization might sound confident and right but if
we can’t prove our point and our thought process behind taking a decision, the countless hours spent
in planning and preparation are futile. So to make your job easier (and that of others), it is best you
implement HR and workforce analytics to your system and see the difference for yourself.

If you haven’t started with HR analytics already, make next year count for your career and your
organization by upskilling to HR analytics today! Good luck! Click here to start now!

Organizations hiring for HR roles will


increasingly seek out candidates with stats
skills. To grasp the potential of HR analytics,
HR managers need to become data
interpreters.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


6
ANALYTICS CONCEPTS YOU MUST
KNOW AS AN HR PROFESSIONAL
Today’s technology and workplace is filled with jargon – ones that could sound
terrifying and complex to the average human mind. Concepts like Big Data and
analytics have seeped into everyday HR processes. However, it’s only the terminologies
that have become complex. The job of HR associates, on the other hand, have not just become
simpler but have become more effective as well. If you are an HR professional looking to make it big
in your career, there are a few basic or crucial analytics concepts that you must know. We have
compiled 12 such analytics concepts for your understanding. Check them out.

ANALYTICS

Let’s start from the basics. Analytics is the process of analyzing a chunk of data for patterns, insights
and crucial pieces of information that can give you newer perspectives of solving organizational
concerns or pinpoint the probable onset of one. Looking at an employee’s work history to check his
sustenance levels and commitment is one of the most practical examples of analytics HR
professionals can employ. The same concept that gets implemented on deeper complexities refers to
HR analytics.

BIG DATA

In simple layman terms, Big Data analytics refers to data analytics of massive databases - often
several orders of magnitude bigger than traditional databases. In an HR context, your Big Data
database could feature, key employee metrics, appraisal information, employees’ documents of
background checks, copies of degree certificates, personal information, productivity index,
attendance reports, payroll details and more. With such access to employee data, what you analyze
them for can form a big part of HR analytics.

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS

This is a concept in analytics, where you come up with details on what has happened in your
organization or concerned departments over a period of time. For instance, making an attendance
report of employees in a department for a particular quarter. This does not give insights on what
impact it will have in the future or any corrective measures for the concern but simply reflect on
findings from history data.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

Contrary to revealing what has occurred, the predictive analytics concept forecasts and predicts
what can occur in the future. If you don’t stop with just creating an attendance report and actually
work on how the attendance of your employees can hinder the delivery for a project that is coming
up, you are implementing the predictive analytics concept for informed results.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


GOLDEN PATH ANALYSIS

You can call this is a derivative concept to predictive analytics, wherein you work on the behavioral
data of your employees and come up with forecasts. For example, if the attendance of employees
working with a particular manager is low and you can see patterns on frequent absenteeism and lack
of commitment only with the employees under that particular manager, this behavior can direct you
to the point of concern and come up with a solution before the advent of any serious outbursts.

PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS

In this concept, you just don’t stop with forecasting what will happen. You will complement the
analytics process by coming up with an effective solution for this. If you take the above example,
prescriptive analytics will give you insights on whether you should confront the manager and sort
concerns, have individual one-on-ones with the employees in the department to understand
concerns better or have one with the manager to know the other side of the story. The remedy that
you come up with for the patterns with the help of analytics is called prescriptive analysis.

So these are some of the crucial and foundational analytics concepts you should know as an HR
professional. If you are looking to further grow in your career and leave an impact in your workplace,
upskilling to HR analytics will be the perfect choice to make 2018 count. Good luck.

If you can collect a lot of data about the


workforce and look at it holistically, you
can predict who the right people to hire
are, and who are most likely to be
successful as leaders.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


8
KEY FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW
IF YOU ARE AN HR PROFESSIONAL
Two of the most common reasons why people think they can be great HR
professionals are because they are either very organized and systematic or they
have good people skills. But these two qualities alone are not enough for anyone to
make it big in their career in human resource management. The two attributes can land
them jobs but to move up the ladder, they definitely need some qualities that will set them apart from
other employees. One of the first things aspiring HR professionals should understand is that it is not
going to be easy. Unlike the conceptions prevailing around the department, it is one of the most
difficult jobs in a workplace, where your actions can have severe consequences. So for all those of
you looking to become great HR professionals, here are a few starters that will help you get oriented
to the department.

BE OPEN

You can’t be a racehorse in your HR department, just focus on one thing and keep running towards it.
There are several hurdles out there, and the HR department has to interact with diverse people from
different walks of life. You will meet people with attitudes and thought processes you never thought
existed. Rather than being judgemental about them, leverage any potential they have for your company’s
benefit. Your people skills would be useful, but you would need to diversify and be better equipped to deal
with certain situations. So come with an open mind, and learn as much as you can in the process.

BECOME TECH SAVVY

Your organizational skills can be put to better use if you know and understand technology and find
seamless ways to take care of your daily tasks. Keep exploring different technologies and be curious
of their practical applications. Look for software that can make your life and that of others around
you easier. You don’t simply follow conventions by working on spreadsheets, presentations and
other software. If you find alternative software simple and seamless, use that and save time. In HR,
nobody will teach you how to be more efficient apart from yourself. So look for ways you can be!

YOU NEED TO SOUND MORE AUTHORITATIVE AND CLEAR

There is a conception prevailing that the mails and messages from HR are often taken for granted
and the worst part is they can be true. Even some of the more crucial emails like employee
satisfaction surveys that are directly related to the wellbeing and satisfaction levels of employees
are often overlooked by employees. So you need to work on your persona and authority. You can be
very approachable and helpful when it comes to work, but when a message has to be sent out, you
need to ensure that you are authoritative and that the instructions are followed.

HAVE GOALS

HR professionals have clients, targets and goals too. From solving crucial concerns like retrenchment and
employee attrition, to taking care of appraisals in the smoothest way possible, it’s a big responsibility. For
a more optimized and effective performance as an HR professional, you need to be focused and have
specific goals about your roles and responsibilities. There can be both long-term and short-term goals,
and they vary from time to time - the important thing is to have a goal to work towards.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


DATA CAN TAKE YOU A LONG WAY

One of the first things you should do after becoming an HR professional is upskill to HR analytics. With
the power of data, you can uncover things that others can’t even dream of. Work on existing data to come
up with insights and patterns on existing concerns, probable concerns in the future and have back up
plans and solutions ready. This will be of great help to not just your organization but your career as well.

YOU NEED TO BE FLEXIBLE

Don’t blindly follow and try to implement what you learnt from your HR textbooks. They are primarily for
gaining theoretical knowledge. However, what counts the most is how you think when a crisis hits, and
find a solution that’s most practical to the situation. Be flexible to experiment on approaching problems
and come up with unconventional ways to tackle issues. These are what will make you stand apart.

BE AN INSPIRATION

As an HR, you are the one to interact with employees more than the CEO of your company. When
you are touching so many lives and people, have a persona and set an example. Be it the way you
carry yourself or the way you handle problems, be an inspiration to those who know you and the
ones you meet on a daily basis. Change the convention that HR is an auxiliary department. HR is the
backbone of any workplace and you need to behave like one.

BRING IN NEWER CONCEPTS TO WORK

If you shut your doors to new things, there can be never room for evolution. As an HR, you need to
ensure perfect working conditions in your workplace and that can happen only when you know the
trends prevailing in other companies and in industries. Go for HR meetups, get to know about other
companies’ HR visions and approaches and have a rapport with the HR professionals of other
companies to expand your horizons on global trends. Exchange ideas, visions and discuss new things.
Evolve and reflect that evolution in your workplace as well.

The role of an HR professional is challenging in a positive way, and there is almost never a dull
moment. So make sure you have fun with your job, and keep trying to make space for new ideas. If
you keep these factors in mind, you’re sure to experience amazing career growth. Good luck!

Click here to know what it takes to become a competent HR Analytics professional.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


BECOME A DATA SAVVY
HR PROFESSIONAL
As another year arrives, companies around the world are taking every step to make 2018 count. Not just
companies, people throughout, especially in the IT sector, are hustling through day and night to move
ahead in their careers. Last year, tons of companies woke up to the importance of data science and
understood that the role of data in IT was inevitable.

They realized that going forward, every decision within and outside organizations will be data-driven
where chunks of historical data will not just give insights on what has happened or what is happening but
give priceless pieces of information on the future as well. Even HR associates realized the value of data
and the significant amount of changes it can bring to their department and workplace.

A lot of people are upskilling to HR analytics and are going up the corporate ladder.
If you are an HR personnel looking to make 2018 your year of personal and
professional growth, this is the right time for you to upgrade to analytics for HR.

To quickly grow in your career, you need to do and see what others cannot and the only way to do this
is by learning HR analytics. When you understand the language of data and know how to talk to it
and extract insights, your opinions in your workplace get weightage that is simply unparalleled. More
than your gut instincts, the decisions you take with data as the basis works more effectively because
you have seen the past and have the power to see your future. This is the time you need to take the
value of data more seriously and learn HR analytics from premier institutes.

WITH HR ANALYTICS, YOU MOVE AWAY FROM THE CLICHÉD TOOLS


AND LEARN HOW TO AUTOMATE YOUR ROUTINE PROCESSES AND
UNDERSTAND THE CONCERNS THAT YOU HAD OVERLOOKED FOR
TIME UNKNOWN THAT NEEDED PRIOR ATTENTION.

If your organization is facing concerns on attrition and recruitment, HR analytics can resolve the
issues and give you insights on how to tackle them. With data, you can now predict potential
resignations, and take precautionary measures to retain your employees.

You can fix concerns on wage differences, pay hikes, incentives, ego clashes with bosses and
managers and put an end to office politics with HR analytics. Being an HR associate, you have
exclusive access to countless chunks of data and when you develop a skill that can put your
accessibility to data to good use, you not just help your organization grow but pave the way for your
personal career growth as well.

Tons of employees who were just doing their mundane jobs as an HR associate have upgraded to HR
analytics and scaled new heights. They are now in influential positions in organizations and consider
upskilling to HR analytics as one of their best decisions in life. It is not too late to venture into data
science for HR as you still have time to pull up your socks and get started with the course. Once you
are exposed to data science, you will understand the value of analytics, logical reasoning, statistics
and the number of insights these realms can generate. Upskill to the most in-demand job and make
2018 count.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


DO THESE THINGS IF YOU WANT TO
SUCCEED AS AN HR PROFESSIONAL
Success in businesses today takes on several meanings. Apart from pay hikes
and promotions, the idea of success has new dimensions, which are of fairly
recent origins. Today, success has become synonymous with happiness in the workplace,
challenging tasks, compensatory rewards, incentives, authoritative job profiles, influential roles
and more. The current talent pools in organizations are wiser and more mature than their
counterparts from previous generations. They know what is trending in the industry and
understand the right time to upskill to bag better job roles and salaries. They have grown to such
an extent that they dictate terms during interviews and establish an authority right from the
first day. This is all due to just one factor – they know their job and are masters at it.

A few, however, are yet to realize their true potential and grow in their respective job roles. Call
it complacency or a lack of knowledge in how to go about their careers - the fact remains that a
chunk of the workforce lies dormant, working in monotonous jobs with no significant changes or
challenges. If you feel you belong to the latter category, it is time to unleash your inner self. If
you are an HR associate, especially, you need to take this time to make one of the most crucial
life decisions ever.

YOU CANNOT EXPECT TO SUCCEED AT WORK AND YOUR CAREER,


WITHOUT EVOLVING INTO AN INDIVIDUAL WORTHY ENOUGH TO ATTAIN
THAT SUCCESS. REGULAR TASKS THAT YOU DO WOULD RARELY BE
ENOUGH FOR YOUR BOSS TO GIVE YOU A PAY HIKE OR A PROMOTION. IF
WHAT YOU DO AT WORK IS VERY MUNDANE, AND YOU ARE LOOKING TO
BECOME IRREPLACEABLE, YOU NEED TO DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS:

LEARN HR ANALYTICS

To stand out from the crowd, one of the first things you should do is become good at something
others are not aware of. HR analytics is the best option to do that. While your competition is still
catching up, it is on you to quickly learn HR analytics and help data drive your decisions at the
workplace. It’s time for you to take charge of attrition and recruitment with HR analytics and
come up with insights that can surprise your management. When you present concerns that
your bosses never knew existed, your authority goes up at the workplace, and you become an
integral part of your organization.

HAVE A VISION

Be clear on what you want to do and why. This will solve half of your concerns at work. Having a
clear vision of what you want to achieve as an HR professional gives you direction, to approach
your job and tasks accordingly. If you want to fix the prevailing office politics, try to refine the
process into fragments, and work your way up from the grassroot level. Talk to employees,
schedule one-on-ones and get to know your people better. Having a vision also allows you to
classify and prioritize your work for optimum efficiency.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


COMMUNICATE BETTER

Be clear and confident with your communication. Give clear cut responses to those coming in
need of your assistance and put your foot down firmly on tasks and responsibilities with your
management. If you know what your job is and are good at it, you have to communicate your
thoughts better for clear understanding and to establish trust. Nodding your head and then
failing to follow through can backfire. To avoid this, ensure you communicate clearly and often.

LEVERAGE THE POTENTIAL OF TECHNOLOGY

The role of technology is to simplify your life, especially at work. As an HR professional, you
need to be highly efficient at whatever you do, and set a good example at the workplace. For this,
you need to adapt to newer technologies and find a quicker way of doing things. Try automating
tasks that are likely to be repeated, and use collaborative software to become more efficient at
handling tech concerns. Becoming more tech savvy will help you achieve a lot more in less time.

HR analytics are the cornerstone of


predictive data and people management.
They are the insights into employee
behaviours, potential for problems and
suitable allocation of funds and resources.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


5 MUST KNOW WORKFORCE
ANALYTICS AS AN HR MANAGER
Workforce analytics – what sounds like a complex technical term is relatively easy
and inevitable when you understand its importance and how to leverage its full
potential to your benefit. Some of the elite HR analysts out there have implemented
workforce analytics in their businesses and have seen results that their competitors couldn’t
dream of. As an HR manager, you need to be aware of these analytics concepts and theories to
pave the way for organizational and departmental success, and curb any looming concerns that
may be plaguing your business.

APART FROM YOUR REGULAR SKILL AS AN HR ASSOCIATE AND


MANAGER, YOU NEED TO HAVE A SPECIAL SECRET SKILL THAT YOU MUST
DEPLOY OFTEN TO SET A POSITIVE EXAMPLE FOR YOUR COLLEAGUES
AND ORGANIZATION.

If you are one such aspiring HR manager, here are the five crucial workflow analytics you
should know.

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS

To understand workforce analytics, you should understand the value of data. Data in any form has
priceless pieces of information underneath waiting to be discovered. If you feel the number of
resignations have increased dramatically in the past three months, you need to have the curiosity
and the knowledge of statistics and analytics to understand why. Using these to conduct further
research will help you use data to come to a conclusion. Descriptive analytics will do just that - tell
you the reason for attrition and help you find a pattern, which you can investigate further to get
results. This will also help you clarify the concerns to your management.

PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS

But your job as an HR manager doesn’t stop there. Another crucial aspect of workforce analytics
is resolving issues that are spotted through prescriptive analytics. As a manager, you should
come up with antidotes for these concerns and solve them as soon as possible. You should know
if the reason for attrition is because of managers, poaching, lack of challenging jobs, unequal pay
structures or other factors you cannot think of. By analyzing the data, you should come up with
an appropriate remedy.

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PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

If you think your job as an HR manager is over with prescriptive analytics, you are wrong. It is time
for you to stand out in your organization and come up with predictions for departments in your
workplace. The next step in workforce analytics is to use predictive analytics to give insights on what
will happen in your organization three months from your current date and what you suggest for
optimum performances and fixes. Data-driven predictions are correct 100% of the times and you
will understand this as you get more insights from data chunks you work on.

INTEGRATED SOLUTION

One of the best ways to optimize workforce analytics is by having a one-platform solution to
integrate all crucial aspects of data you need to do your job. Loss of data can give you misleading or
ineffective results, depriving you of the purpose you intended to achieve. So, you need to come up
with a solution to integrate multiple data sources into one to work on workforce analytics.

METRICS

If you are expecting optimized performances from your employees, you need to ensure they are
rewarded accordingly. It is for you to acknowledge their effort and the lack of it and separate the
ones who work from those who don’t. It is only by this way that you can bring in a sense of equality in
your workplace and not simply by having a dress code. To get more insights on crucial aspects like
this, you need to set up right metrics – the ones that actually matter to both employees and
management alike. Only then there can be a bridge between the two – the bridge called
contentment at a workplace. As an HR manager, it is on you to bring in job satisfaction with the right
metrics and data-driven decisions from the information you uncover from the metrics.

This is just the cream of what we call workforce analytics. The deeper you dive, the more aspects you
can work on for efficiency in your workplace.

Workforce analytics align your financial


budget with HR staffing metrics that
anticipate gaps in talent, provide clear
visuals of staffing levels and allow for easy
succession planning.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


THE BEST METHODS TO
CALCULATE ATTRITION RATES
One of the worst concerns that can ever plague your company is attrition. Also known as employee
turnover rate or churn rate, attrition poses a serious threat to your organization perpetually. Just
when you think you are doing a good job at recruiting the right people and that your organization is
maintain a good pool of talent, a few employees drop in their resignation letters to again bring down
the attrition rate to its previous numbers.

AS AN HR PROFESSIONAL, YOU NEED TO BE AWARE OF THE ATTRITION


RATES IN YOUR ORGANIZATION PRECISELY TO COME UP WITH ANY
REMEDIES OR FIXES. YOU NEED TO BENCHMARK THE RATES AND HAVE A
VISION TO DECREASE THE RATE SO THAT YOUR ORGANIZATION BENEFITS
AND YOU TOO HAVE SOME PEACE OF MIND.

CALCULATING ATTRITION RATES

1. To get started with calculating the attrition rate, you need to know the number of employees in your
company within a stipulated duration of time. If you are calculating the attrition rate for a year, you need
to know the total number of employees in your organization starting from day of one of the calendar year
to the last date. The same is when you intend to calculate the rates for quarters and semi-annuals.

2. To know the numbers, find the average of employees at the beginning of your estimated timeframe
with the number of employees at the end. For instance, if you are calculating for a year, if there were
1,500 employees in the beginning of the year and 1,700 in the end, you need to find the average of the
time period by adding 1,500 and 1,700 and then dividing it by two. In this case, there were on average
1,600 employees throughout the year.

3. The next step is to know how many employees left the organization within the timeframe. This can be
done by filtering your HR database on the number of employees who have left over the last one year. Let
us assume that it is 150.

4. Next, divide the total number of employees who quit by your company’s average workforce for the
timeframe – in this case a year. So, dividing 1,600 by 150 gives you 10.6%! This is the attrition rate of your
company for the last 12 months.

Arriving at a specific number likes this clearly gives you an idea of where your
organization stands, where the fault is and what can be done to improve job
satisfaction, retrenchment and work culture. You can also delve in deeper and understand
the specific reasons of employees and their immediate managers to know if there has been a fault
with the employee or the manager or there has been something totally different plaguing a
particular department. The more insights you gather, the better you can resolve the situation. Now
that you know 10% is the attrition rate, you can work on bringing it down to less than 5% or 2%, and
have an annual goal based on that.

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WHAT YOUR HR DASHBOARD
IS NOT TELLING YOU
If your smartphone GPS can accurately predict where you intend to go from
your location and when your ecommerce retailer can accurately predict the
time you need to order more baby diapers, you know that data is playing a
crucial role behind all these personalized services. Historical data, when collaborated
with analytics can cause miracles, and this is exactly what is needed in your HR department as
well. When data can influence everything it touches, even you - as an HR manager - can leverage
the full potential of analytics to your advantage. To do this, you need the right approach and
tools, and it starts with your dashboard.

ONE OF THE MOST CRUCIAL TOUCHPOINTS OF YOUR EVERYDAY WORK,


YOUR HR DASHBOARD IS HOME TO A TREASURE CHEST OF
INFORMATION. ALL YOU NEED IS THE RIGHT PAIR OF EYES AND A SKILLED
MIND TO ANALYZE, INTERPRET AND DEDUCE INSIGHTS DATA GIVES YOU
AND PUT IT TO GOOD USE.

The average mind fails to see the underlying meanings on the dashboard, and for those of you
who aren’t familiar with HR analytics, here’s what your dashboard is not telling you.

FUTURE ATTRITION

Recruitment is one of HR’s perennial concerns that is complex to tackle and come up with a
solution. However, with analytics, you can anticipate any probable future resignations, and take
precautionary measures. With predictive analytics, you can use historical data on your
dashboard and look at attrition patterns in different departments, and identify the reason for
the increased attrition rates. When you know the areas of weaknesses at your workplace, you
can easily zero-in on the concerns causing frequent resignations and put an end to it. Whether
a manager, the management or an employee is at fault, predictive analytics points you to the
place of concern and helps you make use of data to resolve attrition.

EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

The average dashboard can give you information on the total number of employees in your
company, the average cost of hiring and training, reports on absenteeism and punctuality,
resignations and more. But it often cannot provide information on a vital element - employee
satisfaction. Though it may not be blatantly evident, it is definitely hidden beneath most of the
common metrics you analyze each day. To know which one to analyze for particular results and
goals, you should be familiar with HR analytics. Employee satisfaction is related to their
commitment with work, the company, their immediate managers, metrics like attendance,
punctuality, productivity and more. If you see a decline in two or more of these prime areas, you
should know that your employee isn’t satisfied. It is on you to go ahead and fix it.

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OFFICE POLITICS

Most companies don’t pay attention to this parasite which consumes both your organization and its
employees. Before you go all defensive, you should realize and acknowledge that your workplace has
its fair share of politics and that it is inevitable. What you should do is use analytics to identify the
people and departments involved and sort things up.

Analytics can give you information on problematic bosses or employees, productivity index,
absenteeism among a particular group or department, sudden increase in attrition rate, lack of team
spirit and more. All these pieces of information when combined together will take you to the area of
concern and give you a chance to clear them. Depending on your results, you can schedule one on
one meetings, group presentations or other effective remedies to permanently eliminate politics
from departments.

Your dashboard is more powerful than you think and the amount of information visible to the normal
eyes is very insignificant. With analytics and data, you can save your organization from pitfalls such
as concerns about being understaffed, recruitment, save on budgets and company expenses and
even pave the way for a culture that has only content, ambitious and happy employees. If you want
to incorporate all these into your workplace, get started with HR analytics today.

On average, 45% of all companies say they


engage in basic reporting, while 55% says
they are performing more advanced types
of reporting. The majority of organisations
have set dedicated roles for management
and delivery of HR reports.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


TOP 10 THINGS TO REMEMBER
WHEN TRACKING YOUR HR METRICS
Metrics are an integral part of any business operation. If there is a process or
workflow in a system that contains a series of tasks, there need to be several
metrics to identify the efficiency of both the process as well as of those who
contribute to and participate in it. Metrics are also embedded psychologically in our
minds. When we dine in a good restaurant for instance, our minds quickly tend to take into
consideration the quality of the food, the size of the portion served, cleanliness quotient,
service and value for money for the food we ordered. We then come to an overall conclusion
on our experience at the hotel and later decide if we should visit the place again or try a
different restaurant.

Business operations are similar. And in HR, metrics play an important role.

THANKS TO THE INCORPORATION OF ANALYTICS IN HR PROCESSES AND


DATA, METRICS BECOME ALL THE MORE CRUCIAL AS THEY DIRECTLY
INFLUENCE THE WORKFLOW PROCEDURE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

So if you are an HR associate incorporating analytics into your processes, here are the ten prime
things to remember when tracking your HR metrics.

TRACK ABSENCE RATE

Absenteeism is inevitable in organizations and really disrupts the workflow. Though you can
consider planned leaves as negligible, unscheduled leaves can kill processes. Tracking the
absence rate of an employee not only gives the concerned department an idea about project
allocation, but also provides insights on the attitude of individual employees and recognizes a
pattern. The data from this metric can be used to take long term decisions and set ground rules
and benchmarking standards.

TRACK ABSENCE RATE PER REPORTING MANAGER

Another crucial metric that you should track is the number of employees absent under different
reporting managers for a given time period. This helps you refine your data further and
understand if frequent absenteeism of an employee is due to his or her attitude or due to the
reporting manager.

TRACK PRODUCTIVITY QUOTIENT

Companies no longer pay for who stays exactly from 9 AM to 5 PM and who does overtime
consistently. These conventions are fading off gradually with the onset of work-from-home
facilities and remote teams. Tracking the productivity of each employee can help you
understand who is actually productive and who is just pretending to be. This can help you come
up with an index that can help bridge wage gaps.

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TRACK OVERTIME FACTORS

When people work overtime, they tend to turn up either late the next day or not turn up at all.
When employees are working overtime consistently for a fixed duration, taking this as a metric
can help you uncover insights on their productivity over time and help realize if temporary
workforce to support the operational needs are actually required.

TRACK EMPLOYEE TRAINING COSTS

This is connected directly with retrenchment and the expense incurred by companies in training
an employee. When one leaves in a few weeks after training, the cost incurred by the company
is significant. The company then has to incur the expenditure again to train another recruit
which is also time consuming. Tracking this metric will help you understand if on-the-job training
is better than classroom training and come up with alternate remedial measures.

TRACK METRICS ON EFFICIENCY OF TRAINING

The more effective your training is, the sooner you can get returns on the costs you incur on
training. This is called efficiency of training and is particularly useful in companies where mass
recruits happen every month and retrenchments too. This is also related to employee job
satisfaction and should be tracked in your HR metrics.

TRACK HAPPINESS OF YOUR EMPLOYEES

This is perhaps the most priceless HR metric you can ever track. The root of all things in your
workplace, employee happiness increases productivity, morale and ultimately profits of your
company. You should track this metric to uncover the seeping in of any office politics,
management concerns, personal problems of employees, payscale issues, wage gaps, gender
inequality and even commitment levels of employees to their jobs and organization. With this
metric, you can bring about 75% of the positive change your organization desperately needs.

TRACK RESIGNATION RATE

Most people who quit their companies never come back, no matter what their personal
conditions are. Resignation rate as a metric can be useful to identify the areas requiring
attention such as issues with managers, work pressure, lack of challenging tasks, intimidating
teammates, unaccommodating colleagues, payscale concerns, lack of understanding of
processes and more. The more you analyze this metric, the more insights you will come up with
for each department and your organization as a whole.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


TRACK RESIGNATION OF KEY EMPLOYEES

This can be a sub-metric of the previous metric yet a crucial one. To be honest, not all employees
are valuable. When some leave, there is minimal or no disruptions in the workflow at all.
Problems only crop up when the good ones leave. So you should be considering this metric to
analyze why the promising and experienced employees of your organization are leaving. Is it
because of better opportunities? Lack of growth? Poor appraisals? The metric could answer all
of these and more.

TRACK RESIGNATION PER MANAGER

This is very much similar to absenteeism per manager and gives comprehensive ideas on why
resignation under a particular manager is more when compared to that of others. This metric
can be helpful in diverse ways and can fix issues on appraisal meetings, intimidating bosses, too
much pressurizing, lack of rewards and recognition and deprival of work credits.

HR analytics is not simple. It is crucial and has the potential to see things an average human mind
can never think of. With these metrics, you can definitely start seeing significant changes in your
workplace and the more you refine your data and metrics, the better your company will evolve.

Thanks to the digital revolution, it’s now


easier for HR departments to make
workforce decisions based on concrete
data. By using different tools, HR data
crunchers can extract meaning and insight
from multiple data sources.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


HOW CAN HR ANALYTICS
BOOST TALENT MANAGEMENT
One of the biggest challenges in IT is managing people and talent. From an HR
perspective, especially, the task becomes all the more complex due to the
requirements and needs of people from diverse backgrounds. As an HR
professional, you need to keep everyone on the same page and still manage to get things
expected by your company and managers done and further work on optimizing recruitment
processes, employee satisfaction, payroll concerns, retrenchment and more. However, all these
daunting tasks are gradually becoming more approachable and doable.

AFTER THE ENTRY OF DATA ANALYTICS IN HR PROCESSES, THE APPROACH


HAS BECOME SIMPLER THAN EVER, PROVING TO BE A MAJOR ADVANTAGE
FOR THE ASSOCIATES ON THEIR EVERYDAY WORK.

If you are an HR and still haven’t realized the power of data analytics and how HR analytics can
boost talent management, it’s time you wake up. Check out the pros of HR analytics and the
advantages it can bring to your workplace.

BETTER DECISION MAKING SKILL

Imagine you’re in a meeting on managing attrition and you have to support your claim. Instead
of revealing that your decision is based on your gut instincts, if you can show data and have the
insights you have uncovered to back your claim up, won’t that make a huge difference in your
organization? This is called informed decision making and works every single time. Data backed
decisions are proven to be effective and precise.

AUTOMATION

If you have been thinking automations are only for client projects and those involving higher
complexities, you’re wrong. As an HR professional, you do some tasks that get repeated on a daily or
a weekly basis. Without having an idea on automating it, you would keep doing it for time unknown.
When you implement HR analytics in your workflow, you can actually spot areas where you can
automate processes and pay more attention to things that need more time and focus.

EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK

Organizations frequently send out forms or surveys on job satisfaction levels and feedbacks.
The employees fill them up and submit them too. However, nobody knows what happens after
that. What is supposed to be one of the most crucial organizational process, passes off as a mere
eyewash, lowering the trust and credibility of HR and the organization. With HR analytics in
place, you can really work on the feedback and get insights on what the actual concerns are,
their prioritization, how you can solve them, what is causing them and make way for a better
work environment. The best part is that all these can happen rapidly, ensuring the next time you
send out feedback forms, you get more precise feedback.

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PAY GAP AND MANAGEMENT

Appraisals are the times that are most frustrating to both employers and employees alike. It is
the time the effort and time put in by the employees gets valued and generally, it doesn’t go as
smoothly as planned. It is the time there are cold wars between employees on hike percentages
and promotions. The best way to solve this is by bringing in transparency through HR analytics.
With data backing every single concern and metrics implemented on the appraisal form, it’s not
just the employees who will have clear reasoning on their results but the management for having
a better picture on making crucial decisions on pay hikes and promotions as well. With analytics
giving you data to the point of the number of hours an employee was at his or her desk to the productivity
index, valuating efforts against time and productivity becomes simpler and more genuine.

BETTER TRAINING AND TALENT DEVELOPMENT

With new technologies seeping in every week, it is crucial for people in your workplace to be at
par with industry requirements and constantly exposed to newer skills. This can happen only
when you realize there is a need for it in your workplace and more importantly, in a few
particular departments. If you see the productivity of a department going down, HR analytics
will give you insights on why it is going down and how you can solve it. This will help you decide
if more training is needed or an upskill to a more sophisticated technology or cognitive skill is
required for optimized performance.

Apart from these, HR analytics can bring in positive changes at psychological levels to actually
bring about solutions to concerns you never knew existed. That’s the beauty and power of HR
analytics and the sooner you learn how to achieve these, the better it is for your organization
and your career. This is the right time to get started with HR analytics. Are you game?

Just like a sound people strategy should


follow from your business strategy, HR
analytics efforts should always be in line
with business strategy if you want to make
business impact with HR.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


HERE IS WHY YOU SHOULD
CONSIDER COMPETENCY
EVALUATION USING HR ANALYTICS
Every employee has a unique skill that he or she brings to the table. Be it
specialized skills in coding or data analytics to
technical writers and expert sales associate, every skill and every talent is
unique. As an HR professional, this is where your sweetest challenges are - leveraging the
potential of an individual for the benefit of the organization, and creating an ecosystem where
diverse skills can co-exist, cooperate and work in harmony with each other. That is where your
skill comes into action. For that, you need to know HR analytics and the amount of changes data
can bring into your workplace.

When talking about competency at work, there are two factors you should consider – one
during recruitment and the other during performance appraisal. Both the scenarios are distinct
and require exclusive factors to be considered to evaluate the competency of your employees.
Let’s discuss this in detail.

DURING RECRUITMENT

This is the most crucial time of evaluating the competence of a potential candidate. This is the
time you consider his or her expertise, experience, attitude, commitment to the job and
organization, and look at the previous companies where the candidate has worked. You also
consider the duration of employment with each company and analyze the candidate’s
competency with your requirements and the budget you have fixed for the specific job role. You
need to take decisions on whether going beyond your budget is worth the risk or if he would flee
in a few months despite you taking a gamble.

For a normal individual, all these can be daunting. But for someone who understands the
language of data, the filtering process becomes fairly simple and the HR manager can
immediately tell if everything is worth taking the risk.

A GOOD HR MANAGER UNDERSTANDS THE AMOUNT OF MONEY A COMPANY


INVESTS IN RECRUITING AN EMPLOYEE, TRAINING HIM OR HER, PAYING THE
SALARIES AND THE COSTS INCURRED AFTER THE EMPLOYEE’S EXIT.

To foresee everything is the job of a manager who trusts in data and the insights it delivers. If
you are able to adopt HR analytics techniques along with standard recruitment processes and
tests, you will have a solid reason to hire a particular employee, or wait for a better one.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


DURING APPRAISALS

If the employee gets selected during the recruitment stage, you need to give him or her time to
prove his commitment, dedication, excellence and most importantly, what he promised to
achieve during the interview. The one year is the time of evolution for the employee and here,
competency evaluation is not done against other employees but against the candidate’s
previous self. There is no one template appraisal mechanism or metrics you can use to weigh the
worth of an employee and give him or her promotions and pay hikes. The employee should have
done something substantial or worthy enough to claim it. On the other hand, the employee
should have also been given due opportunities and tasks to prove his worth.

It is a vicious cycle we are talking about and the only way to get clarity on this is with the help of
HR analytics, which will tell you in detail and precision if the employee was committed to his
tasks, his or her managers, fulfilled requirements on deadlines and quality, showed up on time
every day, was punctual and more. HR analytics also tell you of any inconsistencies in
performance and the number of opportunities given to the employee versus the number of
opportunities utilized. Insights into these will help you differentiate the competent ones against
the non-competent redundant skill sets in your workplace. And this is a true sign of a good
competency evaluation that will pave way for a healthy work culture and organizational growth.

Other template procedures that you download from the internet won’t take you anywhere. So if
you are really looking to bring about a change in your workplace, opting for the HR analytics way
of operations is the best possible approach.

An effective way to further align with


business strategy in your HR analytics
efforts is to talk to business leaders and
ask them what their biggest hurdles are in
realising their objectives.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


USING ANALYTICS TO
OPTIMIZE YOUR COST OF HIRING
You spend countless hours on calling up potential candidates, incurring calling expenses; you
run sponsored advertisements or print adverts on vacant positions, conduct walk-ins interview
tons of candidates and then you finally recruit one. You train the new recruit for a week and
teach him or her the job, explain about the company, get new laptops, ID cards, accesses, open
salary accounts and after all this, exactly a week later, the new recruit fails to turn up at work.

Even if it’s a part of your job requisites, how would that make you feel about the costs incurred
in recruiting the employee, only to lose him or her within a week? It is at this time that you need
HR analytics. If you are an HR associate facing similar concerns on recruitment and costs
incurred on it, it is time you wake up to the importance of data and make informed decisions on
recruiting the right candidate and ensure he or she stays for long.

As an HR personnel, your job is not just to fill up vacant positions but make sure productivity is
undisrupted at any given point of time. You should know that only right employees can make an
organization great and take it to next level. The absence of one right candidate cannot be
replaced by even 10 unfit employees and the sooner you realize this, the better it is for your
career and work. So to optimize cost of hiring, you should use HR analytics and to for more
information on that, read on.

EMPLOYEE’S HISTORY

An analytical mind will not just see how fit a candidate is for your job but how long he or she will
stay committed to your organization. Immediate exits will only fetch you expenses on training
and employee joining procedures and you don’t want that. With HR analytics, you can quickly
analyze a candidate’s commitment in his or her previous employments and give you insights on
how long the candidate is most likely to work with your organization before you have to start
looking for a replacement. With the right decision, you are not just saving your time and paving
the way for seamless productivity, but also helping cut down on unnecessary expenses your
organization is likely to incur.

EMPLOYEE TRAINING

Sometimes, a little bit of a research can take you a long way. With proper analytics, you can
actually realize if there is an actual need for a new employee or training your existing talent pool
will fill in the gap between productivity and organization expectations. When you sit with
department heads and analyze, there might be a few areas that could be automated and the
remaining time could be used to train employees for optimized performances. When the
workload of one employee gets distributed among the remaining employees, you don’t need a
new recruit unless and until it is an extreme circumstance. A little research and analytics can
save you from the entire hassle of recruitment and interviews and the costs incurred on them.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


PREDICT ATTRITION

Most often, it is an exit that gives rise to a new requirement and with HR analytics, you can
prevent any future attrition in your organization. HR analytics will give you insights on attrition
patterns in diverse departments, reporting managers, frequencies, designations and other
factors to redirect you to the point of concern. Once you know where the problem is, you can
prevent probable exits and retain the employees who are most likely to leave. Be it their
satisfaction, pay, rapport with the management or personal reasons, you can sit down, talk it out
and prevent them from quitting your organization, leaving no space for a vacancy. When there is
no vacancy, there is no cost incurred in hiring as well.

These are just a few basic approaches and glimpses of what HR analytics can do to your
organization. To realize more inevitable concerns and solve those you never knew existed, you
need to develop skills on data analytics and statistics and use your common sense. For that, you
need HR analytics. Get started with analytics for human resources and make 2018 count for
your workplace and career.

The power of HR analytics is that statistical


analyses of HR combined with business
data allows you to predict possible
business improvements to a certain extent.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


THINGS TO DO BEFORE CHOOSING
AN HR ANALYTICS COURSE
As we reach the midway point in the year, most of us are busy trying to set targets for the second
half of the year. While many of us are wondering how the year is passing by so fast, others are
hopeful about bringing in changes to their life and careers by the end of the year. For those
working towards a positive professional change, we recommend you focus on your career
growth as a first priority. 2017 was crucial in terms of employment and upskilling and 2018 will
be more important.

As data keeps gaining importance and seeps into almost every department and aspect of our
lives, the need for data scientists and those who can take informed decision on anything by
simply looking at data will be in huge demand. To make sure you go to the next level in your
career, you need to be ready to take up higher responsibilities and niche tasks. You should be
able to pull off things what others can’t and for that, you need the right exposure and training.
So if you’re an HR associate looking to climb the ladder and make your voice heard in
organizational decisions, you need to let the data do the talking.

YOU NEED TO UPSKILL TO HR ANALYTICS AND START TALKING TO DATA


TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. BUT CHOOSING AN HR ANALYTICS COURSE CAN
BE DIFFICULT. WITH THE NICHE BEING NEW, IT’S HARD TO SET A
BENCHMARK TO TAKE UP THE COURSE.

However, we present to you some crucial aspects you need to look for when choosing an HR
analytics course.

THE RIGHT FOUNDATION

Data analytics in HR is relatively a new concept or rather a new application. What institutions
and most colleges in India teach in Human Resources is basic and way different from how
companies work and should work. So, most of us don’t have the right exposure to data analytics,
pattern recognition, proactive problem solving and more. Most of us still think data science is
too complex to find a place in HR, and that it has very high prerequisites.

All these are just misconceptions. The basics of data analytics and how it can be used to make HR
processes and workflows better can be learnt with the right foundation and exposure. So, that’s
the first thing you should look for in an HR analytics course – one that teaches you the basics
and lets you understand the concepts and then build on it gradually.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


STATISTICS

Statistics are crucial for data analytics, and a lot of tasks related to number and data crunching
revolve around this field. Your course should either help you brush up your knowledge of stats
or introduce you to the concepts and make you familiar with how statistics go a long way in HR
analytics. Your course should also teach you advanced statistical concepts and make you work
on practical application of the concepts you learn. The more you work on real-life data sets, the
better your approach and output on your job will be.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

Courses can teach you to come up with prescriptive solutions for concerns companies face. For
instance, a department in a company facing concerns on poor productivity over the last four
weeks can be quite simple for data scientists to work on and come up with remedies and
corrective measures. However, anticipating retrenchments for the next 90 days and taking
proactive measures to control them and managing hiring and training is what needs exposure
and practice. Your HR analytics course should prepare you for predictive analytics and make you
deliver results before crisis hits your workplace. That’s what data is for!

VISUALIZATION

Your role as an HR analyst doesn’t end after you immediately pinpoint problems and come up
with solutions. Your job starts from there. What you see from your data and interpret is your
expertise and people outside your niche won’t understand the reasoning behind it. You need to
have good communication skills to convey your inferences and findings in a way anyone involved
in a workflow can understand. Your findings are valuable only when they are understood by
everyone in your team. So, your course should also teach you how to visualize your data and
weave a story around it to efficiently convey your insights and make business impact.

When you’re looking for an HR analytics course, make sure it meets all these requirements so
you can shine in your workplace and be backed up by sound technical knowledge of what you do.

The most important major differentiator


between low mature HR analytics
organisations and higher mature HR
analytics organisations is having HR analytics
projects with measurable business impact.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


WHAT MAKES FOR A
GREAT HR ANALYTICS COURSE
The motto to success in today’s competitive world is very simple – the more you
learn, the more you evolve and the more you upskill to trending job roles and
requirements, the faster you will succeed in life and career. Generally, you can learn
things in life in two different ways. You can either learn from others’ mistakes or make your own,
regret and learn valuable lessons months from the moment you take a wrong decision and it is
this ability to make the right decision that separates wise from the learned. Today, most of us are
under the misconception around HR and its job descriptions. In our country, HR is often
believed to have limited scope of growth compared to other departments in the organization.

That is simply not true. HR is one of the most crucial departments of any organization, and the
success or failure of a business relies on the jobs of HR professionals. Of late, with the
implementation of analytics in HR, the value for HR job roles has increased manifold and more
companies are looking forward to take in people who can bring about positive impact in the
organization through available employee data, patterns and insights out of HR analytics. So if
you are into HR and wondering how to grow, you can do it by upskilling to HR analytics. There
are several courses and tutorials on HR analytics but only a very few will actually equip you with
the skill sets required in the industry. You should look out for the following factors when
deciding on the right HR analytics course.

PROPER INDUCTION

Analytics is relatively new for most of us. As an average professional, we are either completely
into coding and product development or into project management or people management. We
have had little access to analytics concepts in our academics and early career path. So the right
analytics course should induct you properly to what the course is all about and make you
understand the purpose of you learning the course.

No matter if you are an engineer, an MBA with specialization in HR, a content writer, a project
manager or somebody from a very different background, your HR analytics course should bring
everyone on the same page. It should cover the basic concepts required for the industry
application of the course and have people then build on advanced concepts. The learning curve
should be ideal for the HR analytics course you intend to take.

IT SHOULD MAKE YOU JOB READY

Not all courses make individuals job ready and ready for the industry. A real course should
prepare aspirants for the industry and offer them a glimpse of how the industry functions, what
it is all about and how it is to be an HR analyst. The right course should bridge the gap between
what you learn theoretically and what you do practically at your workplace. A course that makes
you wonder what you are doing on your job is futile and extra care should be taken to choose
courses that make you job ready. Look for the right courses and study to join the industry right
from day one.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


REAL WORLD CASE STUDIES

Exposure that is practical and real world is perhaps the best exposure HR analytics aspirants can
get. Instead of studying scenarios of case studies of companies two decades back, if they can
learn and get to understand how HR analytics is shaping today’s progressive companies like
Google, Infosys and the like, it will make them more relatable and pave the way for better
understanding. It is also relevant to today’s availability of technology, giving them ideas on how
to solve crucial concerns when they are at work, through what they have studied. The course
that allows you to work on real world data sets and matches your excellence to that of existing
talent pool in the industry is the one you need.

THE RIGHT FACULTY

One of the most crucial factors that make for a good HR analytics course is the faculty that will
be teaching you your course. When selecting the right course, look out for industry veterans,
who have been pioneers in combining analytics into HR processes and workflows and actually
delivered results. This is just to ensure you are on the right hands and that your career is
benefited through their experience and expertise. Also check if there are visiting lectures or
webinars of prominent HR heads of top companies for added exposure. The right course will
have all the diverse aspects of shaping your dream career covered.

The course that has all these four factors taken care of is designed to make you successful in
your career. If you can also check out the quality of their course material and insights on who has
developed the study materials, it would be an added advantage to your career. Being relatively
new, this is the right time to venture into HR analytics and a wise move today can prove
beneficial in the years to come. Remember that you cannot stand out by doing what everyone
else is doing. Get out there and get started with HR analytics.

To add strategic value and establish


credibility, HR analysts should embrace the
art of storytelling, shaping workforce data
into a well-crafted narrative that includes
all the key elements of any good story.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


BECOME A COMPETENT HR
PROFESSIONAL WITH HR ANALYTICS
This is the age of cutthroat competition. This is a time where resting is
unthinkable. The moment you feel complacent is the time your competitors go
up the corporate ladder and ultimately towards success. People are working harder
than ever and are constantly on the lookout for newer ways to better themselves. They are in
search of newer courses and technologies related to their fields to master and want to become
better at what they do. Moreover, on the outside, there is a healthy competition, as people are
trying to pave the way for a better career and life with each passing year. If you are an HR
professional wondering how you can grow in your department, workplace and career, you need
to upskill to what is known as HR analytics today. Analytics has been touching diverse aspects of
the IT realm and it has now come to HR for optimized efficiencies.

AS AN HR PROFESSIONAL, YOU NEED TO BREAK AWAY FROM


CONVENTIONAL PROCESSES AND WORKFLOWS AND HAVE DATA TO
BACK YOU UP DURING THE MOST CRUCIAL TIMES. IF YOU WANT YOUR
VOICE TO BE HEARD IN YOUR ORGANIZATION, COMMENTS AND
SUGGESTIONS BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION, YOU NEED TO GIVE
AUTHORITY TO YOUR VOICE THROUGH DATA.

DATA IS NOW THE MOST PRICELESS ASSET YOU HAVE AND THE MOMENT
YOU LEARN HOW TO TALK TO IT, YOU CAN DO WONDERS FOR YOUR
CAREER AND WORKPLACE.

From fixing fundamental concerns in your organization and paving the way for enhanced
recruitment processes and solving appalling problems related to attrition, HR analytics is the
way forward for your career. Being an HR, you have access to data that nobody in your
workplace has. You have the power to put all the chunks of data that you have and combine them
with analytics to come up with insights, patterns and concerns that matter a lot to your
company. As you keep digging through data, you will be surprised to find concerns that could
actually stall your business operations. Apart from helping you note down what has happened in
the past, HR analytics also offers you a glimpse to the future by showing you probable concerns
that could pop up within a stipulated period of time, employees who will probably put down their
papers, those will come knocking at your doors for pay hikes and even those who would talk to
you about their reporting managers.

All these are possible with HR analytics and one of the best advantages of this course is it allows
you to be proactive. Instead of waiting for them to come and talk to you, HR analytics gives you
the power to proactively eliminate these concerns by helping you take an informed decision on
them even before they are brought to notice. This way, not only do employees feel like they are
being taken care of, it shows how committed you are to your work as well.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


BY THE WAY, HR ANALYTICS ALSO ALLOWS TO SOLVE GENDER-BASED
WAGE GAPS, COME UP WITH NEWER METRICS FOR APPRAISALS,
DEVELOP PRODUCTIVITY INDICES, AND THINK OF NEWER WAYS OF
PROMOTING EFFICIENCY IN WORKFLOWS.

Since HR analytics is relatively new, you need to be extra careful in choosing the right course.
Your course should be designed to make you industry-ready through practical approaches to
teaching, allowing you to work on real-time data sets, real-world HR scenarios and give you a
global exposure. The faculty teaching you should also be extremely proficient in their industry
and they should pass on their experience and expertise to you through the course. One course
that has been formulated combining all these factors is the HR Analytics course from Jigsaw
Academy.

Developed with the sole intention of making you grow in your career in HR, the HR analytics
course from Jigsaw Academy is all that you need to make it big in your life and work. From
fundamentals in statistics and analytics concepts to concepts on predictive analytics and
implementation, you become a competent HR professional with our course. With the time being
perfect to venture into career growth in HR, it is high time you get started with the course and
make 2018 count in your career.

Click here to begin your journey to becoming a Full Stack HR Analytics professional.

Although it is a small group that is already


integrating HR analytics as an extension of
business strategy, HR analytics is gaining
traction in the market. This means many
organisations would like to get started with
this methodology.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


CAN ANALYTICS HELP YOU
BECOME A BETTER HR MANAGER?
One of the most crucial areas where managers tend to fumble is in decision
making. Often, managers are exposed to a situation where they have to analyze the pros and cons
of two different factors and come up with an effective solution for a crisis or project they are
working on. However, in the end, it’s the gut instincts that take the final call in making decisions.

As a manager, relying on instincts is fine but that won’t take you anywhere. You need to take
decisions that actually add value to the project you are brainstorming for. If you are allocating
resources and fixing up a deadline for a project, choosing random people who appear to be
promising and assigning a random deadline on the grounds of practicality won’t help in the
project’s sustenance. You need to arrive at a decision that is backed by data. You need to use
analytics to figure out the best approaches to working on your projects and delivering results.

Over the last decade, the role of data in companies and startups has increased rapidly and
organizations out there are reinvesting on analytics and expert data scientists for more
informed decisions. As a manager, you should incorporate analytics into your everyday
workflow as well. Before choosing people for your project, you need to look at their data and see
how they have performed in their previous projects, their commitment levels to projects and
jobs, their attendance, absenteeism, productivity index and even their responses to challenging
tasks for optimized allocation of resources. All these help your project evolve in the best way
possible, also allowing you to complete it before the deadline.

WHEN YOU USE ANALYTICS IN YOUR DAY TO DAY OPERATIONS, YOU ALSO
GET COMPREHENSIVE INSIGHTS INTO INFORMATION THAT MIGHT BE
NEW TO YOU.

For instance, attrition is normal in any organization. However, when you use analytics, you can
refine information into such fragments that you can find out the real reasons for attrition and
find patterns on attrition in particular departments, their frequencies and under particular
managers. If you notice people from one particular department leaving in consecutive months,
analytics can take you to a conclusion wherein, the fault could be on the manager, lack of
motivation, poor appraisal systems, poor metrics, lack of challenging tasks or simply poaching.
All these are lethal to your workforce and you have to spend your time and energy on recruiting
new people and then on orienting them to your company’s culture and training them to fit their
roles. Besides, this entire cycle is expensive too.

Analytics lets you foresee all of these concerns and solutions to them. As an HR manager, it is
your job to maintain optimum efficiency in not just your department but in the entire workplace.
Any poor candidate at the desk will redirect to your lack of recruitment skills or that of your
department’s. To avoid that, you need to use analytics to analyze potential candidates’ work
history, commitment, seriousness and even duration spent in each company he or she has
worked with. The deeper you go into the information you have, the clearer picture you will get
on people, processes and ultimately your organization.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


Being an HR manager, it is also on you to bring in new culture and set new environments for
adopting newer technologies for enhanced employee performances. Let this start with you
upskilling to HR analytics this year. You are bound to see a surge in employee productivity,
organization growth and pave the way for excellence in your career. Get started with HR
analytics today.

Most organizations have identified and


prioritised issues in the organisation
where HR analytics can provide the most
valuable insights. This means avenues for
HR Analytics practitioners are already
wide open.

© Jigsaw Academy Education Pvt Ltd


IF YOU'D LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT JIGSAW ACADEMY
HEAD OVER TO WWW.JIGSAWACADEMY.COM, VISIT OUR BLOG
OR SEND US AN EMAIL AT: [email protected]

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