What is Workforce Analytics? Definition, Benefits, and How it Drives HR Strategy
Workforce analytics use historical and current data to offer descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive insights. This dataset is fundamental to human resource decisions, as it often reveals where successes and failures occur structurally in business. Workforce analytics show you why things are happening, while other HR datasets show you what is happening.
The 3 Tiers of HR Data
Tier 1: Transactional HR (Payroll, Benefits, Training Costs)
Tier 2: Reporting (Turnover Rate, Headcount, Similar Basic Data)
Tier 3: Workforce Analytics (Why are employees leaving? Which teams are most productive?)
Most businesses operate only with the first two tiers of HR data. Deloitte research found that 83% of global businesses had low workforce analytics maturity, meaning they use workforce analytics rarely or not at all.
Key Data Sources for Workforce Analytics
Workforce analytics are highly valuable because they quantify something that was previously intangible about the inner workings of company operations. It could be argued that a lack of workforce analytics at a business explains why high-conflict, low-ROI employees remain in their roles while star performers are overlooked. When decisions previously made on emotion and supposition are based on hard data instead, the entire company benefits.
Workforce analytics data sources can include the following:
- Employee performance metrics - This includes data from performance reviews, 360-degree feedback, and goal attainment records. Analyzing these metrics allows HR analytics professionals to connect individual output to business outcomes and identify high-potential employees.
- Demographics - Basic employee information, such as age, gender, location, and tenure, can reveal important patterns, including which groups experience the highest turnover, need more training, or exhibit the highest productivity.
- Employee engagement surveys - Data gathered from pulse surveys or annual reviews provides deep insight into employee sentiment, job satisfaction, and how connected they feel to the company's mission, helping to predict retention risks.
- Technology utilization metrics - This type of usage data from various technology solutions measures the adoption and effectiveness of digital tools, revealing employee work patterns, collaboration habits, and potential friction points in their workflow.
Addressing Workforce Analytics Concerns: Privacy and Time Investment
The biggest company argument against implementing workforce analytics is time. HR teams already have their hands full with onboarding, offboarding, hiring, and other core functions. They may not have time to pull together the kind of customized reports upper management requires for meaningful impact.
Another argument against the use of workforce analytics is that they may be invasive of employee and managerial privacy, eroding trust and introducing an environment where people work to the metrics instead of working to the job.
The right tool takes both of these concerns into account. At Prodoscore, we’ve developed an AI-powered workforce analytics solution that pulls data from desktop and cloud software and builds an impressively large dataset based on business tool activity and collaboration. Unlike workplace surveillance systems, your employees are involved in the process, with access to their data and recommendations for improvement.
Key Benefits of Workforce Analytics: Retention, Performance and Growth
Workforce analytics can help your business retain employees, identify your top performers and improve overall success by highlighting what work patterns have the best outcomes. Leaders can be notified about employees who are struggling with new technology or workflows, when someone is over-resourced and at risk of burnout, and when critical employee relationships are at risk. Your IT department can use this data to identify uptake or non-use of key technology solutions, both in the cloud and on desktops.
All of this data can help you make important decisions about where new hires need to be, who requires more support or training, and how to improve employee experience and engagement - all key supporting pillars for a company’s health and growth.
