5 Questions that will Optimize your Talent’s Lifecycle

While a company’s value has always been closely tied to its talent, the qualities that make up this “talent” are often considered intangible assets. Because everything in our digital world is connected to data, HR executives can now draw meaningful insights and build strategies around measurable criteria instead of “soft” or qualitative data. This is possible because they have apps for every aspect of the employee lifecycle, like Linkedin for recruiting and Google Forms for engagement surveys. Many of today’s companies even have the ability to pull these data sources together and ask real-time questions about its human capital for in-depth measurement of the holistic health of the larger organization.

This principle applies to the entire HR lifecycle: recruitment to hiring, performance to engagement, and attrition. So, how can you optimize your talent’s lifecycle? Let’s ask 5 questions that matter.

The 5 questions that will optimize your talent’s lifecycle

Recruitment

Do our recruiting efforts attract the right talent?

Companies are in constant competition for top talent. An age-old issue for Talent Acquisition teams is whether or not recruiting efforts garner the right talent. The important questions to compare here are: What is the perception of my organization from the talent on the market today?; How is that perception determining who applies for positions?; and Are the right people interested in these positions?

Of course, the data that answers these questions come from many different sources. That’s why an effort to streamline employee information is on the rise in HR – because centralized data makes answers more evident. Centralized and governed data also means HR operations can compare qualities from the talent available on the market to the successful talent it already has in-house. For recruiting, analytics represents an opportunity to find efficiency, improve quality, and identify impact from the introductory stage of a candidate to the process used to hire and ultimately onboard a candidate.

Hiring

How effective is our selection process?

When an organization understands who it wants to hire, it’s relatively easy to see if the right talent ultimately accepted a position. HR organizations that can keep recruitment information in up-to-date and centralized databases have access to rapid evaluation of the hiring program efficacy through dashboards that give insight to hiring patterns. A disconnect between strategy and execution could suggest that something is misaligned between hiring strategy and the opportunity your organization presents to the talent on the market. It could also mean that your hiring teams are not aligned on the types of talent profiles that might best fit your culture and customer needs. Pinpointing the precise disconnect has been historically difficult. However, thanks to widely accessible digital information, organizations now have increased control over making more informed decisions

Performance

How well are new hires performing after the first 90 days?

The first 90 days on the job are critical. They can reveal a great amount about a new employee’s potential at the company and influence how satisfied and engaged they will be with the organization. By creating checkpoints along the 90-day path, savvy HR leaders are letting their data tell the most accurate story about if an employee is having a successful start, what areas need work, and making strong prescriptions to increase their chances of success at the company. On a more meta level, these leaders are also learning about how they can improve the first 90 days to ensure long-term success.

Engagement

How engaged are our employees?

Engaged business units are 20 percent more productive according to Gallup. This is not a new concept for modern HR leaders. Available technology, like MicroStrategy’s data analytics platform, enables HR departments to take this data and view the enterprise holistically to determine where there are opportunities to increase performance, try someone in a new position, or know precisely how productive a given unit needs to be to meet strategic business goals Intensive record-keeping systems were once only for the largest enterprises with the deepest pockets. Today, they’re fully democratized through the web and on mobile phones. Even small and mid-sized organizations can better organize their engagement data and evaluate its impact on key organizational outcomes like productivity and turnover.

Attrition

Why do talented individuals leave this company?

Cultural shifts in the workplace have made talent retention a more complicated and important task. Gone are the days when an employee would stay at one company for 20 years. Today, the average person has 15 different jobs throughout their career. Knowing why the organization is losing talent is key to addressing the issue. Companies can use this knowledge can better manage the expectations of new hires and make improvements in the necessary areas. In fact, it can be the competitive edge in their given market. In addition, understanding the impact of such loss by being able to model the impact of lost capabilities is an option that HR analytics now provides.

Today’s advancements in data technology are helping HR executives to find, recruit and put the right talent in place at precisely the right moments to capitalize on market opportunities. As a result, data analytics platforms will become an increasingly impactful resource for companies of all sizes. As the workforce continues to evolve and organizations can adapt by strategically asking their data the right human capital questions.