Data will be at the heart of future recruitment decision making as organisations harness the powerful insights they hold on their databases.
Every organisation regards talent acquisition and retention as vital to its success, get it right and the business could be on the right path for future growth, but get it wrong and the cost could be damaging.
When looking for new talent, most organisations already have the insight at their fingertips, they just might not know it. It’s time for businesses to look for help from their biggest assets, their employees, when on the quest for future talent.
Looking at data and insights from current employees enables an organisation to find the strongest teams or individuals within the company which then just need to be duplicated to guarantee an engaged employee base right from the start.
What should employers be looking for?
This is an age-old question and sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin. If organisations have the right analytics in place within the company, HR teams will have a whole host of data at their disposal, but the trick is knowing where to look and what to look at.
The right insights will give HR teams the appropriate skill metrics for each employee. This way, simply based on the analysis of top performing employees, companies in the process of hiring a new person will see straight away what they’re looking for.
By matching the data to aid better decision making when comparing the new job applicants against the metrics they’re seeking, HR teams can get a detailed understanding of what makes their employees tick.
The right insights will give HR teams the appropriate skill metrics for each employee.
Organisations need the right information and the right tools in order to take full advantage of the deep insights they provide. However, many aren’t starting in the right place. This can easily be fixed.
An employee engagement programme enables an organisation to gather all of the necessary information about their employees. The future of decision making needs to become much more data-centric; whilst most hiring and retention initiatives rely on human decisions, this will no longer be enough.
Revealing valuable information
Many HR teams would be surprised at how little they might know about their current employees. Analysis can uncover some big surprises, which can help with both the acquisition of new employees and the retention of existing employees.
Data about employee engagement can help to reveal what individuals or certain teams really feel about not only the company itself, but the culture and the management too. Using this data efficiently and effectively is essential to get the right people joining the company and to keep the engaged employees happy in their roles.
Investing in your organisation’s culture is the ultimate way to both attract and retain the staff you want.
After all, it’s not surprising that research finds that salary is not what’s encouraging employees to leave or join a company. Rather, it’s the type of work they’re expected to do, their responsibilities and the culture the organisation promotes.
In reality, investing in your organisation’s culture is the ultimate way to both attract and retain the staff you want, and this starts at the top; good leaders create a good environment, and on the flipside, bad leaders create a bad environment.
Social media savvy
Additionally, in this social media saturated generation, there is no escaping the reviews, good and bad, that can sweep the internet in a second. Prospective and current employees look at reviews on websites like Glassdoor that talk about management and culture, and we all know that news of bad management will spread far quicker than news of good management.
Analytics tools can help here, by enabling organisations to see who might be causing the problem, and allowing them to use data to learn from the ‘good’ managers. Putting ‘good’ managers in place to create a positive environment will, by default, help when attracting better talent.
It’s not just the ‘who’; analytics help to determine why people might be ‘bad’. Is it the workload, an unfortunate team dynamic or a particular project? What has gone wrong, and how can it be put right?
Data for the whole organisation
For the organisations that currently have the right data at their fingertips, there is still the issue of ensuring access is given to those who need it. Once data is shared, it is not only HR teams that are able to make better decisions, but management too.
A top performing, motivated employee can give an organisation the data it needs to see what type of profile they should be replicating.
Managers can understand who might be taking the most annual leave, who is working overtime and going above and beyond and ultimately, which employees are motivated in their roles. These are all aspects that they may not be able to see clearly without this data.
A top performing, motivated employee can give an organisation the data it needs to see what type of profile they should be replicating when on the search for future talent. Not only this, but it can help you find people like them; see who they might know, where they network and if they have suggestions on how to find others like them.
Empowering existing employees, creating the right culture and ensuring good management structures and people are in place, helps with both retention and recruitment. There is no point carrying on the same journey if it’s doesn’t reach the destination; data will tell an organisation which path to take.
