A proper analysis of workforce data can transform how organisations make decisions and optimise their resources. This has become crucial for today’s talent management, staff engagement, performance management and productivity purposes. In our earlier articles we looked at the significance of adopting human resource (HR) technologies to conduct a proper analysis of HR data and use it for business purposes. In this article we will explore various categories of workforce data that companies can gather in-house. Analysing the accumulated data will help you obtain an idea of what is working and what needs improving, allowing you to identify issues and come up with solutions faster, while revising and improving your processes.
It’s a fact that organisations usually capture certain data that is not summarised in a structured way to allow a proper analysis. Then there is certain data that is not accumulated, given the company’s specifics or habits, yet analysing it would contribute to the overall development of the company’s strategy. A range of survey solutions and tools are currently available on the market that can help you collect, summarise and visualise data efficiently. Taking such measures involves preparations to secure the quality of data, so it’s advisable to bring in an HR expert who will help you choose the best solution for your organisation.
Let’s now look at data that can be summarised for analysis.
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Headcount: the average number of employees in various departments, full-timers and part-timers |
Every company primarily gathers this basic employee data, as it helps build worker profiles and create demographic reports on the workforce. Profiling allows you to identify various staff groups in your organisation with specific group characteristics to better understand their expectations, values and habits. Staff profiling can offer business leaders a certain degree of predictability about staff attitudes towards potential changes when assessing those in the light of group values. |
| Location: how a worker gets to work (timing of commute and mode of transport), the number of employees working at the office, remotely and under hybrid arrangements (also how many times a week the worker goes to the office) | Not every company gathers data, for example, on a worker’s travel habits. Summarising such data would allow you to assess what percentage of your staff travel daily by public transport or use a car so you can offer specific benefits tailored to particular employee groups. Changes to the benefits package will be significantly affected by an employee’s choice to work at the office, remotely or under hybrid arrangements if this is compatible with the company’s business specifics. |
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Demographics: sex, age, length of employment, level of education
Learning duration/hours (learning time) for each worker annually spent on learning, education and upskilling |
Staff education levels can help when it comes to planning staff training and upskilling courses by optimising the company’s budget for learning purposes – segmenting your staff according to their education level can help you better plan for investing in their development. Also, a data analysis of actual hours the worker spends upskilling gives you an insight into your overall workforce development and allows you to carry out your development strategy at individual level and for the workforce as a whole. Organisations usually do not summarise data on learning, given the time-consuming and fairly complicated task if work has to be done manually or unless the company has time sheets in place to record projects and jobs, where time can be specifically identified for development at various courses, seminars etc. over a foreseeable period. |
| Performance: performance assessments (high, medium or low performance) | This data category entails preparations because you are to adopt the practice of receiving and giving regular feedback over a certain period, as well as a formal evaluation of performance for the period. Also, reports on performance assessments can outline additional aspects to be evaluated in terms of staff growth, from which you can look for solutions in negotiations (what causes are driving or stalling their career in the company, what internal or external factors are affecting their performance). |
| Hiring processes: the number of applications, of which the number of candidates selected for interview, approved job offers, the time it takes to fill a vacancy; internal promotions/mobility, new hires’ performance indicators in the first 3, 6 and 12 months (success of recruitment) | Analysing this data category can improve the recruitment process by supporting decisions to be made about initiatives for notifying potential candidates and the content of job adverts. Using this analysis can make the hiring process more efficient by optimising the cost of recruiting a new hire. |
| Staff turnover: the number of leavers, segmentation into groups by age, length of service, performance, full-time or part-time arrangements, etc. | Analysing staff turnover data can help you better plan for changes to your reward policy, revise the benefits package and identify issues needing attention in the long-term and various internal process-related matters for successful operation. Working restrictions should definitely be considered when evaluating staff turnover because this may affect their overall assessment of the employer and any identified issues, which can explain the reasons for staff turnover, helping you devise a programme to reduce it. |
| Level of engagement: various surveys and interviews when leaving/staying | On a daily basis, workers’ satisfaction or position on particular issues that are crucial to the company can be determined by brief surveys, quickly and efficiently identifying their attitude towards various changes to predict the expected overall reaction. Also, interviews held when employment starts and ends will highlight the worker’s present or past expectations and allows a comparison with the actual situation to reach conclusions about changes that need to be made, including a clearer description of job responsibilities and working conditions in job adverts. PwC has developed hAppy, a tool that can help organisations evaluate their staff engagement levels by tailoring the survey solution to your company’s needs. |
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Reward data: base pay, additional pay, bonuses, benefits awarded and offered, etc. |
Reward analysis is a key component of the organisation’s talent management strategy, as it helps attract and retain the best workers in the market, revise the existing strategy and adapt the overall reward package to their individual needs within your budget. A comparative pay assessment gives you an idea of how your reward package competes in the market, leading to informed decisions about the need for change. Such data also allows you to assess the fairness of reward, especially now that a directive has come into force which states that the pay transparency and execution mechanism strengthens the practice of men and women receiving equal pay for equal or equivalent work.1 |
Data gathering alone will not resolve all staff-related issues, as that is not a magic wand for achieving what you desire. Still, a proper data analysis can provide HR experts and CEOs with data-based facts that will help them devise new strategies or revise the existing ones. This is especially important on the road towards achieving your goals, as it helps build the employer’s image among the staff and in the market. PwC has set up a People and Organisation practice with experts who will help you discover and realise your company’s workforce potential. Feel free to reach out to us and see how we can help.
If you have any comments on this article please email them to lv_mindlink@pwc.com
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