Business Management Insights — Pioneer Management Consulting

People Analytics: The Key to Unlocking Your Workforce Potential

Written by Shane Jensen | July, 05 2023

The Covid era was full of surprises, including new challenges to understand our people and teams in a changing work world. People analytics has been catapulted to the high priority list for CHROs of companies large and small, established or rapidly expanding.

But, what exactly is people analytics? It involves analyzing information about employees, also known as workforce, talent, or people metrics, in order to tackle important business inquiries. It helps answer fundamental questions like "What is the trend in our headcount?" and more strategic ones like "What are the main factors contributing to new-hire turnover?"

People Analytics in Action

People analytics can take you to amazing places. Depending on your goals and vision, you can choose from a wide range of options to optimize your workforce and business performance. Here are some examples of what you can achieve with people analytics:

  • Establishing & automating core HR analytics: Get the basics right by measuring and reporting on key HR metrics, such as headcount, turnover, diversity, and engagement.
  • Passive and active listening analytics: Understand what your employees are saying and feeling by analyzing their feedback, sentiment, and behavior across multiple channels.
  • Predictive people analytics: Anticipate future outcomes and trends by using data science and machine learning to model scenarios, identify risks, and recommend actions.
  • Cross-functional operational analytics: Combine employee data with operational data to drive business decisions and improve efficiency, quality, and profitability. (Think People Analytics meets Sales Analytics)

People Analytics: The Problems and the Solution

Getting energy behind your People Analytics journey often ends up being a surprisingly complex exercise. Here are just a few of the obstacles and frustrations we hear from our CHRO partners:

  1. Lack of capacity from corporate IT teams
  2. A complex and ever-changing stack of HR applications
  3. Misalignment on metrics and their definitions
  4. Lack of a long-term PA strategy

So how do we overcome those headwinds?

Find Your Purpose With People Analytics

A detailed strategy with full alignment across all stakeholders will lead to a clear ROI. Pioneer’s three-step Vision and Strategy process takes it even further by defining high-level priorities, clear workstreams, and defined ROI & costs to execute your program.

From automating core HR reporting to advanced data science to optimize your workforce, your purpose is ready to be cultivated.

How To Kick-Start Your People Analytics Journey for Free

Our half-day kick-start sessions are 100% free. You will walk out of our session with a clearer initial vision of your program and a clear understanding of what it will take to get your People Analytics journey off the ground.

Our kick-start process is just phase I of your adventure, connect with our Data & Analytics practice leader Shane Jensen to learn more about what will follow to complete your vision with our rapid execution process.

How To Finish the Job With Pioneer: Our People Analytics Approach

Pioneer helps you achieve the full potential of people analytics. We use technology, processes, and people to deliver real-time workforce insights that drive business performance and value. 

Our services include:

  • Capability Jump-Start: We partner with your team to create a customized people analytics framework based on your business goals, KPIs, data sources, and roadmap. We also train and develop your staff.
  • Data Engineering: We build modern data platforms that integrate multiple HR data sources and improve data availability and system resilience. We also develop a master data schema layer and a data governance framework.
  • Analytics Hub Design: We deploy PowerBi & Tableau data models and executive dashboards, train end users, and provide recommendations for future analytics development.

Ready to finish the job with Pioneer? Contact us today and let’s get started!