The data-driven culture in companies is increasing every year, and while companies in the past used to depend solely on other human resources strategies, now it is coming down to the numbers. Before Human Resources departments would spend all their time manually recruiting, engaging candidates, and searching for talent, which is so time consuming that they couldn’t dedicate their time to what was truly important, the human interaction with new and current employees. The task at hand should be accompanying candidates during the hiring process ensuring the best possible candidate experience, building relationships with key thought leaders in the market and possible future candidates, as well as developing a talent pipeline for your company that will accompany the company’s growth. In today’s corporate world, a variety of sources can be used to obtain important numbers that can help make big decisions. From a talent CRM software to even social media can help human resources departments make right decisions at the right time, and at the same time can help justify decisions to boards and c-level executives. This technology has not only allowed companies to redesign their selection processes, but also analyze their current workforce, work leave days, a level of engagement, turnover, and other stats that can help to determine things that can be changed to improve a level of employee motivation and loyalty. If Human Resources can maintain a motivated team they will most likely make the most out of their social media participation and word of mouth so as to make it public that your company is a great place to work at, which will in turn attract the top talent in your industry. The value for data in companies is increasing and so its uses. Once companies get on board with data, they start implementing metrics, analytics, and insight and application, which at the end of the day allow HR departments to create strategic business partners and move further and further away from “I think” to “I know”. You can even use this data to make predictions, which you can read more about on the Jason Hanold Blog. The best HR departments in today’s market will take full advantage of this data and use it to build new relationships, improve current ones, and make decisions based on facts. Once your company is one board, it will surely see the benefits and reap short-term and long-term benefits.
Today, you’ll find companies that are making data-driven decisions at different levels, which can be described as: Casual, developing, stable, and optimized. Casual companies find new talent when the time comes through conventional methods, without tracking any kind of metrics or data. Developing companies are trying to plan ahead, but are still not there yet basically due to procedures that don’t support the plan the company has yet. In these companies there are some performance metrics, but these still are not fully in place as to offer the optimal metrics to support the HR team. Stable HR teams can usually get top talent through strategies that do have clear certain priorities and tasks. These companies will track their efficiency through metrics, but they are still not all the way there yet. Finally, an optimized HR teams will have strategies that are completely clear and actually are not only implemented for their department, but make part of a corporate talent management strategy. They not only use metrics and measure regularly performance, but also assess talent needs and plan based on the information obtained from each stage of the process. They ensure that every decision made created the maximum impact possible.
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In reality, very few companies fall into the last category, the largest companies fall into the developing category. Regardless, of what stage they are at, it will be important to choose the right tools. Make sure the tool you choose can support at least sourcing metrics, pipeline metrics, and hiring plan metrics. By using this data-driven recruitment process your company will be able to have a real-time view of the data in your company, flexibility to analyze data based on your needs, a more comprehensible grasp on social media metrics, insight into talent pipeline, and the opportunity to analyze performance and increase employee motivation and engagement. If you are just starting off, take it step by step. Try to implement a pilot program, where the HR team and the rest of the company and understand the advantages and learn to take advantage of the data gathered. Remember to assign someone to monitor this transition and once it’s in place be able to answer the tough questions, giving timely answers to the company’s needs. Keep in mind that this change may not be easy, and you will most likely find opposition from either the HR team or the employees, so it will be essential to take a change management approach. This will be a constant process, and once you’ve got it all set up, it will be progressively changing, updating and evolving, so prepare your company for this evolution of data-driven human resource management.