HR professionals have a special skill. Sapience Analytics Chief People Officer Jannie Kinsey-Goods calls it an “HR antenna.” It is an uncanny ability to pick up on people issues and insights that impact the organization.
An HR antenna is of immense value to an enterprise. Coupled with people analytics, it becomes even more powerful. Kinsey-Goods joined Sapience CRO Matthew Smith to discuss the benefits of people analytics for HR at a recent Sapience webinar. Below is a brief overview of the discussion, which covered workforce trends; workforce analytics use cases for HR teams, leaders, and employees; and the future of workforce analytics.
The New Workforce Trends Glossary
AI, the dawn of the insights-driven enterprise, and significant changes in workforce demographics have created a perfect workforce storm for enterprises. But those aren’t the only trends impacting employee behavior. Kinsey-Goods shared emerging workforce habits that affect an organization’s productivity and retention. These included:
Green Status Effect. Employees feel pressured to prove they are busy, especially when they work from home. Some are going overboard to ensure their workplace messaging apps stay “green” by constantly refreshing their screens, moving their mouse around, and schedule-sending emails outside of normal business hours.
Coffee Badging. Coffee badging is when employees come into the office for a few hours, just to check the box. Kinsey-Goods painted the picture: “Bob comes in, there’s a couple of high-fives, he grabs a cup of coffee and may attend a meeting, and then it’s exit stage left.”
Quiet Vacationing. Nearly four in ten millennials have taken time off without telling their boss. This is quiet vacationing, a sneaky strategy brought to you by the rise of remote work.
Bare Minimum Monday. Wait until Tuesday to overachieve TikTokers tell us. Mondays are for doing the least amount of work possible, so you have time for self-care.
“Those are just some of the things that are going on in the ‘people world’ of HR,” Kinsey-Goods said. “People analytics is a great toolkit to help solve these issues and get insights on why they are on the rise.”
How Data Augments HR
Enterprises rely on HR leaders for insights that impact their people, their most valuable asset. But your “HR antenna” is harder to rely on when you are overseeing remote teams. While experienced HR professionals will eventually notice trends and changes, the speed of information and ease of access workforce analytics provides is a game-changer for HR, allowing leaders to pick up on consequential workforce trends, faster.
Once data points you in the right direction, you can dig deeper and ask the right questions to figure out the “why” behind each trend – the “iceberg beyond what you can see,” Kinsey-Goods explained.
HR use cases discussed in the webinar included:
- Providing executive teams and managers visibility into what’s really happening, by answering questions like:
- Who came into the office today?
- Where are people working from?
- What types of applications are people spending their time in?
- How much time are people spending on their device?
- Better managing workplace location compliance
- Objectively assessing remote work policies by analyzing workforce productivity
- Addressing burnout and preventing attrition
Not a “Gotcha” Tool
The role of a workforce analytics platform is not to catch employees who aren’t working. Rather, it is a tool for enabling decision-making for leadership. Kinsey-Goods described how she uses data to find ways to help people be more productive and efficient, and to help managers tailor their approach based on an individual’s work patterns. This people-centric approach to leveraging data aligns with Sapience’s culture.
Sapience sees workforce data as a tool for employees, as much as it is a tool for managers. Employees appreciate visibility into their workforce patterns and proactively look to enhance their productivity and optimize work-life balance.
The Workforce of the Future
“People analytics is here to stay, and we’re just going to see more of it,” Kinsey-Goods said.
She predicts workforce data will become a part of an HR practitioner’s daily tool kit. She also believes the demand for analytics will come from employees, as much as it does leadership, especially as younger generations enter the workforce. She explained how already, her 17-year-old son uses AI in his daily life. His generation will expect enabling tools at work, as well as the flexibility to work on projects of their choice, where and when it suits them.
“They’re going to look something like an employee, a little like a contractor, and a little bit like a gig worker,” she explained.
For more about how HR leaders are augmenting their role with workforce data, check out a recording of the Sapience webinar, “The Power of People Analytics: Driving HR Strategies in Modern Enterprises?” Click here to watch.
Sapience® is an automated, unbiased workforce analytics platform for navigating the modern workforce, with benefits and use cases for the entire organization. Interested in talking with us about how workforce analytics solutions from Sapience will help your organization? Contact us to schedule a discussion or a no-obligation demonstration of our platform.
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