For over a century, organisations have relied on a variety of performance management measures aimed at boosting employee productivity and engagement — from surveys and performance reviews to OKRs and goal-setting.
Despite years of corporate expectations for managers to carry out people programmes, many companies do not track the overall effectiveness of these strategies. Consequently, they lack comprehensive insights into whether their long-term efforts aimed at enhancing employee performance and engagement are truly effective.
What separates HR of old from the future is harnessing this data, not just for the sake of it, but to inform organisational strategy and business goals.
Here’s why People Analytics is so valuable, and how the right data can transform HR teams from playing a supporting role to becoming a strategic partner to executive leadership in managing one of a company’s most important assets — its people.
The Power of People Analytics
People management strategies can drive employee engagement and performance by addressing the needs of each employee. Surveys give individual workers a chance to share their experiences and feedback, performance reviews clarify expectations so employees can see how they’re performing and where they can improve, and weekly reports keep employees informed on the progress of team projects so they can track the timing of their own responsibilities.
But data-based insights into these programmes at the macro level can affect positive change across an entire organisation by ensuring that people management programmes are on track, regardless of team or department, and bolstering the participation and effectiveness of different performance management tools company-wide.
The right data can enable organisations to improve their people programmes in the following ways:
1. Hold managers accountable
Managers are a critical piece of the performance puzzle — acting as the glue between performance strategy and execution. Research from the OECD found that ill-equipped managers cost the UK economy £84 billion, while Gallup found that a great manager can increase profitability by 48%.
Companies that have access to data on their people programmes can compare and contrast how well teams and departments are doing, tie any trends to specific leaders or managers and take action to address any shortcomings. People programme metrics can be used to hold managers responsible in their own performance reviews, creating accountability for setting clear goals and investing in their team members’ growth, for example.
2. Uncover culture issues
Sometimes data can reveal bigger-picture issues and uncover where managers may be falling short of expectations or not complying with people programmes. This might appear as managers who are not completing the required steps of a performance management process, failing to support their teams through regular one-on-ones and feedback, or whose team engagement scores are consistently low. Performance management software that tracks and seamlessly integrates these data sources can reveal patterns in where things are going well and where they aren’t.
3. Reexamine people programmes
People programmes may have been launched with the best of intentions, but perhaps the initial direction was unclear or the execution didn’t support the original intent. Data analytics can shed light on whether initiatives are still effective.
4. Highlight achievements
The right people performance data also allows organisations to recognise and celebrate business successes — like the department with the highest engagement scores or the manager who diligently creates development plans for their team members, for instance. There should be connectivity instead of siloes — for example companies should acknowledge high-performing managers and how their efforts correlate with high retention rates and employee engagement on their team.
Finding the Right People Data
1. Adoption metrics
Adoption metrics measure the percentage of people who are taking action on required tasks and can provide a top-level view into the health of a company’s people programmes. Participation alone isn’t evidence of effectiveness, but without healthy participation it’s unlikely a programme is accomplishing its intent, so this is a good place to start if you’re building programmes for the first time.
This data might be available without a tech solution, but it’s often distributed across siloed spreadsheets that make it difficult to measure employee performance in real time. With the right technology, though, organisations can track how actively employees report progress over a period of time, while also looking at trends over time to refine their people programmes.
2. Surveys
Engagement, Pulse or ad hoc (onboarding, benefits, org change) surveys gauge worker motivation, satisfaction, and a host of other experiences, but it can sometimes be difficult to analyse results deeply or connect it in a meaningful way to other data sources. HR tech platforms can make it easy to analyse the data on a more granular level. For example, connecting engagement survey data to reviews can demonstrate how a company’s top performers are feeling, and linking it to employee retention can quantify the true cost of low engagement through attrition.
3. One-On-Ones and Feedback
One-on-ones and written feedback provide an impactful way for managers to regularly connect with their direct reports. As Amber Panting, Head of People at Wolf & Badger says, “Our standard one-to-one is aimed at fostering trust and understanding, highlighting both pain and progress with opportunities for positive and constructive feedback.” She continues, “Shared notes confirm expectations, accountability and create a paper trail which is essential for performance reviews and other performance processes.”
Data analytics can reveal who is holding one-on-ones and providing feedback at the recommended cadence, and who can improve. The right HR tech can be a game changer by providing powerful features to facilitate seamless scheduling, documentation, and follow-up.
5. OKRs, Goals, KPIs
While companies have long required workers to set goals and make progress on OKRs and KPIs, businesses don’t always follow up to determine, across the organisation, what percentage of employees are actually progressing and how many are at risk of falling behind.
People analytics tools can track progress sharing and participation rates to help HR leaders determine which departments and teams might need help driving progress (or just an extra nudge to maintain transparency).
Measuring Impact is Key
And as the saying goes, “what gets measured gets managed.” Ultimately, the most important part of establishing the effectiveness of people programs is articulating the strategic goals, which then allows you to measure what matters. Is it critical that your employees have clarity on how their goals connect to company strategy? Ask about that clarity in their performance reviews. Are you emphasising how managers create inclusive and engaged teams? Use engagement survey results to hold them accountable. These metrics allow you to focus on the intent and impact of people programmes instead of their perfunctory completion.
People programme analytics are a critical tool for HR teams as they seek the best ways to keep employees engaged, while simultaneously demonstrating to leadership that the work they do matters to the company and its bottom line. The return on investment in HR tech comes when HR leaders use the data to optimise the company’s engagement strategies and, in turn, cultivate a happier workforce.
