In this new decade, data analysis is turning workplaces into the best versions of themselves. While a lot of companies keep tabs on outward markers like client feedback or sales, focusing that same drive for improvement and development inward by keeping tabs on traits like employee experience can lead to better business outcomes from the core of your company. Organizations are using HR data to better engage employees in their work, foster and engage new talent, and grow their business through one of its greatest assets—their talent.

1. People Analytics

Sure, keeping tabs on employees and their work happens every day, when managers check in with their teams to make sure everything is running on track. Then more formal data is shared annually during employee reviews, performance assessments, and salary negotiations. But people analytics takes a more comprehensive approach to understanding the movements and performance of employees, advancing beyond individual assessment to lay out the needs of your workforce overall. People analytics software tracks hiring performance, anticipates vacancies and helps organizations with strategic workforce planning.

It’s important, however, for companies to keep data in an ethical way, with employee consent—tracking people’s movements in a comprehensive way can sound a little like spying. Ultimately, the focus of people analytics should be to improve retention and workforce effectiveness, which also correlates with enhancing the employee experience. People analytics can help discern the effectiveness of employee engagement measures—whether it’s offering employees access to efficient training, access to intuitive tech that better assists everyday work functions, or providing effective management.

2. Talent Mobility

One of the ways HR data can enhance both your recruitment and your employee satisfaction is through internal recruiting also known as talent mobility. This is about promoting candidates with talent, rewarding and fostering that talent, and engaging employees in their own career development. Because large companies can often operate in a siloed fashion, this is sometimes an underutilized recruitment strategy. How does one department know that their next best hire may come from another department within the organization?

This is where HR data can be an invaluable resource to help source and foster talent within an organization. While hiring internally can be seen as poaching talent from one department to work for another, it’s important for organizations to foster a workplace culture that values talent mobility and emphasizes its importance to organizational growth. 

For employees, having mobility within a company allows them to diversify their talent and grow their career within your organization, a strategy that keeps employees happier in the long term and helps with retention rates. When a pressing hiring need arises, it can be easily met with an employee already immersed in the company culture and knowledgeable of organizational goals, or an employee who can receive “upskilling” training to meet the organizational needs.

3. Diversity

Finally, keeping data on the diversity of your organization is important for business development, as diversity in the workforce correlates to better business outcomes. When workers come from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds and age groups, they will expand an organization’s access to a variety of ideas and experiences.

A more diverse workforce also offers a better representation and appeal to a broader customer or client base. According to LinkedIn, 89% of hiring professionals say a multi-generational workforce with a mix of Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z makes a company more successful.

With HR data, organizations can keep their workplace appealing and accommodating to a broader workforce and make sure that their teams, and organization overall, reflect diversity. If you create a positive place to work, you will attract and retain top talent. In combination with branding and effective recruitment marketing, keeping employees happy and enhancing employee experience is a valuable long-term recruitment strategy.