Better people analytics for better workforce outcomes

Using analytics to make better people decisions and drive business outcomes

Analytics promise to help companies make better, more data-driven management decisions about work, workplaces, and the workforce. But so far, this promise is unfulfilled: In our 2021 Global Human Capital Trends survey, a mere 3% of the 6,300+ executive respondents said they have the information needed to make sound people decisions. This is a prescription for frustration—and failure—in today’s disruptive environment.

Leaders need analytics, but only to the extent that analytics provide insights that enable their organizations to act successfully in a reliable, adaptable, and human-centric manner. We call this “Insights-to-Action.” Organizations need to be able to use analytics to sense, analyze, and act—the three legs of the Insights-to-Action journey—in response to the myriad disruptions affecting work, workplaces, and the workforce.

We know this firsthand because Deloitte uses analytics to fuel its own Insights-to-Action journeys. One example, which illustrates how analytics support our workforce efforts, is our ongoing quest to bolster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) throughout the organization.

Insights-to-Action in DEI

Like many established global companies, Deloitte has been striving to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion within our workforce for decades. It’s been 40 years since we first used our intern program to help minority candidates gain access to the business world. In the 1990s, we sharpened our focus on the retention and advancement of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, and later to other dimensions of diversity such as abilities, LGBTQIA+, veteran status, and nationality. These efforts enabled us to deliver several “firsts” in our industry: the first female chair in 2003, the first Hispanic CEO in 2011, and the first female CEO among the Big Four accounting firms in 2015.

Then came the tragic events of 2020, including the deaths of Black people at the hands of police and the outsized toll of COVID-19 on Black Americans, which made us realize the time had come for bolder moves aimed at changing outcomes by changing behaviors. We set off a new journey from insight to action inside our company.

Driving insights and business value through people analytics

The DEI example is only one workforce-focused area in which taking action based on analytics-derived insights can help companies achieve better business outcomes and meaningful change. Additional areas include talent acquisition, workforce planning, learning, leadership, succession, engagement, experience, performance, rewards, timekeeping, and payroll. Asking the right questions about these areas, analyzing the appropriate data, and taking decisive action can lead to positive workforce management outcomes.

But don’t analyze and address the workforce in isolation. Our research confirms that high-performing organizations intentionally synchronize and integrate the workforce with the workplace and work itself to drive down cost and enhance meaning and value in the business. This requires robust analytics practices and platforms, along with a willingness to work across boundaries to generate more holistic insights.

AI-enabled project management tools, for example, include powerful workforce analytics that can help project managers anticipate delays and drops in productivity. Collaboration technologies generate data that can help identify optimal patterns of teamwork, innovation, and productivity. Workplace analytics can help identify the best mix of onsite, remote, and hybrid workers. The proliferation of biometric apps and sentiment analysis promises to offer even richer and more diverse sources of data and better integration of analytics, insights, and action for work, the workforce, and the workplace.

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