Amidst ongoing labor shortages and widespread skills gaps, companies are struggling to attract and retain top talent. The average time to hire is at an all-time high, while worker satisfaction is at an all-time low. The result? HR leaders are spending more time and money on workforce management than ever before.
The good news is that a new data-driven HR strategy — known as talent intelligence — is helping HR professionals overcome current workforce obstacles. By leveraging talent intelligence software and methodologies, HR teams are able to make targeted decisions during every step of the employee lifecycle — from recruiting, to retention, to performance management. In this article, we’ll dive into five top use cases of talent intelligence for human resources professionals.
Talent intelligence is a new approach to workforce management that involves gathering and analyzing extensive data on workforce trends, employees, and candidates. Companies that employ this data-driven HR strategy use software that leverages AI algorithms to parse through and analyze data.
Below are several categories of HR software that can incorporate talent intelligence features:
Also known as sourcing or recruiting software, these tools search through databases and social networks to help recruiters identify top talent based on preset criteria and predictive analytics.
ATS software manages applicants throughout the hiring process. It can store candidate resumes, automate interview scheduling, write optimized job descriptions, post and monitor applications, and schedule interviews.
Talent assessment in particular has undergone a huge transformation thanks to talent intelligence. These solutions use machine learning to assess applicants and provide scorecards based on a range of hiring metrics — from behavioral, to cognitive, to personality, to motivation levels. Talent assessment tools can also perform skill gap analyses and provide industry benchmarks.
These platforms help companies track and enhance employee performance. They can monitor productivity metrics, foster improved communication with employees, provide personalized career development plans, identify top performers, and facilitate goal setting and tracking.
Employee engagement software provides insights into the employee experience and helps organizations foster a more engaged workforce. It does so by gathering employee feedback and real-time job satisfaction data, identifying drivers of engagement, and detecting signs of disengagement.
Platforms like WorkProud enable companies to create custom recognition programs that fuel ongoing peer-to-peer and manager-led recognition. By providing tools to automate and simplify recognition and rewards, they help increase the frequency and accuracy of employee praise.
The role of HR has evolved dramatically in recent years, with a growing number of professionals wanting to focus on strategy and people operations rather than traditional admin duties.
As HR teams undertake this strategic shift, talent intelligence technology can provide necessary data that informs impactful decision making. Armed with insights on skill gaps, causes of turnover, and broader hiring trends, companies can more easily nurture worker satisfaction and create thriving workforces that align with company objectives.
Here are five key areas of workforce management that talent intelligence can enhance:
According to a report from SHRM, 83% of HR professionals are having a hard time finding top talent. Some of the challenges cited included candidate ghosting, skill gaps, and employer competition.
With talent intelligence, HR teams can source better-fit leads and assess candidates with greater accuracy — reducing their time-to-hire rates and recruitment costs. Research from Bersin & Associates found that companies that use AI throughout their recruitment processes are four times more likely to have a strong candidate pipeline.
Recruiters and hiring managers collaborate to create job descriptions that are posted on several job boards. They then select desirable candidates based on resumes and recommendations and screen through candidates via a series of interviews. The final hiring decision is often made based on a combination of gut feelings and analytical assessment. It is not uncommon for key skills or candidates to be looked over due to oversight or bias.
By leveraging talent intelligence, HR leaders can improve every step of the recruiting process and locate top candidates with greater ease. Talent intelligence tools can:
Considering the profound effects that employee retention has on business performance, it’s easy to understand why nearly 90% of HR leaders have made employee retention a top HR strategy. When workers stay with companies longer, not only do recruiting costs drop but institutional knowledge and job performance improve.
Increasing retention involves a wide range of strategies that improve the employee experience — such as rewards and recognition, professional development, and work-life balance considerations. Talent intelligence takes a data-driven approach to understanding employee needs and providing tailored programming that suits individual and company-wide preferences.
Managers attempt to identify flight risks and causes of turnover based on observations and exit interview results. HR leadership then implements generic initiatives, such as rewards and recognition, employee engagement, professional development, team-building activities, and work-life balance policies. However, human observation and one-size-fits-all programs frequently miss subtle indicators of employee satisfaction and struggle to address individual needs at scale.
Retention efforts powered by AI tend to be more precise and personalized, using company data and market trends to create effective strategies. Employee retention software features include:
Workforce planning refers to efforts to effectively hire and allocate current and future employees. It is an essential HR function that ensures the business is staffed appropriately to support customer needs and achieve business goals.
Data monitoring and workforce planning go hand in hand, yet unfortunately, many employers aren’t incorporating data collection into their workforce planning efforts. A study from The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that only 31% of employers collect data to identify future skills requirements.
Talent intelligence can take on the heavy lifting of data gathering and analysis, making it a great option for HR teams that want to improve the ease and accuracy of their workforce planning efforts.
HR leaders assess their workforce’s skills, demographics, and performance data, and they forecast future staffing needs based on business plans and market trends. They then develop strategies to address workforce needs and skill gaps, such as recruitment plans, training initiatives, and succession planning. Lacking robust data analytics, workforce planning is likely to overlook key insights that are buried under volumes of data. HR teams relying on human efforts alone may also be more reactive and struggle to anticipate changing business conditions.
AI-powered workforce planning tools incorporate machine learning and data analysis to help companies take a proactive approach to talent acquisition. These solutions can:
Performance management involves efforts to evaluate employee performance and foster professional growth in a way that aligns with company goals. This continuous process entails setting employee goals, reviewing worker performance and providing feedback, and offering skill development training.
Investing in employee performance brings incredible benefits to employees and employers alike. When employees feel happier and more confident about their jobs, they’re more productive and generate more business revenue. The American Society for Training and Development found that companies that invest in employee training have an incredible 24% higher profit margin than those that don’t.
By using talent intelligence software, HR teams can tackle ongoing evaluations and career pathing with greater ease.
Because performance management is such an ongoing and routine process, it tends to be time-consuming and error-prone. Managers often struggle to keep tabs on all performance metrics for all their employees, and they may forget or delay feedback to employees. Traditional performance management also tends to take a one-size-fits-all approach, with generic professional development programs that don’t cater to individual strengths and interests.
Talent intelligence solutions can automate employee performance tasks and dive deeper into company data to unearth performance trends. Some features of AI-powered performance management software include:
The majority of companies today have implemented DEI efforts to address long-standing inequities and social divides. Unfortunately, however, these efforts have fallen flat at many organizations. According to a recent report, 76% of companies don’t even have diversity and inclusion goals and are simply “going through the motions and not holding themselves accountable.”
AI is proving to be a valuable tool in helping organizations overcome the shortfalls of legacy DEI tactics. HR platforms that incorporate talent intelligence can detect biases that seep into every step of the employee lifecycle — from talent acquisition, to employee recognition, to career development, to compensation — and then propose customized solutions for addressing these problems.
Diversity training sessions, recruitment initiatives, anti-discrimination guidelines, and other DEI strategies can be very time-consuming for HR teams to manage. Without software to automate key tasks, HR teams may struggle to manually review resumes, generate inclusive job descriptions, and compile workforce demographics. Faced with this time and resource burden, many companies cease giving DEI efforts the attention they deserve.
Talent intelligence software can help ensure that DEI initiatives are data-driven and applied consistently throughout the workforce. Some DEI-centered software features include:
Improving your employee engagement rate is one of the best things you can do for your organization. When employees are more engaged, they perform better and stay with your company longer — empowering you to cut costs and maximize revenue.
With WorkProud, you can infuse your engagement initiatives with data-driven HR. Our customizable platform provides real-time insights into employee engagement and recognition trends, so you can track the impact of your HR strategy and make equitable and effective talent management decisions. High-performing companies use our solution to ramp up employee recognition, provide necessary job performance feedback, and nurture inclusivity. Click here for a free demo!
WorkProud is committed to helping its clients create a unified approach to the employee experience by helping them build cultures of workplace pride. Trusted by millions of users at some of the world’s most recognized employer brands, WorkProud delivers a comprehensive approach to building company cultures that inspire people to be Proud of their Work and Proud of their Company.
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