As businesses have transitioned into a global marketplace and started utilizing new technologies, the field of business intelligence has gained a foothold. Business intelligence (BI) couples the data and analytics collected from IT solutions with ways to improve and expand the business.
While this has mainly been applied to marketing and resource planning, human resources can significantly improve its company's productivity and satisfaction by applying BI solutions to its processes. If you want to improve employee satisfaction and streamline your workforce, learn how HR business intelligence is needed in your workplace.
Create Continuity
Any HR professional can tell you that a lack of continuity can kill a business. When the same or similar positions have different expectations and rules, managing those employees effectively can be a nightmare. BI allows HR professionals to create information sharing and consistency across the company and within departments.
Used in conjunction with a workforce management system to set up job duties and position objectives, HR can work with managers to set up a consistent job description and set of goals for each employee in a position, no matter the location or manager. Using BI, HR can also help managers create new positions and objectives when necessary.
Improve Hiring
Hiring is a challenge for even the most successful companies. Trying to find the balance between a rigorous screening process that zeroes in on the right candidate and limiting wasted time and effort during the hiring process is a challenge. Applying BI is one way for HR to optimize resources without sacrificing quality.
Using BI, HR can create a composite profile of the optimal candidate for jobs using current employee information. They can also track the hiring process, using that data to streamline the process. BI can be pivotal in identifying where candidates are being lost in the process and weeding out candidates early to avoid wasted company time.
Manage Leave More Effectively
BI can help HR personnel present figures and facts regarding leave to optimize its use and fairness. HR personnel can look at statistics and use to identify problems and potential abuses. If tardiness is an endemic problem, BI can identify whether that stems from a particular department or time and use that information to drive change in the form of education or changing the schedule.
If an executive team member is concerned about the overuse of sick leave, BI can provide the figures on whether there’s widespread abuse or simply a few employees overusing the system. With concrete figures, HR can better address leave issues and create harmony within the organization regarding that leave.
Keep Managers and Executives Informed
BI isn’t just able streamlining processes and creating continuity. It can also guide the company away from legal and ethical issues by highlighting areas that the company needs to improve to meet regulations or address employee dissatisfaction.
Using BI, HR personnel can find places where compliance is lax or misunderstood and use their workforce management system to provide training and clarification. Employee satisfaction surveys can also be a great way to compile BI information and address the concerns voiced by employees. BI can be the platform for identifying deficiencies in knowledge and addressing those deficiencies with the executive and managerial team.
BI will only become more important to businesses in the coming years. As more and more businesses are employing the use of workforce management systems and timekeeping software, it’s up to HR to utilize the information gained from these systems to better the business. If your HR department isn’t receiving BI or using BI to better the company, it’s time to jump on board.
