Talent Analytics: 2016 Hot Spots

While each HR or human capital department must focus on the needs of their specific agency, in 2016 several factors point to the need for quality data analytics in HR, including the GAO’s 2016 Annual Report on improving efficiency and financial health. Talent Analytics affects HR and human capital strategy and operations in virtually every area, but key ones for the current fiscal year include:

• Workforce planning. Workforce and competency data are indispensable to the workforce planning process. Ensure the data you use in your workforce planning process is both relevant to real-time and applicable to future goals.
• Succession planning. Like workforce planning, succession planning relies on quality data to inform the steps your agency needs to take today to ensure the agency can meet its goals in the next 1-5 years—and beyond.
• Recruiting and staffing. Use application data, vacancy data, applicant competency data, and time-to-hire data to understand where your recruiting practices are effective and where there’s room for improvement and increased efficiency. The data alone won’t tell you what the solution is, but it’s a necessary step in identifying any problems.
• Diversity and inclusion. To help translate the President’s mandate into action-steps for your agency, take advantage of HR analytics to identify areas for the most efficient improvements. Recruitment data may reveal where you have blind spots or underutilized channels for improving diversity and inclusion in the workforce.
• Employee Engagement. While the FEVS data is a tool for transparency and performance measurement, it is also a vast pool of data agencies can draw on to inform their strategy and day-to-day operations. Don’t waste your FEVS data—drill deep to extract insights to identify your top areas to achieve some quick wins and improvements, and use other data to plan longer term.

In addition to GPRAMA’s integration of the human capital plan with the strategic plan documentation, GAO’s annual report is one of those accountability mechanisms that reminds us of the importance of planning and making decisions that are informed by informed and honest, careful data analysis.

Quality data in these areas ensures that agencies can make effective decisions. It facilitates monitoring, which supports ongoing operational decisions. If well organized and tracked, it also makes demonstrating how the agency’s human capital plan and budget are adapting annually to support the agency’s performance.

More important than the tool that you use for HR analytics are the metrics and measures you use to drive your talent analytics. Ensure that your agency uses the metrics you need to assess, plan, monitor, and evaluate the key HR factors in your agency. If you’re in HR, work with management to identify these factors and effective measures. If you’re in management, collaborate with HR to ensure they have the necessary information to help manage the workforce efficiently.