The success of a company depends on an array of factors – the quality of your products and services, the ingenuity of your marketing campaigns, the brilliance of your customer acquisition strategies. However, no factor is as critical as the devotion of your workforce.

No employee is truly dispensable as it would waste time, money, and valuable resources to replace anyone, from the janitor to the CFO. Therefore, if you want to pave the path to your organization’s success, you need to ensure employee satisfaction and boost your retention rates. The simplest way to do so is with the help of reliable workforce analytics tools.

What is workforce analytics?

Workforce analytics is part of human resources software that collects structured and unstructured employee-related data, giving you insights into what’s pushing them away and what can be done to retain them.

Much more than a simple tool used during the recruitment phase or for layoffs, it provides a full picture of who the employee is, what they do, and what they want to do. It measures and analyzes their performance, dynamics with coworkers, workplace trends, satisfaction levels, risk factors, and more.

Workforce analytics tools allow you to perform descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive analyses of your workforce and make data-driven decisions that will shape the future of your company.

Key metrics to track with workforce analytics

Workforce analytics tools offer comprehensive insights into each and every one of your employees. They measure everything from compensation and benefits to employee absenteeism. However, if you want to use these tools to improve your retention rates, you need to keep an eye on three key metrics:

• Productivity levels:

○ Work hours, management structure, company culture, and data access are just some of the examples of what impacts an employee’s productivity and performance. Workforce

analytics tools provide a comprehensive productivity index that enables you to understand performance issues;

• Engagement levels:

○ Engagement levels directly impact performance. An engaged employee will be more satisfied in their position, more proactive, and more beneficial to the company as a whole;

• Turnover rates:

○ High voluntary turnover rates are a clear sign that employee expectations are not being met. Workforce analytics tools can offer insights into why and offer the best possible solutions to this problem.

By tracking productivity, engagement, and turnover rates, you can understand why your company has poor employee retention and what you can do to turn the tides around.

The benefits of workforce analytics tools

Workforce analytics tools are indispensable for organizations that put their people first. They allow you to assess your company’s strongest suits and biggest shortcomings, giving you a chance to become more competitive through a devoted workforce. Take a look at just some of the most significant benefits of using workforce analytics tools.

Identify retention issues

Only 7% of all workers leave their jobs involuntarily. Most of them leave because of company-wide issues – poor management, inadequate compensation and benefits, unhealthy work environment, bad work-life balance, and more.

By identifying reasons for turnover and assessing your company’s retention issues, you can save time, money, and effort on recruitment and keep your employees loyal.

Attract the right talent

Even with the best employee retention rates in the industry, you’ll still have to keep attracting the top talent to your company.

You can apply workforce analytics tools to assess general workforce trends, improve the working conditions within your company, and make your vacant positions more appealing to the right talent. Moreover, these tools will help you identify candidates best-suited to your company, making the recruitment process faster, more efficient, and more affordable.

Keep an eye on engagement levels

As mentioned, engagement levels can be a tell-tale sign of whether an employee is getting ready to leave your organization. Workforce analytics tools can pinpoint engagement issues, offer solutions, and help you keep your employees productive and motivated.

Identify skills gaps

Even if you do attract the top talent, you’ll always need to work on filling the skills gaps within your company. However, you’ll first need to identify them.

Workforce analytics tools break down the exact job requirements for each position in your organization. They present a complete picture of what knowledge, skills, and talents are necessary and whether your employees are bringing everything they need to the table.

With insight into your skills gaps, you’ll find it easier to train your employees and get the most out of them.

Improve employee mobility

Over 76% of the younger workforce consider professional development opportunities to be the most important aspect of company culture. Many will leave their current positions if they have no employee mobility whatsoever.

Considering that workforce analytics tools offer detailed insights into employee performance, skills, and talents, desires, and overall employee potential, you can use them to improve employee mobility within your company, offer growth and development opportunities, and keep your workplace satisfaction rates at an all-time high.

Final thoughts

Workforce analytics tools are indispensable to organizations that need to boost employee retention rates and improve the overall satisfaction levels. They give you comprehensive insights into employee productivity, engagement, even risk factors, allowing you to make data-driven decisions that improve the working conditions and keep your workforce loyal and dedicated.