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How Do You Measure the Digital Employee Experience?

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Sponsored by:  Ivanti

We don’t need a crystal ball to see that the future of work will be more connected, more digital and more flexible. The pandemic brought us a preview of this more adaptable world of work—and many of us want more. But what’s the next step? How can organizations make “anywhere” work a sustainable daily reality?

Smart employers are already digging deep to pave the way forward. But how will they know when their transformation process is working? How will they see results? This is why it’s vital to measure the digital employee experience, early and often.

Organizations that get this right will attract and retain the best talent. So I invite you to learn more about it with me on this #WorkTrends podcast episode.

Meet Our Guest:  Dennis Kozak

Today, I’m speaking with Dennis Kozak, COO of Ivanti, a leading information technology software provider that is on a mission to make the everywhere workplace possible for all of us. Because Dennis has a front-row seat at the table where key digital work decisions are made every day, he is an excellent source of insight for HR and business leaders.

Why Measure the Digital Employee Experience?

Welcome, Dennis! Tell us, why should we connect the dots between employee satisfaction and digital experience?

Typically, HR is very focused on measuring employee engagement, while IT is very focused on providing infrastructure and security. But very seldom do we actually marry those to focus on how IT improves or hinders an employee’s experience.

Timing Is Everything

Tell us about how to measure the digital employee experience. What does this look like?

Well, this is something people don’t think about much until they have a problem.

Your team’s digital environment may work well—until an employee gets a new laptop or a new mobile device and they try to reconnect to the company ecosystem. They’re either successful or they’re not.

So through automation you can always be checking all of the measurement points to ensure that you’re providing a consistent level of service.

Always Be Measuring

Why is it so important to continuously measure the employee digital experience?

IT is continuously changing. There are always new applications, new tools, new devices, new forms of data in an organization. So the environment is never static. And because it’s always changing, you have to continually measure.

If people don’t feel productive and IT becomes a barrier, then clearly job satisfaction will suffer and people will be more likely to leave. Turnover is difficult, not only for an employee, but for an employer, as well. We can help avoid that.

Where IT Can Add Value

How can the IT team work with HR to ensure everyone has access to the tools they need to do their jobs, no matter where they are?

Our research says 26% of employees have considered quitting their jobs because they lack suitable technology. And 42% of employees have spent their own personal money to buy technology so they can work more effectively.

In other words, people don’t necessarily want to wait for their company to help. But these statistics indicate where both functions can improve.

Start by including IT at the table when designing your employee engagement survey. IT and HR rarely work together beyond onboarding and de-provisioning. But IT can show that the innovation and intuitiveness they bring in enabling digital work can be a deciding factor in employee productivity, satisfaction and retention.

 

For more insights from Dennis, listen to this full episode. Also, read the article he recently contributed to our blog: “Digital Employee Experience: Do You Measure What Matters?”

In addition, be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. And to continue this conversation on social media, follow our #WorkTrends hashtag on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Using Data to Link Talent Decisions to Business (Webinar)

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The HR industry talks a lot about analytics and data. Yet are we using data to link talent decisions to business? Not as much as we could be. There are many things to measure and a whole host of ways to measure them. The connection between the people in our organizations and the success of the business are so intertwined that it’s hard to believe that we ever separated the two. But even with powerful data readily available, are the majority of organizations using applicable information to their advantage? Maybe not. Are most HR departments just skimming the top of the analytics iceberg? Unfortunately yes.

We all know that talent acquisition, training and onboarding is time consuming and expensive. The figures vary across industries and titles, but selecting employees who are knowledgeable, trainable and a good fit for the workplace culture is a fine art. But once that person is a full-fledged member of the team, how are we retaining him or her? And even more importantly, how are we aligning people to the bottom line? It can be simple or incredibly challenging, depending on how the business sets up an analytics dashboard.

Let’s take a deep dive into a few HR metrics that truly matter to the business (and these are just a handful). Let me also acknowledge that these metrics don’t just magically bubble to the surface. Workforce planning, applicable processes and savvy tools are necessary to reveal the truth.

Engagement Scores

Employee engagement. It’s almost become a buzz phrase in the HR world, but that’s because it matters. Let’s look at this in a linear fashion. Effective leaders are driven to engage their employees. Engaged employees tend to be happier. And what do happy employees do? They produce great work and they stay. Everyone wins! Engagement scores can be calculated from survey scores about the supervisor-employee relationship. In my opinion, high engagement should be taught to managers and required as a success metric. Consistently low engagement on a team should be addressed with the leader and a remediation plan should be put into place. It’s costing the business money and change needs to happen.

Absentee Rates

It’s simple to track how many days an employee missed during a certain timeframe. But if you aren’t taking a hard look at why certain teams have a higher rate of absenteeism, you are deliberately missing the boat. Is the manager working the team too hard? Is the team under-engaged? Pinpointing teams with high absenteeism and exploring the reasons why this is the case is another wise business move.

Resignation Rates

Most organizations can provide a number of resignations in the last year. They may even be able to provide some explanations for an increase. But with the right tools, patterns can be revealed that aren’t all that obvious. I could geek out talking about patterns and predictive analytics for who may resign in the future – it’s fascinating. I mean, Debbie is still a human and how we treat her is way more important than a computer’s prediction for her summertime resignation letter; but if we can see it coming and make wise business decisions to hold onto key employees, why not?

Money, Money, Money

When HR was asked to justify an expense or explain budgetary decisions, it used to be awkward and embarrassing. Compared to the finance or marketing department, HR was often seen as a black hole. Well that just isn’t the case anymore. Or at least it shouldn’t be in your organization. With the ability to align costs with output, people with profits, hires with increased productivity, pay raises with palpable potential, HR can and should show any executive or money cruncher that we know how, when, where and why money is and will be spent. There are former HR executives that would kill to have had this data at their fingertips. In fact, be sure not to flaunt it in front of a retired HR pro. He or she may have a flashback and lash out at you.

Just kidding. Well, kind of.

There are so many HR metrics out there that are dying to be used to make wise business decisions. So quit reading about them—imagining how nice they would be. Find out how to weave them into your workforce planning and be amazed at how easy they are to access. I will be talking more about this topic on a webinar with our friends at Visier January 21 at 2pm ET. Join us!

Image : NegativeSpace.co

#HRTechConf Building A Culture Of Good Data

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Building a culture of excellence depends on recruiting and retaining the right people. How do companies attract, hire, and retain the best employees? HR departments and recruiters use a variety of tools, techniques, and systems to engage with the brightest prospects. Of course, the methods companies use to select employees are evolving rapidly given the extraordinary advances in today’s HR technology.  What are some of the most interesting trends unfolding?

Video:  Video is emerging as a powerful instrument in the HR arsenal. Video interviews are an ideal tool in today’s globally interconnected world. But video interviews are just one way companies can harness the power of this revolutionary medium. Videos that give prospective employees a sense of the company’s culture can help attract promising candidates before the application process begins.  For Millennials and other tech-savvy generations, video is the primary channel for learning and sharing information. As a result, video is increasingly important to any company’s employee engagement efforts.

Better Metrics: There is an old business adage: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” No doubt, gathering and quantifying information can help companies gauge if their efforts are yielding results. However, most companies and businesses are drowning in information. If you spend all your time gathering and analyzing information, but not acting on it, then you are essentially “boiling the ocean,” to borrow an industry parlance phrase. So, it is imperative to settle for a limited number of metrics that you can actually analyze and then act on.

Workplace Engagement:  It is time to think of the HR function as a workplace engagement system.  Fostering an esprit de corps is an essential task for any HR department. Accomplishing this goal entails tapping the wisdom of HR professionals and making this wisdom available to prospects, employees, and other stakeholders by weaving multiple points of contact and engagement into the organization. Video and collaborative platforms can be an integral part of the workplace engagement process.

75% of HR leaders recognize that talent analytics are vital to the success of their organizations.  However, less than half of those respondents had a talent analytics plan up and working. Another statistic is telling: According to Josh Bersin in a recent HR Forecast 2014 article, “only 14% of the companies we studied are even starting to analyze people-related data in a statistical way and correlate it to business outcomes.”

Talent Analytics depends on good data.  But even more than this, TA depends on knowing what to measure. Many companies track dozens of meaningless metrics. The most important metrics are those tied to specific organizational goals and those that help a company and its employees improve their performance. HR departments and organizations need to think carefully about the metrics that matter to their companies. What metrics can help HR departments evaluate their talent acquisition and retention goals? What methods, tools, and technologies are improving the workplace engagement process? What metrics lead to the highest quality recruits? Building and sustaining a culture of excellence depends on many factors. The organizations that can identify those factors, and act on them, will be the ones that thrive.

photo credit: William Brawley via photopin cc

HR Data: What's The Big Deal? #TChat Preview

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(Editor’s Note: Are you looking for a full overview of this week’s events and resources? See “HR Data: What Really Counts? #TChat Recap.”)

(Also Note: Have you heard the news? Now there’s another reason to look forward to Wednesdays!  STARTING THIS WEEK #TChat Radio moves to Wednesday nights at 6:30pmET — just prior to our popular #TChat Twitter event at 7pmET. So tune-in live, and then join us on stream!)

Better Data = Smarter Choices

Past performance can be a good indicator of future performance, right? Well, when it comes to HR decisions, not necessarily — according to a recent New York Times profile of workforce science practices.

Advances in data collection and analysis are shattering preconceived notions about how to find and manage talent. Increasingly, HR practitioners are looking to data for answers to important business questions. The possibilities span a broad spectrum:

  • Talent Pool Viability
  • Skills + Competency Analysis
  • Hire Quality + Cultural Fit
  • Employee + Contingent Engagement
  • Hiring vs. Workforce Development
  • Workforce Growth Rates + Costs
  • Talent Retention + Turnover
  • Overall Business Impact

So how can you effectively apply data to HR practices? That’s a question we’ll discuss at #TChat forums with two HR data experts:

#TChat Sneak Peek Video

To kick-off this week’s conversation, Christene joined me for a quick G+ Hangout, where she helped clarify the meaning of “Big Data” and its relationship to HR management:

#TChat Events: The Big Deal with HR Data

What do you think about workforce data and its role in business management? Whether you’re an organizational leader, an HR practitioner, or a job-seeker who wonders how data analysis will influence your career, data is increasingly relevant to professional life. So bring your point of view, and join us to share your questions, ideas and opinions to the table this week!

TChatRadio_logo_020813

Tune-in to the #TChat Radio show

#TChat Radio — Wed, June 26 at 6:30pmET / 3:30pmPT

Christene and Andrew join our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman, for a LIVE 30-minute discussion to examine this topic up-close.

#TChat Twitter — Wed, June 26 at 7pmET / 4pmPT

We welcome anyone with a Twitter handle to join our open, online community, as we exchange ideas live on the #TChat stream to explore this week’s questions:

Q1: Why is Big Data a bit of a misnomer when it comes to HR analytics?

Q2: What’s the difference between data, metrics and analytics?

Q3: What metrics and analytics should HR focus on, and why?

Q4: What can HR leaders do to make a business case for predictive analytics?

Q5: Why should we stop using spreadsheets to analyze talent management data?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our new LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.

We’ll see you on the stream!

HR Data: What’s The Big Deal? #TChat Preview

/3 Comments/ /by

(Editor’s Note: Are you looking for a full overview of this week’s events and resources? See “HR Data: What Really Counts? #TChat Recap.”)

(Also Note: Have you heard the news? Now there’s another reason to look forward to Wednesdays!  STARTING THIS WEEK #TChat Radio moves to Wednesday nights at 6:30pmET — just prior to our popular #TChat Twitter event at 7pmET. So tune-in live, and then join us on stream!)

Better Data = Smarter Choices

Past performance can be a good indicator of future performance, right? Well, when it comes to HR decisions, not necessarily — according to a recent New York Times profile of workforce science practices.

Advances in data collection and analysis are shattering preconceived notions about how to find and manage talent. Increasingly, HR practitioners are looking to data for answers to important business questions. The possibilities span a broad spectrum:

  • Talent Pool Viability
  • Skills + Competency Analysis
  • Hire Quality + Cultural Fit
  • Employee + Contingent Engagement
  • Hiring vs. Workforce Development
  • Workforce Growth Rates + Costs
  • Talent Retention + Turnover
  • Overall Business Impact

So how can you effectively apply data to HR practices? That’s a question we’ll discuss at #TChat forums with two HR data experts:

#TChat Sneak Peek Video

To kick-off this week’s conversation, Christene joined me for a quick G+ Hangout, where she helped clarify the meaning of “Big Data” and its relationship to HR management:

#TChat Events: The Big Deal with HR Data

What do you think about workforce data and its role in business management? Whether you’re an organizational leader, an HR practitioner, or a job-seeker who wonders how data analysis will influence your career, data is increasingly relevant to professional life. So bring your point of view, and join us to share your questions, ideas and opinions to the table this week!

TChatRadio_logo_020813

Tune-in to the #TChat Radio show

#TChat Radio — Wed, June 26 at 6:30pmET / 3:30pmPT

Christene and Andrew join our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman, for a LIVE 30-minute discussion to examine this topic up-close.

#TChat Twitter — Wed, June 26 at 7pmET / 4pmPT

We welcome anyone with a Twitter handle to join our open, online community, as we exchange ideas live on the #TChat stream to explore this week’s questions:

Q1: Why is Big Data a bit of a misnomer when it comes to HR analytics?

Q2: What’s the difference between data, metrics and analytics?

Q3: What metrics and analytics should HR focus on, and why?

Q4: What can HR leaders do to make a business case for predictive analytics?

Q5: Why should we stop using spreadsheets to analyze talent management data?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our new LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.

We’ll see you on the stream!