The document discusses how HR leaders can use workforce analytics tools to gain valuable insights from employee data. It describes how ConAgra Foods uses analytics software to track key performance indicators and diversity patterns. Analytics enable measuring total workforce costs and assessing how pay practices affect retention and diversity. The document also discusses how workforce analytics help with talent forecasting to improve recruiting strategies and enable data-driven workforce planning to address issues like impending retirements.

1. November 2014 HR Magazine 61
HR Technology
ILLUSTRATIONBYDANIELBAXTERFORHRMAGAZINE
Whether they realize it or not,
HR leaders are sitting on a gold
mine. In the era of “big data,” they
have access to more workforce infor-
mation than ever. Tucked away within
disparate systems are valuable insights
about where companies’ top recruits
come from, why key employees leave
the organization and in which cases
salaries are no longer keeping pace with
the market.
But that data does little good if it
can’t be easily accessed and translated
into compelling stories that move busi-
ness leaders to action. Fortunately, the
latest generation of analytics software
brings HR a few steps closer to mak-
ing that happen. And, thanks to inviting
new dashboards, the tools are easy to
navigate as well.
Data-Based Decisions
The HR group at ConAgra Foods is
using cloud-based analytics software
from vendor Visier as part of its strategy
to base more of its human capital deci-
sion-making on facts.
According to Mark Berry, vice presi-
dent of people insights at the Omaha,
Neb.-based packaged foods company,
the team is focusing on the company’s
employee value proposition (EVP)—the
factors that attract, retain and engage
workers, including work environment,
development opportunities, compensa-
tion, benefits and more.
“We know that companies with
higher EVP usually have lower compen-
sation, benefits and recruiting costs,”
Berry says.
The software enables his team to
aggregate and analyze data that was
previously hard to access. That’s largely
because disparate workforce information
on demographics, performance, training
and internal movement (transfers, promo-
tions and turnover) that once was frag-
mented is now located in one place.
Berry’s team uses the software to gen-
erate enterprise scorecards that track
key performance indicators (KPIs). “The
tool shows how each business-unit func-
tion and location is performing relative
to these KPIs, which for us are primarily
around talent retention, personnel costs
and head count,” Berry says.
ConAgra also worked with the ven-
dor to develop a model dubbed “total
cost of workforce,” which enables HR
to more accurately assess the full costs of
the workforce by factoring in expenses
related to recruiting, relocation, tempo-
rary labor and pay for time not worked,
among other costs. “It allows us to see the
true costs by component of any employ-
ment decision we make,” Berry says.
Because it can aggregate detailed data
over five years, the group can now assess
how pay practices affect diversity and
retention. “All we could do in the past
was determine whether our [diversity]
representation had improved year over
year,” he says.
Now the software enables Berry’s
team to understand specific diversity
patterns by business, job, gender, ethnic-
ity, age, tenure and other factors. “We
can see where we’re making progress to
understand what’s working, and where
we aren’t progressing so we can focus
resources where we have the biggest
needs.”
Visual Aids
Today’s workforce analytics software
has evolved most in its visual compo-
nent, as represented by eye-catching
and user-friendly dashboards that
display the HR metrics that are most
By Dave Zielinski
Get Analytical
Next-generation tools make it easier for HR to find the data that matter.

2. 62 HR Magazine November 2014
HR Technology
important to users.
“Leading-edge business intelligence
software providers have taught HR ven-
dors what can be done from a visualiza-
tion perspective,” says Kevin Oakes,
CEO of the Institute for Corporate Pro-
ductivity (i4cp) in Seattle. “Enabling users
to pull the right workforce data from dis-
parate sources is another area that analyt-
ics tools continue to improve upon.”
But having good software doesn’t
mean companies are measuring the right
things. In general, HR groups in high-
performing organizations focus on differ-
ent workforce metrics than their counter-
parts in lower-performing organizations,
according to i4cp research. For example,
high-performing organizations are more
likely to track quality of attrition (where
talent is being lost in critical job roles) and
quality of movement (what happens as a
result of transfers, promotions and other
internal shifting).
Despite the progress that’s been
made in data visualization and integra-
tion, more work is needed on the back
end functions of many tools. According
to Mollie Lombardi, vice president and
principal analyst of workforce man-
agement at the Brandon Hall Group,
an HR consulting company in Delray
Beach, Fla., many tools still can’t drill
down from dashboards into data sets to
explore the root causes of issues such as
high turnover in pivotal jobs.
Better software also doesn’t obvi-
ate the need for HR to have data sci-
ence skills. “You still need someone who
understands what data points should be
correlated or juxtaposed, and who can
think critically about the right questions
to ask,” Lombardi says.
Being able to tell compelling stories
based on the data is also paramount.
“What senior executives don’t want is
more data,” Oakes says. “They want
to understand the story the data is tell-
ing them, so HR’s interpretation of it
becomes critical.”
Recruiting Analytics
Another big improvement in the newest
workforce analytics is talent forecast-
ing, which gives recruiters a gauge of
how long it takes to fill job openings and
the caliber of applicants they’re likely to
receive. Such supply-and-demand data
can lead to talent acquisition strategies
that are more cost-effective.
Market-intelligence metrics might
tell recruiters that it will take about three
months to fill a senior engineering job in
Boston, for example, or that there are 15
qualified candidates in the region. “The
ability to have that kind of conversation
on the front end of the recruiting cycle
can be a differentiator for recruiters,”
says Elaine Orler, CEO of The Talent
Function, a recruiting technology con-
sulting company in San Diego.
At Cameco, a Canadian uranium
producer, workforce analytics have
enabled business-unit managers and HR
to speak the same language, says Sean
Junor, manager of workforce planning
and talent acquisition at the company.
The software creates a “single source of
the truth” on key measures like employee
head count, turnover or absenteeism by
consolidating data on one platform and
giving line managers easier access to
workforce metrics.
It also enables business units to be
more proactive in using workforce data.
“People can reach in and get the infor-
mation they want each month, when
they need it, without waiting for us,”
Junor says.
At the same time, HR needs to avoid
creating an environment of information
overload. “When data moves from HR
directly into the business, it removes the
data filter and requires more guidance for
users,” Junor says. HR can help business
units focus on vital information rather
than “nice to know” metrics by restrict-
ing what they can see in the system.
Measuring Demand
Some HR executives are turning to ana-
lytics to model employee retirement
and turnover scenarios. At the Black
Hills Corp., a diversified energy com-
pany in Rapid City, S.D., Chief Human
Resources Officer Bob Myers used a
workforce analytics tool from Success-
Factors to gauge the impact of a loom-
ing retirement surge on the company’s
business.
“The software helped us create a
demand model,” he says. “In other
words, how much demand for talent
by job classification is going to occur in
specific business units over the next five
years, based on retirements, normal turn-
over and business growth initiatives?”
Calculating that aggregate demand
raised eyebrows in the business units,
Myers says, and triggered new thinking
about recruiting and knowledge-capture
strategies. “The model showed that we’re
going to lose 24 percent of our current
workforce to retirement over the next five
years, and those retiring employees repre-
sent about 34 percent of our total years of
employee experience,” he explains.
That finding led Myers to examine
where the loss of institutional knowl-
edge from retiring employees would have
the biggest impact and to begin devel-
oping strategies to capture that knowl-
edge before it was gone. He is hoping the
effort gives his organization a competi-
tive advantage over other energy compa-
nies facing similar workforce changes—
an edge it would not have had without
analytics.
Dave Zielinski is a freelance business
journalist based in Minneapolis.
HR executives are
turning to analytics
to model employee
retirement and
turnover scenarios.