Using Analytics to Steer Workforce Planning Strategy in ITeS

The ITeS industry (Business Consulting, IT consulting, BPOs, KPOs, LPOs) is a rapidly growing sector that thrives on innovation and adapting to changing market dynamics. In this fiercely competitive landscape, companies in the ITeS sector need to embrace new strategies for the workforce to maintain a healthy company culture and adapt the HR processes to the ‘new normal’ lifestyle.

Moreover, with the sword of global recession above the world's economy, finding skilled talent within the workforce pool is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Companies are now addressing this elephant in the room and turning their heads toward workforce planning and analytics to leverage data-driven insights to optimize workforce management. This approach goes beyond traditional workforce management practices by utilizing data to measure the impact of workforce behavior and related factors on overall business performance.

Companies can make informed decisions about their workforce by analyzing a wealth of data, including employee performance, productivity, engagement levels, churn rates, and skills.

Complex Workforce DEI

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have been hot and trending topics nowadays. HR heads are prioritizing DEI to increase innovation, creativity, and problem-solving abilities, as diverse perspectives bring a broader range of ideas and approaches.

As companies constantly move towards a global footprint, managing workforce DEI is also becoming more prevalent.

Here are some challenges CHROs are concerned with today in the context of workforce DEI:

• The ITeS industry often struggles with a lack of representation, particularly in terms of gender and underrepresented groups.
• Planning processes may be susceptible to bias and unconscious stereotypes, leading to a less diverse workforce.
• Limited diversity in the talent pipeline can make it challenging to recruit a diverse workforce.
• Without a focus on inclusivity, diverse employees may face barriers and experience lower engagement and satisfaction levels.

Payroll Disparity

The issue of payroll disparity is also one of the areas that has been receiving much attention in recent months. CHROs are increasingly focusing on the widening pay disparities between male and female employees and between racial categories. HR heads have an Unenviable task of explaining and assuaging the employees who are left out of the higher pay brackets.

Some key considerations regarding payroll disparities include:

• The difference in earnings between men and women in similar positions.
• Ensuring fair compensation regardless of race, ethnicity, or age, aiming for equal pay for equal work.
• Lack of compensation transparency.

Data Inaccuracy

One of the critical hurdles in utilizing HR analytics for recruitment is the assurance of accurate, relevant, and up-to-date data. Inaccurate or incomplete data can lead to misleading conclusions and flawed recruitment strategies. Therefore, organizations need to prioritize data management processes and invest in advanced technologies to ensure the integrity and reliability of their data.

Moreover, organizations also have the need to navigate complex data privacy regulations and ensure that they are compliant with all applicable laws. Global Talent Management

In human resources, global talent management refers to the use of HR actions to ensure access to needed talent by multinational enterprises competing in a global environment. Each country not only has different employment laws, but different customs, cultural nuances, and business laws.

HRs face a myriad of different challenges when working with a company with a global footprint:

• Organizational linkages
• Location planning and management
• Attraction and selection
• Cultural expectations

Workforce analytics can assess the skills and competencies of the existing workforce such as current skill inventory, required skill sets, and employee proficiency levels to identify the future plan of action. The aim at this stage is to assess where we are and where we want to go by identifying the various gaps including skills, competencies, etc. that would need to be plugged in to achieve the organization’s goals.

Workforce analytics leverages machine learning and NLP to define relationships between skills and present insights that allow HR heads to identify vacuums and skill gaps that need to be addressed.

Ultimately, a gap analysis can help address important areas of focus that can have a substantial impact on the ITeS sector:

• Formulating opportunities for Internal hiring and succession planning to improve employee retention.
• Analyzing employee churn by identifying key pain areas and developing predictive models to identify flight-risk employees.
• Identifying additional skills and workforce requirements to create new positions within the company.

For an HR head, it is crucial to find out how the employee's behaviors and factors affect them. Talent retention and churn continue to be a high mountain peak for HRs to climb. They need a good look into the retention and churn ratio within their organization, the number of employees who leave the organization, and analyze the factors that lead up to it.

Workforce planning allows organizations to proactively identify the skills and competencies they need to succeed in future projects and client engagements. Here’s how firms can track and manage churn and retention with Workforce planning and analytics.

• Organizations can identify attrition patterns and understand why employees are leaving.
• Analyzing workforce churn gives a better view of the financial impact of attrition. It can provide a better sense of recruitment expenses, training costs for new hires, and productivity loss during transitions.
• It helps identify high-risk employee groups or departments that are more prone to attrition.
• Predictive modeling can be used to develop predictive models that forecast attrition risks and create personalized interventions, career development opportunities, or targeted retention incentives, to be implemented for at-risk employees.

Optimizing Cost and Payroll

HRs have an urgency to move to an AI-based model that enables continuous planning and precise tracking of team-level changes, leading toward easier budget tracking.

Addressing today’s HR challenges with traditional systems requires an army of people and could take weeks to accomplish a task. Not to mention the increasing cost and time that comes with it.

By analyzing patterns and evaluating compensations, HRs can plan and predict better retention strategies and salary brackets for new employees. Evaluating differences in payroll also significantly helps in addressing the problem of payroll disparity among employees.

Performance analysis and management

Workforce planning and analytics are often also used for performance analysis and management to optimize employee performance and assure they are fully equipped to perform their jobs well.

On an individual level, HR-based planning and analytics help manage tasks, track performance, and create motivation strategies. Organizationally, it helps shift work in the right and most optimal direction.

Some areas that HR focuses on for performance analysis and management are:

Objective assessment: By analyzing metrics such as productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction, organizations gain a comprehensive understanding of individual and team performance.

Identifying top performers: Performance data analysis allows organizations to recognize high-performing employees, reward them appropriately, and address skill gaps or process inefficiencies.

Benchmarking: Workforce planning and analytics facilitate performance benchmarking against industry standards or internal benchmarks. This helps set performance expectations and drive continuous improvement efforts.

Predictive analytics: Forecasting future performance based on historical data allows managers to proactively allocate resources and optimize performance.

Demand Analysis

Demand analysis and forecasting provide organizations with the ability to anticipate future workforce requirements and align their talent acquisition, training, and resource allocation strategies accordingly. Demand analysis is a crucial process in workforce planning and analytics that enables organizations to predict and anticipate the future composition of their workforce.

Demand analysis in workforce planning involves the comprehensive assessment of internal and external factors to forecast the future workforce requirements of an organization.

Demand analysis helps you answer the questions like:

• What is the optimal number of employees needed to accomplish the organization's business plan goals and objectives?
• Which skills and competencies will be crucial for the organization's future success and growth?
• What skills and competencies are currently present within the organization's workforce?
• How can the organization effectively attract and retain new talent while fostering diversity and inclusion?

Supply Analysis - the first and foremost step is assessing where the company stands. It is a vital step to form a strategic workforce plan, as 47% of HR personnel are unaware of the skills gaps within their workforce, according to a survey by Gartner.

Executives can leverage Analytics to:

• Collect relevant data about the current workforce, including employee demographics, skills, experience levels, performance records, and training history.
• Analyze workforce composition to Identify the skills, competencies, and experience levels within different roles and departments.
• Assess the internal talent pool by identifying employees with high potential for growth, readiness for promotion, or succession planning.

Solution Analysis - It involves evaluating potential strategies and solutions to address workforce gaps and meet future demands. It helps organizations identify the most effective actions to optimize workforce planning.

Solution analysis is a complicated approach that requires a deep understanding of the company’s know-how. Hence, conducting sessions with the client to understand the nuances of their critical KPI is required.

Our Discovery workshop, for example, is designed to review and assess the requirements and current state of your analytics infrastructure. These sessions include several discussions and brainstorming to better understand the vision and areas of improvement.

Solution analysis can help you to:

• Evaluate alternatives by assessing different solutions and strategies to address skill gaps.
• Perform a cost-benefit analysis by analyzing the expenses and margins associated with each solution.
• Continuously monitor and refine the effectiveness of implemented solutions through data analysis.
• Help charter a path for your future enterprise goals based on data and logic.
• Assess the performance of pre-existing setup and generate a quality report with pre-built diagnostics tools.

It's no secret that workforce planning and analytics are revolutionizing the way we manage our human resources and make decisions that promise statistical results. Workforce analytics offers powerful tools to overcome challenges in effective workforce planning. With data as a key component of workforce planning, organizations can make informed decisions and optimize their human resources for enhanced performance and sustainable success.

Polestar Solutions has been helping big giants and SMEs to deliver ground-breaking planning and analytics solutions. Our team of experts possess a deep knowledge of the entire employee lifecycle from recruitment to retirement and are well-equipped to deliver results that are reliable and offer a tangible impact.