People analytics is a powerful tool and fast-approaching trend that 70% of companies now consider a top priority. It aids HR professionals in their recruitment, retention, and culture efforts.

Since diversity and inclusion are now core elements of the ultimate corporate culture, it’s imperative that people leaders recruit and retain employees of various backgrounds, ages, experiences, and industries.

Catering to an inclusive company culture requires companies to harness relationship or people analytics that connects social patterns across the workplace. Analysing this data and implementing it with the purpose of increasing inclusivity will likely propel productivity, drive performance, and unlock innovation that improves the employee experience. How should HR professionals use data in a practical manner that improves inclusivity, while making better business decisions that impact and lengthen the average employee lifecycle?

Mitigate diversity turnover

Exercise people data functions that allow you to identify existing diversity gaps within the company. It’s important to gain an eagle’s eye view of the current structure of your workforce and understand or classify each employee by gender, background, generation, or work experience. By analysing diversity by department or population, it becomes easier to locate issues in HR’s hiring funnel; which in turn, will enhance recruitment efforts and improve retention long term.

You need to retain diverse employees in your company to correct or avoid high turnover altogether. Identifying diversity gaps will permeate inclusion efforts, showing HR professionals where there is room for improvement. Data can shed light on any neglected discrepancies or unfulfilled preferences that employees are affected by, and these problems can be more easily addressed and rectified for future employees who need to be hired and on-boarded efficiently.

Balance out pay structures

Balancing out pay structure across the gender board is a hot topic in today’s workforce. It’s not just about gender, though; to achieve fair equity, you need to be sure to correct any major pay differences correlated with race, gender, or age. Companies can use data from their HR tech to build out programs that pull payroll and salary information to detect pay gaps between different populations within the company.

While collecting payroll and salary data is a great place to start, especially for smaller companies, pulling financial data can become more complicated as a startup scales. Data collection via people analytics needs to also consider quarterly and performance bonuses, monetary benefits like healthcare, and contractual stipulations agreed upon during the hiring process such as work travel perks.

Data, depending on a company’s resource pool, can swiftly analyse financial patterns that point out bias in pay structures and allow HR to take action and balance out discrepancies. In this case, using a fully-integrated software solution can streamline this type of data collection and clarify the numerical group, allowing internal details to be sorted accurately to the benefit of balancing a reformed, fairer pay structure.

Negate cross-generational differences

Baby Boomers, GenX, Millennials, and GenZ are working side by side for the first time in labour history. The talent market is saturated by job candidates of different generations, and when recruited, they have to blend and collaborate successfully for the sake of a company.

People data can be used to manage cross-generational issues by analysing productivity, morale, happiness, and turnover metrics based on age. Analytics presents the various preferences or skillsets unique to each workforce generation, allowing HR professionals to figure out what digital tools and team-building activities will prove most useful when helping each age group meet on common ground. People data also has the potential to gauge the effect that individual managers have on each generation behaviorally, by sifting through personalised feedback and performance reviews.

Assess inclusivity efforts

Measuring the success of diversity and inclusion efforts could have a staggering impact on company culture. The outcomes of initiatives like Inclusion Councils, Diversity Leader Training, survey distribution, and even monthly reviews can greatly enhance the level of inclusion a culture hosts. Creating and implementing these programs can be fun for HR professionals, but that doesn’t mean its values should be overlooked.

Data plays into the assessment of inclusivity efforts quite simply; pull the sign-in lists of those who attend each program and participate in company culture activities, and it becomes easier to see who feels left out or less motivated to attend. Goals or milestones that pertain to the success of such programs can consist of the number of attendees and for which activities.

Creating an inclusive culture and workspace should be right next to people analytics at the top of every HR professional’s priority list. A positive employee experience is directly connected to the rate at which companies find and lose their best people, and how well they perform in between. Data is a practical tool supported by platforms, products, and apps that are here to help us improve productivity and performance. So, why not put it to good use?

About the author

Ronni Zehavi, CEO of Hibob