Feature
Data helps organizations make informed business decisions, and talent management is no different.
Tracking data such as employee tenure, turnover, and salaries is important, but getting to understand employees at a different level is how to start to move the needle on talent management goals.
And this means more than monitoring time spent at desks or hours worked, which “don’t necessarily reflect productivity or effectiveness,” said Aakash Thakur, director of HR for a European multinational corporation.
Instead, Thakur recommends organizations focus on well-being, which in this case includes career well-being, financial well-being and social well-being.
Measuring Well-Being
Struggles with well-being are affecting workforces more than employers realize. A Deloitte 2023 Well-being at work survey polled 1,050 employees, 1,050 managers and 1,050 C-suite leaders. While more than two-thirds of executives thought their staff’s well-being improved, only half as many employees agreed.
To improve the well-being of teams, Thakur recommends looking at work-life balance assessments, mental health support usage levels, and employee feedback on workplace culture for a snapshot into employee satisfaction and stress levels. "If a significant number of employees consistently report low work-life balance, it might indicate that workload or expectations need to be adjusted to prevent burnout," he said.
By tracking many of these metrics, employers can adjust to proactively address issues and boost employee satisfaction, improving productivity and retention. For example, if there’s an uptick in absenteeism and lower work-life balance scores following a recent change in project deadlines, HR can work to change project timelines, offer stress management resources or consider redistributing workloads, said Thakur.
Donnita Lee, the Right Management people and culture director at ManpowerGroup, agreed that a focus on well-being is important to an organization’s performance. But Lee has found that a lot of organizations only look at engagement rather than the more holistic measure of employee well-being.
According to Gallup, well-being actually affects employee engagement. When employees are engaged but not thriving, they have a 61% higher likelihood of burnout compared to their counterparts who are thriving. They have a 48% higher likelihood of daily stress and have double the rate of daily sadness and anger.
Related Article: Workers Are Stressed. Here's How Companies Are Responding
Career Development and Succession Plans
Employee retention and engagement also improve when organizations have successful career and succession plans.
Career development plans at ManpowerGroup are not optional. Karel van der Mandele, SVP of Right Management and Jefferson Wells, North America at ManpowerGroup, said he has required his team to talk through career goals annually, sharing their ambitions so they can broaden their skills in preparation for the next chapter. “It’s amazing what those career conversations are really leading to,” he said. Now, about 80% of the organization is also participating in career development plans.
These career development plans also help in creating succession plans, or preparing current talent for future leadership roles. Starting three to five years out, HR managers can spotlight those tapped for succession planning, provide training for that future role, and carry them throughout their careers, Lee added.
And this helps improve metrics around retention. “When they know they’re being invested in, they’re more likely to be engaged and stay with the organization,” Lee said. And for organizations aiming to improve diversity and inclusion metrics, it’s the use of these forward-thinking tools that will help create a more diverse team of managers and C-suite leaders.
But simply creating plans isn’t enough. They must actually be used and referenced as talent decisions are made. Those in succession plans should be able to actually move into the roles they’ve prepared for when a leader leaves the organization, Lee said. Otherwise, succession plans aren’t not useful.
“We want to make sure that we’re not only looking at those stats, but that we’re actually doing something with that data” and looking at how talent is progressing into other roles in the organization, Lee said.
“Succession planning is a continuous process, not just one that happens at a given time of year,” said van der Mandele. If investing in leadership development but not tying it to career or succession planning, “you’re training a next generation of leaders to take a job elsewhere.”
Related Article: Help Your Organization and Talent Thrive With Equitable Talent Development
How to Track
Organizations should start tracking talent management analytics as soon as they establish their talent management goals, Thakur said, adding that it’s important to have a baseline understanding of the organization’s workforce from the beginning. “Regular tracking, including year-end reviews, ensures ongoing improvement and alignment with organizational goals,” he said.
Organizations can gather this data through surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews for qualitative insights, said Thakur, and HR software and analytics platforms are other options for data collection. But he added companies should consider data privacy and ethics when collecting and storing this information.
Whether using a big HRIS system or a tool like Excel, clean data is key. “Put good in, get good out,” Lee said. And the data should have good distribution, meaning there should be a range of responses.
“If you treat those metrics the wrong way, they can actually end up working against you,” van der Mandele said. He spoke about Goodhart’s Law, a principle that says when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. “If you’re using a measure to reward performance, you’re creating an incentive to actually manipulate the measure to receive the reward.”
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To avoid manipulation of the data, he advised to make sure that the performance management processes are done as objectively as possible by managers, in collaboration with HR.
Effective talent management requires commitment from everyone, including leadership, that tracking the whole organization correctly and continuously is a key part of the talent strategy, said van der Mandele.
“Your business leaders have to sign up for this” and feel that their success as a business leader is predicated on talent management process, he said, adding that he has seen better talent management outcomes by adopting this strategy.
“If all you’re doing as a business leader is driving the business and you’re not building a better organization through strong talent management, you’re really missing the key to future success,” said van der Mandele.
