3 Keys to Workforce Planning & People Analytics

TechRecruit Podcast, host Stacey Broadwell discusses Workforce Planning & People Analytics with Dan George, former head of People Analytics for Bridgestone. While workforce planning and analytics has been around for more than 10 years, the ability to capture and store this data has changed dramatically. In this episode, Dan George discusses how People Analytics and Workforce Planning helps companies not waste valuable resources, time or money by being proactive, hiring continuously & aligning your data with Finance.

First, Dan George urges companies to be proactive in hiring. Asking questions like, how many hires are needed, how many internal positions are needed and how does that align with finance. Build the Employer Value Proposition and make sure that overhead is in line with business goals.

Second, hire continuously while understanding seasonality & time to hire. If it takes 45 -60 days to hire a Principal Software Engineer and over 50% of your workforce is comprised of that talent, you have got to be proactive in hiring. If you have 115 employees in March and add 25 more in May, after graduation, and then in December your workforce decreases to 90, you will need to hire grads in December also so that your workforce is back to full staff in January. By planning ahead, you will not waste money or valuable resources on staffing agencies or experience costly lulls in hiring.

Third, align your data structure with the goals of the company. Data warehoused by your analytics and systems teams have a hierarchical structure that must be understood across the organization with respect to how it ties to the business. Data structures must be related to overhead, profit and loss or sales for analytics to tell the story. This enables analytics teams to communicate ROI, ROA or BE to stakeholders. And while we are on the subject. Make a case for break even vs. ROI. Dan George suggests that selling your executive board on "we saved over 600%" vs. developing a break even model is much easier for stakeholders to consume and approve the funds you need for your next project.

Check out Dan George's talk at MidWest TechRecruit Sept 18th 2019 in Chicago on Organizational Network Analysis and Social Network Analysis and how it is challenging the traditional "Hierarchical Organization".

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