Talent analytics are quickly becoming a vital part of effective HR strategies.

Organizations want to become more effective at hiring and retaining the right talent, as well as helping said talent learn and grow within the organization.

Analytics looks for patterns in all the available data and discovers important connections that might otherwise be missed.

This information goes a long way towards helping job seekers understand how to best prepare themselves for employment, as well as helping organizations understand how to hire for best fit.

As HR analytics continues to generate interest, and more organizations become involved, a number of common trends are appearing that indicate the direction of analytics in the coming years.

• Embracing new data sources: In order to excel in the emerging field of analytics, organizations have to be on their toes and ready to embrace advances in technology, data sources, and tools.
  For instance, companies are beginning to use the data gathered by wearable technologies to support HR analytics studies, such as stress levels leading up to a new product launch.
• Shaping a new organization: With analytics, organizations are moving away from solely focusing on the individual, and are now including teams as well. This is in order to study how people work together in order to accelerate performance improvements. As organizations move away from 20^th century models, analytics will help shape the workforce of the future.
• Make people analytics matter: While challenging to initiate, HR analytics needs to be fully integrated into the organization to be sustainable. By engaging with stakeholders and the entire organization on the impact of analytics projects it will be easier to enhance interest and generate enthusiasm.

By leveraging big data, the following organizations are seeing the following results:

1. Greater predictability

Decision makers are being alerted to upcoming problems and opportunities due to an increase in predictive analytics. While traditional HR analytics simply report on what has already happened, analytics are now being used to anticipate future needs and encourage organizations to take advantage of talent opportunities.

2. Easy adaptability

Organizations traditionally have sought top performers based on past requirements instead of future needs. Now organizations are finding it easier to adapt to rapidly changing business needs with analytics that accurately represent newly required qualifications. 

3. Increased quality

Applying talent analytics to organizational tools such as employment assessments and interviews increases the amount of data taken into consideration when undertaking a task, whether it’s filling an empty position or onboarding a new employee.

Now, instead of limited and misdirected samples, HR can conduct more effective studies and increase workforce and organizational quality. 

While the new form of HR analytics discussed here is still relatively new, many organizations are working towards building credible systems for analyzing talent.

It is important to view analytics as an underlying mechanism supporting all HR systems, rather than a separate tool.

HRSG is currently working on several new and exciting products that will focus on talent analytics and competencies as a core component of the HR of the future. Stay tuned for more updates and product releases in the months to come.