The Importance of People Data

The power of people data is remarkable. In this post, we’ll clarify just what this data is, why it matters, and how you can improve yours. 

What is People Data?

People data is any data collected to help HR perform its function in the workplace. In other words, it’s the information collected for recruitment, employee screening, hiring processes, payroll, training, benefits, employee relations, employee surveys, and much more. 

Examples of useful data might be tracking the time it takes to hire a new person from start to finish, gathering key information on performance, collecting anonymous feedback on the workplace experience, or uncovering your organization’s turnover rate. 

As you can see, you have potential access to a great deal of valuable employee and candidate data whether your organization makes use of it or not!

Why is People Data Important?

People data provides insight from the very beginning of the hiring process, all the way through the everyday workplace experience, and ends in a person’s termination or resignation. 

With this information, you can pinpoint the best areas to expand or improve with the precision of a surgeon. Data allows you to uncover specific ways to increase employee retention, enhance performance, make smarter hiring decisions faster, and improve employee engagement. All of these changes have great potential to improve productivity, morale, and even company profit margins. 

If you’re hiring a new person, for instance, you’ll want to consider using data to select the optimal candidate. The reasons for this are multifold and may even surprise you. 

When it comes to hires, by choosing to leverage data rather than just your gut feeling (though that matters too), you’ll be far more likely to select the right individual. Why? 

Your Choices Won’t Be Quite as Biased

It’s a sad fact of human nature. We’re all biased and tend to want to hire people who remind us of ourselves. In fact, many career coaches recommend that job seekers go so far as to mirror the body movements and word choices of their interviewers. Sometimes these subconscious biases are obvious, such as companies with low diversity, though in other instances they’re very subtle. 

With the help of people data, however, you can uncover who is, objectively, the best candidate for the job. 

You’ll Decrease the Number of Bad Hires

In addition to helping you avoid the blunders of biases, using data well will help weed out bad hires by providing crystal clear information on skills, fit, and experience. 

You Can Track How Your New Hire is Fitting In

With all the data you’ve gathered from hiring and the daily workplace experience, you’ll gain a clear perspective on how well or how poorly the match is working out. 

This is simply one example of how data can improve a hugely important function for your organization. It’s recommended to research the vast number of ways in which data can improve your company.

How Do You Get Better People Data?

Know What You Want to Solve

As with most business endeavors, it’s important to define your goals when it comes to people data. Before you start collecting information, determine which problems you wish to solve and what data and metrics you’ll need to measure to better understand these issues. 

For example, if you suspect that there’s something in your workplace experience which is causing low productivity or high turnover rates, you can determine what data is best to collect. To test your theory, you’ll first need to uncover whether your people’s productivity is truly low and whether your turnover is indeed high. 

Structure your analysis to test data on how your organization performs in these areas against the mean for your sector so you’ll know where you stand.

If you find out that you are, in fact, performing poorly in productivity and employee retention, you can approach the why. More often than not, the best way to test this is by providing anonymous employee surveys about the workplace experience, such as those offered by Olumo. With your clear goals in mind, you can select 1-2 questions for each employee survey from our 400 options so you can quickly narrow down what’s causing these specific problems. 

The approach of gathering anonymous feedback saves you time and resources, all while finding answers to your concerns as efficiently and objectively as possible. 

Use the Right Technology

Don’t be stuck in the stone age of business technology. We know it can seem too challenging to implement new software, but if you wish to increase efficiency, save money, and improve the workplace experience, you need to make a change. 

With today’s countless business solutions that are easy to use, there’s no excuse to make a change. Now that you know just how incredibly useful people data can be, don’t get left behind. 

Leverage Employee Surveys

Surveys are one of the most effective tools to provide you with the feedback and data needed to improve various aspects of the organization. 

But for surveys to work, they must be created the right way, focused on simplicity with targeted questions. An effective employee survey leads to actionable results, and when you gather data from your people you can use it to create a stronger workplace. 

By providing surveys to collect people data, you can jumpstart areas of the business such as: 

• Corporate communication
• Employee engagement 
• Better customer service and client relationships
• Improved pipeline for innovation
• Workplace experience
• Effective synergy and teamwork

Start Collecting Valuable People Data Today

Collect data, keep your candidate information organized, and provide key insights. But don’t stop there. Test out Olumo for free today and see how easy it is to improve your understanding of the workplace experience at your organization through our employee surveys designed to gather 100% anonymous feedback.

Improving your people data can vastly affect your business for the better. By combining classic soft skills with data, you’ll create an unstoppable team that yields positive results for your organization.