MightyRecruiterLeveraging Data to Improve Employees Outcomes
When business owners are looking for ways to improve their productivity and other enterprise elements, CEOS and managers turn to data to improve employees outcomes. Without enough information on the current health of the company, owners can’t be sure what areas need improvement the most or where the root of the issue lies. Collecting data for your business is like running a diagnostic test, but once you have the information, you have to find away to leverage it successfully for maximal positive effect.
Understand the Impact of Data in Your Company
Finances are probably the most obvious sector of your company that is significantly impacted though your data collection processes. For instance without accurate records of employee hours, you’d have a difficult time maintaining a smooth and effective payroll. From your revenue projections to your cost-cutting measures, date is an important tool in managing your finances, but where else can your company use data to improve employees outcomes
To start, look are your company’s morale and overall productivity. The best organizations keep a close watch on their company environment because there is a strong link between employee happiness and enterprise success. When it comes to productivity, you’ll probably have certain systems in place to track growth and quota requirements. However, important company components like culture and morale are difficult to measure in graphs and spreadsheet formulas, so you may have to diversify your data collection methods and the type of data you focus on.
Know What Kind of Changes You Need
First, answer these questions:
-How do you want to use data to improve employees outcomes
-What are your improvement goals
-Holistically, what kind of changes do you want to institute in the company
As you develop your responses, move beyond cut and dry financial or sales goals. Think of more abstract areas of your company like culture and work place relations. Before you pinpoint the type of data you need and how to leverage it, you must understand your goals for the company.
Once you’ve targeted your needs, you can begin devising data collection strategies around them. For instance, say you want to improve the relations between employees and supervisors. First, you’ll need to find a way to collect unbiased data about how supervisors and employees typically interact. Next, you’ll need to understand what each side needs and gets from these interactions. After you’ve acquired this information, you can begin devising a plan to bridge the gap between what is needed and what occurs.
Minimize the Use of Self-Reported Data
Self reported data includes:
-Time sheets
-Performance reviews
-Surveys
-Expense reports
Are these methods of data collection important and relevant in the modern business Yes. Are they the most dependable or accurate means of collecting data to improve employees outcomes No.
Self-reported data is full of conscious and unconscious bias from both sides. In a time sheet, an employee may feel the need to exaggerate or otherwise misreport their time usage to match what they think you want to see. Your most productive employee doesn’t want you to know that they reward the completion of major tasks with a quick social media break. However, recent studies find this is an extremely effective means of preserving motivation for many top-performing employees. With self-reported data, you have to account for bias across the board.
Develop Your Collection of Ambient Data
If self-reported data is too bias, what’s the alternative Ambient data allows you to circumvent the pitfalls of various biases and identifies the core of what is being measured. Ambient data involves automatically collecting tracking actions like:
-Sending emails
-Adding calendar events
-Making outgoing calls
-Clocking into work
Through automatic data collection methods, companies don’t have to ask employees to alter their behavior to get behavioral data. For instance, you don’t have to ask your employee to fill out a timesheet when they would normally be speaking with a client. Additionally, you get a great degree of neutrality in your perspective. What one manager rates as an exceptional performance another might say is merely satisfactory.
When you’re collecting data to improve employees outcomes, you’ll have to think carefully about the bias inherent in your methods. While you may not be able to completely eliminate self-reported data from your process, take care to balance the bias with ambient data. Before you label a correlation found in self-reported information, check to see if you find the same trends in other streams. With a holistic view of your company’s current health, you can get the leverage you need to improve employees outcomes.