Role of People Analytics in Improving Organizational Changes

Today almost every organization and its workspace are becoming digital in every aspect. According to a recent survey presented by Gartner, more than 50 percent of functional leaders believe the digital talent gap is increasing. At the same time, some of these leaders only don't consider workforce-related change risks that may lead to significant organizational changes fail. The company can avoid compromising a huge sum of money on missed deadlines, underused or unused systems and missed opportunities to engage team members if it pays keen attention to the change management process that affects the employees directly.

Many business leaders are, however, recognizing the potential of data as a new source of growth that can be leveraged on their work and workforce. It is important to possess the ability to use technology and insightful analytics to get the most out of their staff. Leaders can also involve their workforce in the design and co-creation of solutions that can account for their personal and organizational achievements.

The research firm Great Place to Work conducted a survey among 5,00,000 US workers and discovered that companies where more people said they felt their ideas were sought out and valued tended to achieve higher revenue growth and greater employee productivity. This implies that giving workers opportunities in the change process is healthy for leading change. This will also help demonstrate the importance of looking for ways to engage a cross-section of team members affected by such change processes.

Below are the steps that ensure that people analytics improve organizational changes.

1. The organization can assess change attitude by conducting a quick survey with feedback options that can be used to make informed decisions about employee commitment and resistance level. Leaders can customize their plans and approaches by knowing the proportion of the workforce that supports current or planned changes and transformation projects. Through this, they can also ensure emotional, mental, and behavioral buy-in. As most of the companies do not succeed due to people-related factors, amid this understanding risks and making good use of people analytics can be a game-changer.

2. Although most of the employee-management related stuff sits with the HR team of a company the execution of analytical strategy sits with line managers. These are the people who supervise the execution of tasks on a daily basis according to the new ways of working. Therefore, it is wise to involve key line managers in the process. It is necessary to equip them with the required tools through which they can collect and analyze their team's feedback on organizational change.

3. Companies often underestimate the informal network of leaders to support and lead change initiatives. But it is valuable as well. A single conversation with a trusted colleague can make a great difference between a team that eagerly adopts a new financial reporting system and another team that only reports 30 percent of the information needed to make the summary reporting metrics valuable. Through the analysis of the team members who are most engaged in the effort, the company can create a targeted list of team members who will be assigned the charge of being ambassadors for change initiatives.