Get to know your employees!

For a long time, we have known how important it is to truly know our customers, their necessities and what makes them buy products. It is fascinating how much information about your customers can be obtained from data. One example is Amazon that knows their customers better than their customers know themselves. They make use of predictive behavior, machine learning and so forth. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg within this area of customer analysis. 

Why do we not have the same depth of knowledge regarding our employees? It is incredibly relevant. We can all agree that humans are the most essential resource we have, but are we making sure that we are making the most effective use of our resources? 

Imagine if we knew as much about our employees as we do about our customers

Imagine if we knew precisely why an employee performs well? Alternatively, if we knew exactly what makes a key employee stay longer than the average employee? Or if we knew how we could attract the best profiles most effectively?

Some already do this. Many have heard about it but may not see it as a priority within HR. There is no news in the fact that we can make an analysis and predict whether an employee is about to leave the organization, for example, through their behavior on LinkedIn. However, this information is often not used systematically by HR. Usually the standard parameters, such as headcounts, variation in age, gender and similar are used instead. These are data-based analysis, but are they the most relevant? 

In our opinion, the solution is not making use of more data, but considering which data we use, being relevant for the core of the business and therefore also HR. 

Let HR make a difference in your organization

HR should take the lead and be the ones, who are smarter and have more knowledge about the needs, motivation, warning signals and the necessary environment needed for performance for existing and future employees - utilizing data and simple analysis. Especially in this area, HR can be a part of making a difference!

What can you do?

You could start by investigating what defines your key employees, and why some of them stay in their position?

• What does their job involve?
• How do they feel about their job?
• What are the physical parameters - the facilities, possibilities for parking and so forth?
• The relationship to the CEO and the rest of the team?
• Level of influence?
• The flexibility of the job?
• Stage of life?
• Cognitive competencies regarding the possibility to learn new information?
• Personality?

The request of the specific profile on the market - do they receive many job offerings from other competitors? 

In the beginning the most important is to make a simple model, where you ask the right questions concerning what you are researching. Make sure to invite enough people to receive a valid pattern in the research.

The last part is about automating the knowledge and by means of that being able to predict who has the potential for becoming a key employee, and how you can retain them in the organization.