The Role of Analytics in Improving Staffing Strategies

Human resources (HR) is a business operation where efficiency is imperative. Specifically, the process of employee recruitment and retention is simply too important to leave to chance. Whether a business unit manager needs the latest information on time and attendance to streamline their scheduling process or a quick payroll audit by the HR manager to address a problem, analytics help make data accessible to business leaders.

Here are some ways to leverage HR analytics to improve the way businesses are run and increase efficiency:

• Recruiting. When a job candidate is brought on board but ends up not being right for the position, turnover can happen, and filling open positions becomes expensive and time-consuming. Recruiting analytics lets a company see where its best candidates come from and which profiles tend to succeed more often over the long term.
• Tracking time and attendance. With time and attendance analytics, companies can determine the most efficient patterns in employee scheduling to strategically manage the scheduling process, stay in compliance with company and legal requirements and even identify patterns of absenteeism.
• Streamlining the management of benefits. Consider the reporting needed during open enrollment. An analytics-driven reporting system makes it easy to see who is enrolled and where decisions are pending.

Employee Retention

In a competitive job market, it is essential to focus on improving employee retention, so that one is not expending time and financial resources in the recruitment process. The following actions can help identify what’s needed to retain employees and how analytics can help improve employee retention efforts overall:

• Measure employee turnover. Many business owners and HR professionals use employee retention metrics to evaluate the quality of their hiring programs and overall health of their workforce. For example, if they regularly employ 20 workers and three resigned or were terminated during the first quarter, their employee retention rate would be (20-3) / 20 = 0.85 or 85%. This percentage can vary across different industries and in different parts of the country, so this benchmark is most valuable as an internal metric evaluated over time.
• Explain career development. Employees are more likely to stay at a job when they have a clear understanding of their individual career development path. It’s wise to help candidates under­stand where each position could lead.
• Work together. When it comes to addressing employee retention, businesses may fail to support one of the most important relationships that define a worker’s day-to-day experience: the interaction between managers and employees.

Establishing employee retention as an important metric can help give managers the incentive that they need to focus on retaining talent. Best practices include the following:

• Provide information to managers on why employee retention is important to the company, including the costs of replacing workers who leave.
• Make employee retention an explicit key performance indicator (KPI) for manager evaluations.
• Invest in basic management training on communication, goal setting and other important skills for managers who oversee other staff members.
• Make time in schedules to actively interact with employees. HR needs to consider timing when developing manager allocations, and they should periodically check-in with managers on areas where they can use support.

The Role of HR Technology

An effective retention strategy begins with recruiting the right employees. By leveraging the resources of human capital manage­ment software, it’s possible to target efforts on finding ideal candidates for specific positions and for the company culture.

With today’s applicant tracking systems, it’s possible to:

• Develop job descriptions with input from all stakeholders.
• Set minimum screening criteria to focus on the most qualified applicants.
• Access data for the entire recruiting process from a single interface.

With smoother operations, better screening tools and access to data, recruiters can attract a higher caliber of employees. Starting with the right employees makes it easier to increase employee retention beginning on day one.

Paychex offers highly impactful service and enhanced technology offerings within Paychex Flex, including the Paychex Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) Service, Paychex Retention Insights and enhancements to Paychex Flex Hiring and Onboarding for a fully digital and paperless experience. Paychex is an NJCPA member benefit provider.