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Getting a better handle on all things workforce-related could deliver big benefits to your enterprise in this new financial year, writes Brendan Maree.
Are you wondering how on earth your business might gain a competitive edge and perhaps even achieve a little healthy growth at a time when doing so has never seemed more challenging?
If you answered in the affirmative, you’re far from alone. As we prepare to enter a new financial year, all signs suggest it will be a challenging one for Australian enterprises of all stripes and sizes.
Despite best efforts, the inflation rate continues to hover above the government’s target range of 2 to 3 per cent. We’ve seen the price of everything, from insurance to electricity, go through the roof, and that’s crimping demand, from consumers and businesses alike.
Insolvencies are on the rise – barely a day goes by without news of another formerly prosperous player biting the dust – with the construction, accommodation and food services sectors particularly hard hit. Throw in ongoing uncertainty about whether interest rates are likely to rise or fall and you’ve got a set of conditions that could scarcely be less conducive to profitable expansion.
Why your workforce is the greatest weapon
When times are tough, as they are right now, having a committed, high-performing workforce can mean the difference between sinking and swimming.
Highly engaged employees won’t think twice about going the extra mile for your organisation; they’ll do so willingly and with grace, if it helps deliver positive outcomes for the business and team.
So, how is your workforce thinking, feeling and behaving? In the past, gauging staff members’ sentiments and engagement levels was all about the vibe, a la Dennis Denuto of The Castle fame. These days, though, it’s possible to take a much more quantitative approach.
That’s what workplace analytics is all about. The term refers to the strategic use of data to gain insights into your employees and the overall state of your workforce. Those insights can then be translated into actionable steps to help you improve the way you hire, onboard and manage talent, and harness employees’ experience and abilities to progress your business.
Measuring what matters
So, what things should you be measuring, and what might you learn from the results?
The recruitment and onboarding process is often a good place to begin the discovery journey. How long it’s taking you to fill open positions, and how much you’re spending to do so, can beg the question of whether it might make sense to automate aspects of the hiring function or outsource it to a third party.
Meanwhile, gathering data around absenteeism and leave-taking patterns can provide you with insight into whether staff are trucking or trailing in the motivation stakes. If the latter, it could be time to take a long, hard look at the sort of corporate culture you’ve fostered and why yours isn’t a workplace where people are excited to be. Your employee engagement and retention statistics will tell a similar story. A high churn rate and happy staff are generally seen as mutually exclusive phenomena.
Knowledge is power, and if the data suggests your organisation could do better on the employee experience front, there’s no better time to seize the opportunity to turn the situation around.
Tools to make the task easy
Collecting and analysing workforce data may once have been a time-consuming and tedious process. The good news is, that’s no longer the case.
Investing in an operations enablement and workforce platform will enable you to carry out in-depth data analysis, monitor your employee engagement metrics in real time and extract insights that can help you foster a culture of commitment and achievement in your enterprise.
It’s a foundation technology that puts powerful workplace analytics at the fingertips of your human resources and leadership teams.
If you’re focused on harnessing the power and passion of your workforce to drive better business outcomes in FY2024–25, it’s an investment that’s likely to pay for itself many times over.
Brendan Maree is the vice president and country manager in ANZ at ProHance.
