People analytics has traditionally helped senior management in organizations make data-backed decisions about hiring, talent management, compensation, and retention. But as it evolves, businesses are realizing that it can be used in a way that can add value to their employees and improve their well-being. With that in mind, there are five key metrics people analytics teams should measure, says Rachel Habbert, Ph.D., Senior People Scientist, Cultivate.
People analytics teams are transforming how organizations fundamentally operate by using data science and statistical techniques to study people, processes, challenges, and opportunities. Historically these teams have reported data up to the C-suite and senior leadership to help them make more data-backed decisions about hiring, talent management, compensation, and retention. But as people analytics has evolved, organizations are realizing that they have been missing out on a huge opportunity to use this data to help employees be more productive, engaged, and healthy at work. The future of people analytics is giving data back to employees in a way that adds value to them. Alphabet’s VP of people operations, Prasad Setty, perhaps said it best that people analytics should be “analytics for the people, not of the people.â€
With that in mind, what are some of the key metrics that people analytics teams should be measuring to help understand employee well-being? And how can they improve well-being based on that knowledge? Here are five metrics worth exploring:
Learn more: 86% of HR Professionals Concerned About Employee Mental Health and Wellbeing: New Data Reveals
1. Groups That Are Below Average on Well-Being Baselines
Most people analytics departments track employee well-being and engagement through surveys or passive data collection tools. These numbers have limited usefulness in a vacuum, but they can reveal if any particular groups are struggling and need additional help. For example, many companies found that caregivers, particularly those with young children, scored significantly lower on these two metrics during the early days of COVID-19. Without looking at these metrics, people analytics teams likely could have guessed that employees with children might struggle, but they probably would NOT have realized how much worse it was for parents of young children.
To address this, organizations should examine the group of employees who score significantly below average on well-being and engagement metrics (based on data from pulse surveys or 360 feedback sessions) and look for commonalities, such as gender, department, or seniority. As a next step, an organization can open a conversation with members of that group to design relief measures. These will vary based on the group and issue in question. For example, working parents who volunteer that they are struggling with schools being closed during COVID-19 might benefit from flexible hours that allow them to work early or late and have more time for their children in the middle of the day.
2. Disconnecting During Non-Work Hours
This metric is incredibly important during times of high stress (like the pandemic) and among remote teams. On average, the workday increased for knowledge workers when they shifted to working from home during COVID-19 as their commutes got replaced with more meetings. Being able to unplug and mentally reset at the end of each day is incredibly important for workers’ mental health and long-term productivity.
People analytics teams should measure this metric and do everything in their power to encourage employees to disconnect after work each day. They can do this from incentivizing managers not to email their teams after hours to incorporating respect of work-life balance into yearly reviews to providing apps or email features that delay sending emails until the next day. Data from analytics tools may reveal specific groups or roles that struggle with this where people analytics should focus their efforts.
Learn more: Your Employees Want More Mental Health Support, Says SilverCloud Health Study
3. Focus Time
The people analytics teams at one of Cultivate’s customers measured a very strong positive relationship between focus time and employee productivity. When people have free blocks of time to focus on tasks without meetings or interruptions, they get more done overall. An increase in meetings and/or a decrease in focus time will often lead to reduced productivity. So, monitoring these metrics can let people analytics teams suggest solutions to management.
Possible solutions to this issue include setting policies to have fewer meetings or reducing the average meeting time to 20 and 45 minutes rather than 30 and 60. It could also be providing plugins like Microsoft To Do for email and calendar software that encourage employees to arrange their schedules to preserve focus time. These might fall outside of the control of people analytics teams, but people analytics (PA) can spearhead the effort and advocate internally to get these policies implemented.
4. Sharing Opinions
Research from our People Science team found that teams that regularly share their opinions and solicit feedback from one another are more engagedOpens a new window . Managers who score share opinions and solicit feedback often also receive higher marks on their performance reviews. When managers share their own opinions and thoughts in response to feedback and questions from their team, those team members are more likely to share feedback againOpens a new window . Manager curiosity and responsiveness contribute to high-performing teams and should be encouraged whenever possible.
This can be accomplished through education (managers may not know how important sharing opinions is) via learning and development platforms or feedback in reviews. If the organization has any type of coaching program, instructing coaches to work on this behavior with their clients may also be helpful.
Learn more: Employee Burnout Is the New Pandemic: How Can You Support Your Employees?
5. Cadence of 1v1 Meetings
Another Cultivate customer told us that they found a very strong positive relationship between one-on-one meetings and trust between employees and managers. Since trusting one’s manager increasesOpens a new window employee engagement and retention, people analytics should encourage 1v1 meetings on a company-wide level to help with trust-building. Improving this metric can be difficult because it relies on the manager and employee prioritizing 1v1s. People analytics can provide education on the importance of 1v1s and encourage participation in 1v1s by highlighting them during yearly reviews.
Without a strong employee base, no organization can be successful. These five metrics can help improve employee well-being, and people analytics teams should leverage them to strengthen their organizational culture.