The What, How, and Who Cares of Talent Analytics

What is Talent Analytics?

First, what is Talent Analytics? There are two big clues in the name. “Talent” in this context means people; usually people who work for other people (aka employees). Analytics in this context refers to information that has been collected by testing, survey, or observation and then recorded as structured data (think “spreadsheet”). Structured data is special because we can perform calculations and even build systems around it - the way we build language with structured grammar, or the way we build a subway system from structured tunnels and tracks. So, putting it together, Talent Analytics uses structured data about people to make informed decisions about the business.  

Who Cares?

Before we talk more about Talent Analytics works, why would we even bother with any of it? If Talent Analytics is about making informed decisions about people, and our organization is powered by people, then wouldn’t we want to optimize the engine that powers our success? Of course we would! Remember how Talent Analytics uses structured data to make informed decisions about the business? That should sound familiar because it’s exactly what your Finance, Operations, and Sales teams do every day. The idea that we could apply these tools to make  informed decisions in the messy, squishy Human Resources function is relatively new but catching on quickly. 

How do I get started using Talent Analytics?

There are three parts to Talent Analytics: 

1. Collection 
2. Organization
3. Analysis

1. Collection 

If Talent Analytics were a conveyor belt that transformed people into data, the Collection part would be the “Input” part of the machine. Collection is the part of the process where people get tested, interviewed, and/or observed. This can happen in a number of ways:

• People take an online assessment. Examples include personality assessment tests (like Talogy Caliper or Hogan), which describe the gifts and challenges of an individual’s  personality. People might also take a predictive tests (like Chally) which predicts their potential capability or competency to perform certain  job roles or competencies.
• People are surveyed or interviewed with a consistent set of questions and their responses are recorded. 
• People are observed executing a consistent set of instructions to complete a task. This is how many Executive Assessments have been conducted, although new, more efficient technologies are emerging.

Notice that I used the word “consistent” twice? This is because that word will be your mantra. Consistency is vital to Talent Analytics and assessment for two reasons: 

1. The scientific method mandates that we perform the same experiment (aka test) in the same way to each subject in the experiment (people). In other words, we want an apples to apples comparison. 
2. Labor and workforce watchdogs (like the Dept of Labor) can come after you if you use tools like online assessments with only certain individuals and groups without any justifiable rationale. 

Just be consistent and use the same test (ideally at the same time) with everyone in your organization or function. Then don’t make exceptions to your policy. This goes a long way toward compliance, and it’s just the fair thing to do. 

2. Organization

Now that we’ve collected the people data, where do we put it so we can use it again and again? Typically, personality assessment test and survey results are delivered as “report” files, usually in the form of a PDF. They can look as cryptic as medical results or they can be narrated and annotated with colorful diagrams. Every provider is  different. 

There are several ways to organize our people data so it’s easy to access when we need it:

• We can make people data tables and drop them into a spreadsheet (like Sheets or Excel) or database (Airtable or Access). 
• We can use Talent Analytics software from the assessment provider. This is becoming more and more common. 
• We can use a 3rd party Talent Analytics provider that supports multiple tests and provides advanced functionality.

We have to organize the data in order to make it useful. Why? Because if we didn’t, we’d have to read several individual reports in order to get a complete picture of our people. That would be like taking all the company’s receipts and invoices and laying them out on a table every time you wanted to determine profitability. Those of us that aren’t savants would need a better system, which brings us to the last part of the Talent Analytics, which is Analysis. 

3. Analysis

This is where the rubber meets the road. We’ve collected our people data, we’ve organized our people data and now it’s time to put our people data to work. We’ve talked specifically about how to interpret personality assessment test data and the same concepts apply this time, also. Now that we have your shiny new Talent Analytics data collected and organized, when do we actually use it? We can use it every time we need to make a decision about our people or if we want to get an idea of what we’re working with, but here are some common use cases:

• Hiring - also known as Selection, Talent Analytics is most commonly used in hiring efforts for individuals, even up to entire organizations. When we can easily identify the characteristics or attributes that we want for our job and organizations, we can hire those people who are more likely to meet the mark. Doesn’t that make a lot more sense than hiring intuitively or blindly, then waiting to see if it works out?
• Development - this is when we identify someone in our company for a professional or personal growth opportunity. Perhaps it’s a team leader who demonstrates high potential for upper management, or maybe it’s an executive who would benefit from an empathy training program. Our Talent Analytics can both reveal to us where the team leader shows potential and what the executive might find challenging. 
• Succession Planning - Talent Analytics gives us the ability to take a snapshot of people. When we have a snapshot of someone who drives our company’s success, we can use it as a baseline to hire future people in the same role that share those characteristics. This is how you can systematize succession planning to make it more efficient and less subjective.

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