IBM now offers new Big Data analytics software and services solution to help organizations build and maintain their global workforce. Developed by IBM Research scientists, the software enables businesses to analyze massive amounts of data shared by employees. This can be used to uncover work-related trends that can be used to build and preserve more productive work environments and minimize attrition. One of the potential big benefits of social media is its transparency. It is nice to see capabilities to make good use of this transparency.
With IBM's new workforce analytics services, HR can gain a real-time view into thousands of data points shared by employees via corporate surveys, commonly available employee data (demographics, performance reviews, salary, years of service, etc.), as well as data shared on internal and external social media platforms. As a result, companies can read the pulse of their organization to improve retention, performance and morale. They can also use analytics to understand what drives job performance, or how employees feel about a new company policy or advertising campaign.
While this might be thought of a “big brother,” it is a capability that offers many benefits. The main issue here is trust and that applies regardless of the capabilities a company has to look at its employees. For example, by collecting information shared by employees such as their skills and career aspirations and pairing this with HR data, companies get a more complete analysis of their workforce, how each person is connected, their influence on each other, how they work together and more. At the same time, companies also gain a more accurate view of their organization while identifying their most critical talent. Decisions will be made, why not provide the decision makers with more accurate information that heresay or content that is filtered by middle management with its own agenda.
According to IBM’s CEO Study of more than 1700 chief executive offers, 71 percent of executives surveyed cited human capital as their greatest source of sustained economic value. It is nice to see this recognition. It is human capital, not physical capital, that drives profits in today’s economy. Some of the new capabilities include the use of text and visual analytics software that can automatically extract and display over one million pieces of anonymous unstructured data derived from employee surveys, including millions of employee comments collected annually through surveys. It also scans Human Resource Information System (HRIS) data broken down by employee demographic. An easy-to-read dashboard then visualizes findings via a sentiment "heat map" of trends broken down by employee segments. This does not target individuals but looks at the workforce as a collected group.
Another capability is a data-driven approach to understanding attrition patterns within a business. The IBM solution applies predictive analytics software to enterprise HR and CRM data, and social data. Then it identifies high-attrition “hot spots” within the company. With this information it determines key drivers and specific actions to retain critical talent. If done right, this actionable data can used to make more effective and satisfied employees.
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