In today’s increasingly digital, data-driven world, organisations have both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is clear: the surge of sophisticated tools, systems and capabilities around workforce data and analytics enable companies to gain insight into their talent like never before, informing game-changing, data-based action that was not previously possible. The challenge, however, has just as much impact: data-based action has become such a strategic advantage that companies who fail to fully leverage the possibilities within our new digital world risk falling behind. HR professionals, if you spend weeks manually pulling together workforce reports for business leaders who have likely already made the decisions that those reports could have influenced, you are not alone. But you are certainly behind.
The recent Leaders 2020 study conducted by SAP and Oxford Economics reveals just how much being a ‘digital winner’ matters. Companies that have found a way to embrace digital disruption enjoy more satisfied, productive, and loyal employees, more effective managers, and greater financial returns. And interestingly, digital winners know there is another workforce trend just as important to leverage: workforce diversity. While for some companies ‘diversity’ has become as much of a business buzzword in recent years as ‘digital’, true digital winners know that workforce diversity pays off, reporting a 36% greater likelihood of recognising the impact of workforce diversity on the bottom line.
At first glance it may seem that these two capabilities – leveraging just-in-time data and maintaining a diverse workforce – are entirely distinct, and that by coincidence they both occur for high-performing organisations. But digital winners realise that the two actually significantly influence one another. And today’s organisations cannot fully leverage the benefits of one without the other.
Imagine the business leader who creates a diversity strategy blind to the diversity that currently exists in his or her workforce. Imagine the data strategy created by a group of like-minded individuals who bring the same perspectives, experiences and ideas to the table. Now imagine a robust, ongoing diversity program informed by workforce data and analytics, created by a diverse, innovative group of people who think in new and agile ways, who enable relevant data to be put into the hands of managers and leaders at the moment they are making decisions about talent. Which of these sound more like your organisation?
Your employees are creating data in everything they do. Your managers are too. Unconscious, unintentional bias in talent selection and management - the very kind that impedes diversity - was previously thought to be too subtle to detect, but in an increasingly digital world it can be found, identified and addressed. Workforce analytics enable visibility into where in the recruiting pipeline diverse talent is dropping off, and at what point in their careers they are leaving and why. This robust visibility is necessary in determining where diversity efforts should be focused and what process changes should be made.
But there is another side to workforce analytics, and it starts with the planning: determining how to collect, access and interpret this kind of data can be very challenging. Research has shown the productivity and innovation benefits of having a diverse team, as well as the potential negative impact of homogeneity and exclusivity on innovation. There are few greater opportunities for innovation in today’s workplace than creating a focused plan for leveraging data. Diversity initiatives work best when built on a foundation of strong workforce insights, and turning insights into strategic advantage works best when diverse thinkers are at the helm. Digital winners not only realise this relationship, but they enact it in everything they do.
The Leaders 2020 study sheds light on two key trends impacting businesses today: digitalisation and diversity. But rather than addressing these two with isolated measures, companies need to consider them as partners in driving a stronger, more agile workforce in the years to come.
For more information on the Leaders 2020 study, please visit here.
Learn more about how technology can be used to detect, prevent, and reduce unconscious bias at SuccessConnect Las Vegas.
Gabby Burlacu is human capital management researcher at SAP SuccessFactors.
This advertisement feature is paid for by SAP, which supports the Guardian Media & Tech Network’s Digital business hub.
