It could be argued that 2020 was the year when data came to the fore. As individuals, we seemed to be surrounded by data related to the pandemic, with graphs and figures shared about COVID-19 cases, and governments using this information to tailor their responses.
And of course, there’s a reason for this: when making decisions, having the right data minimises risk and helps organisations to navigate through change.
Across businesses, the use of data has grown. This is true for HR teams too. According to LinkedIn data, more than 75% of HR talent professionals use or plan to use insights to manage workforce planning and 55% say the same for competitive intelligence. Overall, the use of data in HR has risen by 242% in the past five years.
However, many HR and talent teams are struggling to get the right data. The same research found that 55% of teams said they needed help.
Research showed that businesses that are data-driven have been growing by an average of 30% each year. Those benefits can also be realised in the talent space, with insights bringing a number of benefits.
There’s no question that organisations are facing unprecedented uncertainty. At these times, lowering risk becomes key – and the right data allows you to do this. Working from accurate, robust insights helps you to understand the market and key drivers, foresee changes and position your company ahead of competitors. In summary – to make informed decisions and minimise risks.
Insights can help in many ways, by building your knowledge of:
All of these combine to help you to address any barriers and bring in the right talent for the future.
Understanding what drives your ideal candidates and what’s important to them in considering a role allows you to adapt your strategy and increase the appeal of your organisation. Our insights also allow you to uncover information about your brand that may be hidden from you. As an independent company, people are more likely to share their honest opinions about your business, which in turn allows you to make changes to address any issues or misconceptions.
In 2016, Forrester found that, while 74% of companies wanted to be data-driven, only 29% said they could connect the insights to activity. Fast-forward to now, and it’s clear that it’s still something that companies struggle with: research by Gartner found that only 46% of executives agree that their efforts are aligned with strategy.
One of the big issues is the ability to make the data actionable – and that’s something that we ensure we do for all our clients. While we’re open and transparent about our data and ensure that it’s robust and reliable, we also focus on making recommendations to help our clients to apply the learnings to their strategy and activity.
It’s this that makes the real difference, as one of our clients said: “An incredibly comprehensive, thorough report, containing great case studies. I’m really impressed with how Talent Insight Group have told the story and nailed the narrative.”
So how do we do this? These are just some of the ways that we ensure that our clients have the right data and insights to make informed decisions, minimising risk and improving their business outlook.
Deciding on an office or retail location can be challenging with many different options.
One of our clients was considering whether to relocate certain business functions away from the capital to a regional centre. Considerations included the impact on talent, salary and reward, and competition, as well the rise of remote working due to COVID-19 and how this might affect the importance of the office location in the future. Our insights gave our client a clear narrative around risks, challenges, opportunities, impact and consequences, which helped them make an informed decision.
For another of our clients looking to grow one of their technical teams, the question was where in Spain to base their operations. They had anecdotal evidence that there was a large talent pool available in the country but had no data to support this or understand where these candidates were located. Our research evaluated three key locations within the country and provided insights around available talent, competition, salary benchmarks and recruitment strategies. This insight challenged their expectations, uncovering vital information to avoid future issues with talent acquisition and allowing our client to choose the best location to meet their goals.
For more on the positive impact of this type of work, read our location planning case study.
Our client believed that salary was an issue in attracting candidates for an niche tech role. Our insight showed that renumeration was not in line with the role’s requirements or with other comparable roles within their location. Through conversations with prospective candidates and analysis of competitor activity, we also uncovered additional best practice insights to increase applications.
As a result of our research, our client was able to increase the salary to align it with the local market, reshape aspects of the role’s remit, reporting line, etc, and create an alternative recruitment campaign that was more likely to lead to a successful outcome.
One of our clients wanted to know why it was proving difficult to recruit a Senior Associate within one of its key practices. Possible issues were location, salary and a lack of available talent.
Our first step was to understand our client’s difficulties in greater depth and to ensure that any assumptions were tested against real-time market data. Our insights uncovered a wealth of information including salary expectations, brand perceptions and what those candidates deemed important when looking for a new role.
Contrary to our client’s expectations, the main recruitment issue was that our client hadn’t reached the right prospective candidates. We were able to identify many new individuals who were new to our client, culminating in a successful placement.
Our client, who was looking to grow their business across the African continent, needed to understand the organisation design within competitors operating in the same locations. Our insights enabled our client to significant cost savings by using existing team structures to scale into the new location, rather than setting them up in-country.
Similarly, one of our retail clients wanted to understand whether their teams were structured for future success. In particular, they wanted to know how new, disruptive competitors were organising their teams and what could be learned. Our insights were gathered from public domain data and allowed our client to gain information about number of employees, team structures and organisation charts for each competitor.
See how our work helps clients understand organisation design and plan for the future.
Our purpose as a business is to partner with organisations who want to make better informed strategic decisions. Insight is at the heart of everything we do: our clients benefit from our strategic approach to sharing both data and recommendations.
If you’re looking for support with salary benchmarking, location planning, brand perception, role benchmarking or other talent data, we can help. Find out more about what we do.