A Guide to Workforce Analytics and How to Use the Data
Understanding Workforce Analytics
Data may be a simple, four-letter word tossed around in casual conversation, but it is the key to building a sustainable, efficient business destined for success. Data and the analytical solutions used to examine it provide insight into performance, operation expenses, market trends, and much more. Without quality data and tools to study it, IBM reports that 88% of American companies experience a direct impact on their bottom line. In an age of historic technological advancement, cannabis companies don’t have to encounter those challenges.
But you might be asking yourself, what exactly is Workforce Analytics, and why is it important?
“Workforce analytics describes a set of tools that measure, characterize, and organize sophisticated employee data” (UKG). Leveraging workforce analytics can help you make data-driven decisions, improve workforce management, and implement best practices for enhancing productivity.
Why Use Workforce Analytics?
Our newly launched analytical tool captures a wealth of internal data regarding compensation, retention, and performance metrics. In the blink of an eye, stakeholders can see how much they’ve spent on overtime compensation, identify any troubling pay gaps between genders, or identify how much employee turnover has impacted their bottom line. With those actionable insights, they can make strategic improvements or celebrate reaching their various internal goals. Here’s a brief rundown of how companies can leverage our data-driven solution to optimize employee performance.
Informed Decision-Making
Workforce analytics software provides businesses with the tools needed to empower HR departments to make strategic, data-driven decisions. Analytics aren’t just for statisticians anymore. With simple-to-use, comprehensive dashboards and reports, HR professionals can easily monitor key metrics and identify areas for improvement. Analytics can help you understand patterns in employee behavior, uncover trends in absenteeism, and address gaps in workforce performance. By leveraging these insights, organizations can improve business outcomes and gain insight into workforce trends, ensuring they remain competitive and aligned with their strategic goals.
Reduced Costs
Würk’s latest workforce intelligence can be used to take the guesswork out of managing your human capital expenses. Help HR teams use workforce and HR data to analyze meal penalties and overtime compensation data by month or year, and identify spike periods ahead of time. With the added benefit of this workforce planning, employers can hire additional staff and ensure employees are not working more hours than needed or being asked to shorten their breaks. In return, employers reduce unnecessary costs while creating a healthier work environment.
Additionally, some analytics to monitor and consider that also directly impact the bottom line are hiring trends, terminations, absenteeism, and the cost of turnover. Attracting, developing, and retaining committed team members is not only great for building sustainable work relationships, but it is also a cost-saving strategy. U.S. businesses reportedly lose $1 trillion annually due to turnover, with an average 100-person organization losing $2.6 million annually. By using workforce insights to analyze hiring and termination trends, decision-makers can better understand and forecast future workforce trends. This helps identify which roles tend to have higher turnover and which are more likely to retain employees. Employers can use this information to develop proactive recruiting strategies, rather than reactive ones, aligning them with their business goals. In like manner, investing in training and development for staff can further reduce labor costs, ensuring long-term success. The combination of management analytics and people-centric solutions also allows companies to optimize employee performance, retention, and overall satisfaction.
Better Productivity
Workforce analytics is used to boost your overall business performance. By using workforce analytics software, companies can dive deep into workforce metrics, uncovering areas where productivity can be enhanced. The benefits of workforce analytics extend beyond just identifying inefficiencies—they also provide insights into employee performance and compensation to craft effective people-focused strategies. With the power to analyze workforce metrics in real-time, businesses can quickly pinpoint bottlenecks or underperformance to optimize output. Not to mention, these diagnostic analytics can also help turn those insights into actions. With a thorough understanding of your process gaps, current talent management trends, and workforce needs, you can create a more efficient business environment by tackling the identified problem areas head-on. The benefits of workforce analytics extend beyond the numbers— they empower decision-makers to refine their approach and foster a work environment that prioritizes efficiency and results.
Types of Workforce Data
Descriptive
Descriptive workforce analytics uses historical data to address what happened based on existing historical data to get a clear view of the current state of the workforce such as:
- How many employees have left in the past year, why?
- How much time was taken off?
- What’s the average salary we’re paying for a certain role?
Predictive
Predictive workforce analytics anticipates what could happen by using your historical data to predict future outcomes. Rather than understanding and reacting to changes in the work environment, we shift the focus to predicting and being proactive with our workforce strategies.
- What departments will experience the most overtime in the next 6-12 months?
- What do our future staffing and hiring needs look like?
- When can we expect periods of high employee turnover, retention, or overtime?
Prescriptive
Prescriptive analytics forecasts what to do about potential workforce challenges. By predicting your future workforce trends, you can properly pinpoint where you need to prescribe the remedies:
- The ideal staffing levels for different departments or time periods
- Flexible work schedules or changes to workload distribution
- Strategies to promote a more inclusive work environment
How to Get the Most out of the Data
Recruiting
When it comes to hiring top talent, HR analytics and workforce tools provide invaluable insights to refine your recruitment strategies. By using metrics like total applicants, applicants by location, and applicant source information, you can identify which roles attract the most interest and pinpoint where to focus your outreach efforts. Use workforce analytics to see which geographic areas or demographics are most engaged, allowing you to tailor job postings for maximum impact. Our applicant tracking sources can reveal which platforms deliver the best candidates, helping you allocate resources more effectively. With workforce analytics, your recruiting becomes not just smarter, but also more strategic, saving time and ensuring you’re hiring the right people for the right roles.
Retention
Employee retention is a critical factor in building a resilient and thriving organization. By leveraging data-driven insights, businesses can identify trends that influence employee engagement and address areas that may impact satisfaction and performance. Monitoring metrics such as average tenure, departmental churn, and compensation equity enables HR leaders to create targeted initiatives that foster a supportive work environment. When employees feel valued and supported, their performance naturally improves, benefiting both the individual and the organization. Proactively addressing employee needs not only reduces expenses but also strengthens team cohesion and drives long-term success.
Compensation and Payroll
Workforce data analytics builds a deeper understanding of your organization’s pay structure, helping to fine-tune compensation strategies. By analyzing metrics like average salary, bonuses, and total labor costs, you gain a clearer overall workforce analysis that informs more effective decision-making. Whether it’s adjusting compensation or tracking payroll trends, understanding the type of analytics you need enables businesses to optimize resources while driving employee satisfaction.
Overtime/ Meal Penalties and Time Off
A comprehensive workforce analytics solution empowers businesses to better understand and manage overtime, meal penalties, and employee time off. By leveraging detailed insights from our OT/MP and Time Off dashboards, businesses can identify trends in overtime ratios, track expenses by department or manager, and calculate total liabilities for unused time off balances. Workforce analytics provides the tools necessary to pinpoint inefficiencies, reduce unnecessary costs, and optimize resource allocation. When organizations use analytics, they gain a proactive edge in managing employee well-being and financial performance, driving both operational efficiency and employee satisfaction.
DEIB and Pay Equity
Building a diverse, equitable workplace not only enhances the employee experience but also drives measurable business results. Nearly 80% of U.S. workers value companies that prioritize diversity and inclusion, while diverse companies see 2.5x higher cash flow per employee and inclusive teams are over 35% more productive. Workforce analytics helps spot pay gaps across gender, ethnicity, and age, enabling employers to align workforce strategies with DEIB goals. From tracking average hourly rates by demographic group to identifying gaps in leadership representation, these tools help employers pinpoint opportunities for improvement. By leveraging these insights, businesses can attract and retain top talent, close pay disparities, and foster a workplace culture that thrives on equity and inclusion.
Workforce Analytics in the Cannabis Industry
In an industry where less than 28% of businesses are profitable, cannabis companies must embrace all of the tools and solutions needed to ensure their success. Workforce analytics provides tailored insights that address the unique challenges and opportunities faced by different types of cannabis companies.
Cultivation
Optimize labor costs during critical tasks like planting, trimming, and harvesting by tracking time, overtime, and productivity.
Extraction
Remain compliant by tracking employee certifications and safety-related data.
Manufacturing
Track time-off liabilities and workforce productivity to align staffing with production demands.
Retail and Dispensaries
Optimize scheduling during peak hours, monitor sales performance, and reduce turnover.
Vertically Integrated
Consolidate workforce data across all sectors, offering a holistic view of labor costs, productivity, and compliance.
Choosing the Analytics Tools for Your Organization
When businesses implement workforce analytics, they unlock powerful opportunities to optimize their workforce, leading to smarter decision-making and stronger outcomes. Choosing a solution that integrates seamlessly with your Human Capital Management (HCM) system ensures you have a clear, connected view of critical data like compensation, diversity, time-off, and performance—all in one place. This eliminates the hassle of managing multiple systems, reduces manual errors, and ensures real-time insights drive your decisions.
Our Workforce Analytics tool is fully embedded within our HCM suite, providing dynamic reports and dashboards that simplify complex data into actionable insights. With a streamlined view of your workforce, you can align strategies to business goals, enhance the employee experience, and confidently drive meaningful results.
