Talent Analytics and Yogi Berra – Where Are you Going?

Yogi Berra, the former New York Yankee baseball player known for his pithy comments and witticisms, could have been talking to HR leaders about talent analytics when he coined this phrase. Today, talent analytics is, or should be, at the heart of federal agencies’ talent management solution solutions.

Talent analytics and organizational success

While HR may be one of the last areas to be influenced by the availability of big data and analytics, it may turn out to be the most important for federal agency success in the future. After all, there is more realization than ever that without a high functioning workforce, an organization is limited in how much it can succeed. And the wealth of data can help you.

Today, data for chief human capital officers and other federal HR leaders is available, and it’s the driving force to help HR become a key strategic component of agencies. There’s never been so much workforce data available to federal agencies, and this information can lead to improved insight and better and faster organizational decisions. Indeed, as talent strategist and speaker Meghan M. Biro pointed out in Forbes, “in terms of HR, it’s a gold mine of Big Data.”

The questions talent analytics can answer

The valuable insight that can be obtained and the questions that can be answered from today’s HR data is almost limitless. Insight and questions that cover the entire talent management spectrum, from talent acquisition to employee retention, such as:

• Are recruiting efforts (and money) focused on the areas that have the biggest chance for success (attracting top talent), or would resources be redirected to areas with better payoff?
• Which onboarding practices are succeeding by helping make new employees productive faster?
• What are the characteristics of employees that stay with the agency versus the ones that leave?
• Where are the agency’s skill gaps and how can they be best closed?

With the cost of a bad hire at tens of thousands of dollars, high failure rates of new hires and the clear understanding that top talent is critical to organizational success, it’s easy to see how questions such as these, crossing all talent management pillars, are becoming more and more important at a strategic level. But with the data now available, talent analytics is clearly the linchpin strategic talent management.

If you aren’t looking at the wealth of talent and workforce data available today, you’re missing out on guiding HR to a more strategic position in your federal agency, as well as curtailing your agency’s chances of achieving its mission.

But there is good news – talent analytics are available today to get you where you need to go.