5 Ways HR Leaders Are Using Talent Intelligence

Talent Intelligence, which involves analyzing data of current and prospective employees, can help grow employees as well as the organization, said HR experts at the SHRM India Annual India Conference.

"Data and insights are any HR professional's best friends," said Reeti Dubey, director - senior HR business partner in Gurgaon for NatWest Group, a banking and insurance firm. 

Dubey and other leaders shared ways in which HR professionals are using talent intelligence to achieve their people goals:

Finding Talent That Gels With Organizational Values 

One increasingly common use for talent data and analytics is to sift through a large pool of job candidates and zone in on those who meet specific requirements for a role. 

But today's talent intelligence tools go beyond just finding a match based on educational or technical skills. "It's also a lot about who's interested in your organization, who aligns to the purpose," said Dubey. 

Sanjay Bose, executive vice president and head HR at ITC Hotels, explained with an example. 

He said they analyzed a group of high-performing employees to understand their personality profiles. "Like, what makes them successful, what gives that stickiness in the organization," said Bose. Based on this study, they came up with certain behavioral and personality metrics which they applied when shortlisting job candidates.

Bose said he seeks candidates whose values match with that of the company, and here too, data can help.

For instance, ITC Hotels is focused on sustainability, such as by using renewable energy. Rather than simply asking a job candidate her views on sustainability, the recruiter can look for data about the candidate's shopping patterns and hobbies, such as whether that person buys sustainable products. 

"You start looking at values and behaviors which are going to match in your organization, and that started giving us tremendous results," said Bose. 

He said that ITC Hotels is still experimenting with this and building a model. 

Career Progression and Retention

Talent intelligence can also aid employee growth. 

Technology tools today look at the skills an employee has, her interests and likes, and based on that can suggest roles in the organization best suited for her. These tools can also be used to analyze the career paths of other employees with a similar background and see what roles they have been successful at. 

HR can use this information to guide employees on their next career move. "That responsibility becomes easier for me to administer when I have a tool like this," said Bose.

At Mastercard, a payments and technology company, employees can figure this out by themselves. Priyank Vajpai, vice president-talent acquisition at Mastercard India, said the company has created a portal where employees can put up their resume and keywords, and the system will suggest the next best opportunity available. It will also show the hiring manager the employee's resume, so that the internal candidate gets preference over an external one.

"That way, you're able to provide ample opportunities to your own employees," said Vajpai. 

Stemming the Exits

For many industries in India, high attrition is a perennial problem, and talent intelligence can help here as well. 

Vajpai suggests looking at the data of both - employees coming in and those leaving. 

"Where are you losing people? Why are you losing people? Where are you getting people from, and why are they joining you?" said Vajpai. 

Answers to those questions can be used to create profiles and some tools to predict which employees are going to leave in the next 6 months and why. 

For instance, he said, looking at a large data set the tool may find that employees who are 26 to 28 years years old, in say, Pune, are likely to leave after 8 months in the organization. 

HR can use this data to tell senior management what things need to change to help reduce the exists. "It will take time. It will take at least two cycles for you to change," said Vajpai.

Staying Competitive in the Market

Talent intelligence need not be limited to existing employees but can also be extended to understand prospective employees and competitors, said HR experts. 

Companies can benefit from external data available about other companies, their policies, and employee behaviors, said Vivek Bhaskaran, vice president of strategy and transformation at JobsPikr, a talent intelligence platform for workforce planning. 

"See how your internal data can be benchmarked against the industry," he said. 

This can help HR in designing competitive policies, such as for compensation and benefits. "What's working well for your competitors, or what is not working well for your competitor, is a key insight…to retain your talent," said Dubey of NatWest.

Smooth M&A Transition

When companies are merged or taken over, integrating the staff of different organizations is a big challenge for HR, but here too, talent intelligence comes to the rescue. 

Often, a key goal of the acquisition is to acquire talent, so HR needs to find an appropriate fit for employees of the company being acquired to ensure they don't leave. 

"Talent intelligence helps you understand - X person has been in the organization as a founder for like 5 years, can you really hire him as a manager in your new organization? Or, can you relabel him as a manager or director?" said Vajpai of Mastercard. "You need to find those roles," he said. 

Data tools can give a picture of what are the skills available at the company being acquired and whether those can help fill any existing gaps or if they can help meet future skill needs. Similarly, analytics can help decide the organization's location strategy, said Dubey.

"Where you want to base your talent in the future, where is the talent available, where is the skill available - all of those things can be done with these insights," she said.