A critical question facing HR today is whether an organization’s talent plan is appropriately aligned with business initiatives. Organizations typically invest significant amounts of time and money into third-party HR outsourcing firms to get consultative feedback on their workforce alignment. The practice often left them scratching their heads as to what to do next. On-demand talent analytics could make the aforementioned costly and debatably effective approach a thing of the past.

Using on-demand software technology will enable companies to answer big questions at the organizational level. By comparing assessment data on their workforce against a benchmark of literally tens of millions of data points across the global workforce, organizations can learn:

• If their employment brand is competitive.
• Whether they are attracting the right candidates.
• Which recruiting sources are delivering the best candidates.
• Whether any of their teams are likely to put their business at risk.
• If they have the right talent on board to take them where they need to go.

Being able to address concerns like these requires the right talent analytics. These analytics could be a game-changer for companies that understand the importance of their workforce data and how to apply that intelligence to get the bottom-line results they desire.

Talent analytics become even more powerful when used throughout the full human resource management system. For instance, say a customer service center is falling behind in customer satisfaction. With talent analytics, companies can pull workforce information from the applicant tracking system and compare it against assessed candidates and employees to determine which recruiting sources provide the best performers. Further, by hooking into learning management system training modules, companies can improve and re-train customer satisfaction skills for under-performing employees. When talent leaders can compare workforce information against an accurate, historical database of global workforce intelligence, organizations may even decide to choose a different, more talent-rich location for new facilities — one more closely aligned with the skill and competency strengths the organization looks for.