Over 85 percent of companies in Asia are planning to build up their workforce analytics capabilities in the next two years, according to a new report from the Workforce Analytics Institute (WAI), a partnership between The Conference Board and Mercer.
The report, entitled: “Workforce Analytics – The View from Asia” credits the rise of big data, fuelled by the need to improve productivity and efficiency, with growing demand for workforce analytics and planning.
High employee attrition and double digit, year-on-year compensation growth in Asia are important factors, contributing to the need for HR leaders to demonstrate return on investment on human capital and a key reason for the committed focus on workforce analytics.
According to the report, most organizations in Asia are already employing basic forms of workforce analytics, such as internal reports and workforce segmentation, but less than a quarter of participating companies are effectively utilizing advanced analytics methods such as predictive modelling.
However, this number is expected to grow over the next couple of years, as companies in Asia continue to strengthen their workforce analytics capabilities.
“Organizations on every continent struggle to put advanced analytics in place. This report demonstrates how organizations in Asia can create an analytics culture in which business decisions are based on data rather than personal preferences or biases,” said Rebecca L. Ray, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Knowledge Organization and Human Capital Practice Lead at The Conference Board, and one of the co-authors of the report.
The report includes case studies from leading organizations in Asia that have already embarked on their workforce analytics journey. While operating in different geographies and industries, a number of common prerequisites emerged, in particular, the need for stakeholder engagement and a focus on high quality data. The support and participation of key stakeholders is critical and makes it easier and faster for workforce analytics and evidence-based thinking to become embedded in the organization.
On the other hand, to deliver actionable business insights, workforce analytics practices should strongly emphasize quality data from valid and credible sources. Working with good quality data allows the workforce analytics team to more readily gain organizational and stakeholder endorsement.
“In recent years, organizations around the world have been building up their HR analytics capabilities and employers in Asia are no different. In a region with rapidly changing population demographics and a highly competitive economic climate, employers are now using workforce analytics to manage and understand employees in order to create lasting competitive advantage,” said Dion Groeneweg, Partner and HR Transformation & Workforce Planning Leader for Growth Markets, Mercer.
The report also profiles the current state of workforce analytics in Asia and offers insights about how to address the challenges faced by organizations in this region in initiating and implementing workforce analytics. The report is co-authored by Rebecca L. Ray, Ph.D., Caitlin Pan, Ph.D., senior researcher, human capital and Patti Phillips, Ph.D., principal research fellow from The Conference Board.
