The demand for new workforce data is increasing exponentially and it is nearly universal.

Leaders understand the importance of making the bold decisions today to ensure the healthy survival of an organization. To do this successfully, they will have to assess data through metrics that will help in anticipating risks, maneuver strategy and prepare the organization for what the future may hold for the work, the workforce and the workplace.

In a survey conducted by Deloitte, they say “71% of organizations say governing changing workforce strategies is important or very important for their success over the next 12 to 18 months, but only 8 percent say they are very ready to address this trend.”

The desire for better workforce metrics cuts across a diverse set of needs that primarily focus on the future, with information on the readiness of the workforce to meet new demands the clear leading priority.

In the current scenario of technological and economic changes, skillsets are rapidly becoming obsolete. This scenario drives the most uncertainty in today’s workplace scenario.  

Another uncertainty that looms large is the way in which the nature and composition of teams is changing. While integrating technology has been a long time coming for work teams, with the ongoing pandemic, a lot of organizations are shifting to a permanent work-from-home scenario, with remote working becoming an increasingly realistic workplace.

Organizations looking to better understand their employer brand can create new insights through various technologies, including scraping employee review data, analyzing trends in hiring and attrition, or assessing the language used in external communications for potential cognitive biases.

They can also use new organizational network (ONA) tools to help understand workforce connections and sentiment analysis tools to understand employee attitudes.  

While technology can be a great enabler in creating and improving the workforce strategy of an organization, what really drives this agenda forward for the leadership is foresight and creativity. The leaders need to have a vision that should be supported by wave-like strategies which can maneuver based on the situation and keep the company flexible and flying. The challenge is not getting the data or the reports, it is to ask the right questions at the right time.

Learning by Example

In a lot of cases, organizations end up developing specialized metrics to help better understand specific aspects of the workforce.

Ageas, an international insurer, has created innovative ways to measure executives’ readiness to lead technology transformations

For Lufthansa, for instance, the workforce transformation team developed a workforce readiness “radar” that integrates traditional HR data, future of talent data, and future readiness skills data

Mastercard, in an industry known for its advanced analytics expertise, recognized that it could benefit from integrating its people analytics teams with its broader organizational capability to stay on top of emerging analytics trends.

To make bold choices today, leaders need to understand what the future may hold through metrics that can help them anticipate risks, inform strategy, and prepare for the future of work, the workforce, and the workplace.