At its core, talent analytics is using statistics and technology to find patterns in the data regarding people in a company. These findings are then used to make better decisions within the company as a whole.

Talent analytics attempts to define, explain, predict and optimize an employee's performance.

A company’s success depends on the success of its employees, thus having the ability to predict and optimize its employees' performance increases an organization's performance.

Talent Management Practice Effectiveness

Data is used in many ways by a company to make a multitude of decisions. However, organizations that are dedicated to increased performance tend to not only use the data to help make better business decisions, but they also use it to measure the effectiveness of their talent management.

The data is also used to measure and analyze the decisions they have made regarding talent, practices, and investments. The ultimate goal, of course, is to utilize the data to determine predictive performance outcomes.

Linking Business Goals To Talent Strategy

Talent analytics is more than determining HR spending. Determining the talent strategy, gained by analyzing the data, a business can then create business goals utilizing their own talent and predictive analysis. Some steps businesses may use to create this linking:

• Prioritize: All business questions should be prioritized in terms of the analytics.
• Translate: Turn the data from talent analytics into insights.
• Identify: Close the gaps on any scalable opportunities found within the data.
• Develop: Develop a talent management roadmap containing action items and investments.

Businesses that successfully utilize the analytics position themselves better than their peers when it comes to talent management strategies.

Questions Executives Should Be Asking

Executives need to determine where to invest their time, effort, and money. This determination will be the driving force behind all business outcomes. Having the right people with the knowledge that talent analytics provides, is another driving force. Some of the questions executives should be asking when it comes to the data they are collecting:

• Attraction - Are we succeeding in attracting the right talent into our company?
• Selection - Are we filling empty positions with the best qualifications? From within the company? New hires?
• Development - Are we investing in our employees' development? Only investing in the top tier or as a whole?
• Retention - Do we know how our top-tier employees are? Do we know where they want to be? Are we at risk of losing these people? Where and how much turnover is in each department
• Engagement - What are we doing to keep our employees engaged and productive? What can we do better? How do the different management styles affect the engagement of the employees?

Why Predictive Intelligence Is Needed

In today’s world data is getting large and more readily available. We are learning more and more about how this data can be used in various ways to make faster and more informed decisions. There is a growing section of business leaders looking to utilize this data to increase the effectiveness of their talent management strategies. With predictive intelligence, business executives can decide how to better use the resources available to them to increase productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.

To meet the business objectives, executives need performance information on their current talent. Executives would not be able to make educated decisions without this intelligence in front of them. Since employees are such an essential part of a business’s success, talent intelligence is one of the most important sources of data.

Analyzing For Future Successes

As mentioned previously, talent analytics is a key source of data executives need in order to build and maintain a successful business. Prioritize, translate, identify, and develop; these are the four things that should be kept in mind when going over the data. Executives that can successfully understand the data from talent analytics and turn them into actionable strategies are ahead of their peers in other companies.