Measuring Your Workforce…

6 comments

What is the best term to describe the analytics, metrics, and performance indicators for measuring talent?  Please vote and feel free to add other suggestions in the comments section by clicking on the + icon.  Cheers.

  • Glenn Mack

    Human Capital best describes the term that should be used to measure the many aspects of your workforce. It is the most important and expensive asset any company can have

  • http://www.cedarcrestone.com Lexy Martin

    Wow…there are so many nuances to each of these. Glenn is right on the Human Capital describing what is most important, but I rather like “intelligence” instead of “analytics”….sometimes all we want is to see some metrics and to drill down to further information, using our own intelligence, and not do full blown analytics. So, I vote for Human Capital Intelligence if we have to have a new term.
    As an FYI: Workforce analytics is defined (I think I saw this from IDC) as: a methodology for creating insight from data by merging data sources from HR information and talent management sources, with financial and customer data and applying straightforward statistical tools (such as correlations or those used in six sigma) to identify how drivers of “intermediate” (things like turnover or employee engagement or spending on employee development) impact business outcomes (such as sales or profit).

  • Jason Corsello

    Hi Lexy-

    Thanks for your comments. I’m less about create a new “category”. I tried that a few years ago and failed miserably (although one large ERP vendor actually did adopt the term). I do like the “intelligence” term because it describes at least having the data and being able to leverage it in many ways. Workforce analytics seems to be the terminology everyone has been using although I’m not sure everyone truly knows what it means…that or everyone has different definitions of what is really is. Thanks again for your thoughts. -Jason

  • Suzanne Rumsey

    I like the intelligence term, too. It’s about data, information and knowledge, and using all three to inform decisions and courses of action. I prefer intelligence to analytics because intelligence seems broader, and more, well, intelligent. “Analytics” as a term is too exclusive – it seems to beg a fairly limited perspective on how to use data, information and knowledge to inform decision and action. Just a few thoughts…

  • Lisa Rowan

    Call me a contrarian but I have fought the term ‘human capital’ ever since it reared its ugly head a few years ago. I actually won’t use it unless pressed. Attaching the word capital to the word human just rings wrong to me. it sounds like something generals use in war rooms along with terms like collateral damage :-)

    I latched onto talent management when it was coined (by Jim H. at Gartner, I believe?) and haven’t looked back. So I prefer any option that avoids the use of HC.

  • http://www.doublestarinc.com Joanne Bintliff-Ritchie

    The Workforce Analytics definition Lexy references is the one DoubleStar created and has used for nearly 3 years.

    I have the same reaction to HC as Lisa R. It sounds like an oxymoron. Overall we think of this arena as Talent Measurement. Our definition includes basic workforce reporting, HR organizational performance metrics, and talent insight (or intelligence if you prefer). This insight allows the organization to see the impacts of workforce performance and talent management practices on busness outcomes using workforce analytics.

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