Imagine being able to spot who’s likely to leave, see which employees are ready to take on more, and know exactly where to invest in your workforce, all from a single HR dashboard. HR technology is no longer just about making processes more efficient; it’s changing the way leaders understand and act on people data. With the right tools, organizations can turn raw information into clear strategies. This blog explores how HR tech is moving people analytics from dashboards to actionable decisions.
Before diving into how tech is changing the game, let’s clarify what we mean by people analytics. Also known as workforce analytics or HR analytics, people analytics is a practice that uses the collection of data regarding your people and their experience to measure and improve workforce performance, engagement, and business outcomes.
Key Functions:
Even for teams that have been leveraging the power of data to make decisions for many years, the collection and analysis of that data have historically been painstaking at best. HRIS and HCM tools of yore bucketed information, and trying to leverage data across buckets involved a deep knowledge of Excel in pulling v, h, or x-lookups and pivot tables to get to where you needed to be. Fast forward to now, and modern tools allow for massive collections of data across multiple datasets without needing to be an Excel whiz (or feel like pulling your hair out). These automations also mitigate human error in accuracy through collection, validation, and audit flags.
Gone are the days of spreadsheets or manually created dashboards. Modern HR tech platforms offer real-time, visual dashboards that help HR leaders monitor key metrics at a glance, from headcount to turnover rate and performance distribution. Dashboards are often customizable and dynamic, allowing you to adjust in real time to show different data sets and cuts at the click of a button. Ideally, your HRIS or HCM should have the capacity to pull data from different sources into a central location. Check your dashboard settings, explore the self-service help options, look at your HRIS/HCM’s main website under their listed reporting capabilities, or ask to schedule a call with a representative to learn the full capacity of your system and how to leverage it, if you aren’t already. If your system can’t centralize data into comprehensive dashboards, it may be time to start exploring more advanced options.
With machine learning and AI integrations, today’s people analytics tools can go beyond reporting. Predictive models can anticipate employee attrition, burnout, or skill gaps, giving HR leaders the power to act before issues escalate. Pulling data from your ATS, HRIS, performance management system, payroll, and engagement platforms into a central location allows you to spot potential issues before they occur and take action, tapping into insights that human analysis can miss. For instance, AI-powered analytics can analyze performance, engagement, salary history, and career growth history to predict whether someone may be looking to leave. Companies using analytics for retention report 15-25% fewer unexpected departures. Being able to prevent turnover in high-potential employees? Priceless.
New HR technologies enable seamless integration of people data with financial, sales, and operational data, especially in platforms that leverage integration capabilities with ERPs. Companies leveraging AI-powered people analytics are better able to highlight which people investments are most likely to have the highest ROI, link workforce trends directly to business outcomes, and better forecast staffing, service, and sales needs, in addition to typing People initiatives to financial metrics like EBITDA, revenue by employee, profit per employee, and labor cost as a percentage of revenue. As a bonus, companies using people analytics effectively tend to outperform their peers on revenue growth by about 30%, and HR teams that embrace tech report a 67% improvement in retention and a 32% boost in engagement.
Advanced analytics are taking standard surveys one step further to reshape how organizations can understand employee sentiment. AI-powered surveys, listening tools, and NLP (Natural Language Processing) allow organizations to capture real-time employee sentiment, scan patterns in survey responses and pulse checks, identify hidden engagement risks, and surface other trends that leaders or People team analysis may miss. The most advanced tools don’t just report how people are feeling; they go deeper to spotlight why those feelings exist and where action is most critical.
One of the most powerful uses of modern people analytics is workforce planning. Instead of relying on static headcount spreadsheets or marathon whiteboard sessions, advanced platforms allow HR to create dynamic models that reflect real-time data. With these tools, organizations can:
This type of modeling puts HR leaders in a proactive role. Rather than reacting to unexpected vacancies or growth demands, they can anticipate change, present options to the C-suite, and align workforce strategies to business targets. It’s a shift from “filling roles” to shaping the future of the organization with data-driven foresight.
With self-service analytics and user-friendly interfaces, more leaders across the business can access and interpret HR data. This democratization empowers business units to not only make more informed, people-centric decisions, but to do it faster and with less bias. Self-service data also allows managers to take an active role in strategic people planning and proactively identify issues, which means they need to rely less on HR to do all the heavy lifting and solutioning. This allows for a true partnership between HR and business leaders. Approximately a third of organizations reported meaningful improvements in both employee engagement and satisfaction when frontline employees were given self-service analytics tools.
Modern HR platforms have evolved to give leaders more visibility into workplace equity and representation. Rather than relying on ad hoc or manual data pulls, advanced tools can provide ongoing insights into things like pay equity, promotion patterns, and workforce demographics. This kind of visibility helps leaders spot trends, address potential gaps early, and demonstrate accountability in how opportunities are distributed across the organization. This helps ensure that decisions about talent are grounded in accurate, timely data.
People analytics isn't just an HR dashboard anymore, it's a lens for understanding how people decisions shape business outcomes. With the right technology in place, HR leaders can move beyond reporting headcount and turnover to predictive decision making, forecasting, and demonstrating the value of people initiatives. Modern analytics platforms make it possible to:
In short, technology transforms people analytics from a rearview mirror into a GPS for business strategy.
Not all platforms are created equal. Our HR, payroll, and workforce management partner UKG, recommends that when you’re evaluating HR tech solutions for people analytics, you should look for:
A livingHR client partnered with our team to conduct an in-depth workforce planning analysis, leveraging in-depth survey and sentiment tools. As a result of the high-tech process, our client was able to increase the span of control per employee from 1:4 to 1:8, resulting in a surplus of 18% of headcount, and reduced the number of unique titles by 30%, providing much-needed clarity and consistency across the organization.
Costa Coffee is one of the world’s largest and most well-known coffee chains, with employees working at more than 1,600 corporate stores across the UK. Before using UKG, Costa Coffee relied on spreadsheets and budget-based predictions to determine the number of employees needed at each location. This issue became especially pronounced during the holiday season, when the company struggled to determine how many employees were needed to serve their higher customer demand. In 2021, Costa Coffee went live with UKG Strategic Workforce Planning as its centralized solution for labor budgeting, recruitment planning, and productivity.
As a result, Costa Coffee has been able to more accurately forecast its holiday staffing needs over the past few years — increasing staffing efficiency by nearly 50% during the Christmas season and 65% immediately thereafter.
MarketSource deploys a team of 9,000 part-time representatives to work in the electronics and technology sales departments of more than 30,000 U.S. retail stores. The company has two types of employees, which previously made scheduling across roles extremely complex. Due to these challenges, MarketSource integrated UKG Pro Workforce Management™ into its representative engagement platform (REP). The solution enables MarketSource to train employees in multiple jobs and product areas, allowing the company to schedule part-time employees for more shifts so they do not need a second job.
Since MarketSource adopted this solution, it has decreased operational costs and increased employee retention. In fact, the organization anticipates it will need to grow its part-time workforce by no more than 20% because it can better utilize existing talent.
If your organization is just beginning its journey:
HR technology is not just digitizing processes — it’s redefining how organizations view and value their people. From real-time dashboards to predictive analytics, data-driven HR is a competitive advantage. Whether you're already leveraging tech or just starting, now’s the time to reimagine what's possible with people analytics.