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How People Analytics Can Help Companies Avoid Employee Turnover As Coronavirus Makes Everyone Feel Unsafe

As the novel coronavirus pandemic causes an economic downturn, businesses are struggling with the obstacles of maintaining trust with its employees. With the number of layoffs and furloughed workers rising every day, employee retention strategies are more important than ever before.

Right now, chief people officers and HR teams are put in the position where they must keep employees healthy, sustain morale, oversee a historic remote-working shift, and consider whether, when, and how to lay workers off.

Though, for the workers that remain in their jobs ambiguity and unpredictability can threaten that trust. How employers respond and reassure their workers is essential to avoid long-term effects on loyalty and turnover, which can cost as high as $109,676 per employee for an average US company, according to Deloitte.

This is where people analytics come in. Used to provide leaders with resources and tools to impact individual performance, the output of team performance, and most importantly employee retention, people analytics has always been around in some form.

People analytics is a data-driven approach to managing people at work. This is done with techniques used to recruit and retain valuable employees— which are used at companies like Google.

This starts with creating a safe environment by making sure all the people in an organization understand what is being measured and how it will improve performance, morale, and retention. If people feel monitored, they won’t feel safe.

According to Deloitte, 71% of companies see people analytics as a high priority in their organizations, with 31% rating it critical though progress across the board has been slow.

With more people working from home than ever before, people analytics can monitor as well as help employees adapt to the transition. While traditional hierarchies and protocols can hinder communication and decision making, causing more harm than good, companies need to focus on how to make this paradigm shift a comfortable one.

One tool that can be used is Organizational Network Analysis (ONA), which provides a structured way to visualize how communication, information, and decisions move through an organization. ONA can be used to understand difficulties associated with effective collaboration, but also enable the management of remote workers to propel business sustainability and growth. Notably, ONA can be used to nurture a workplace culture that encourages involvement, support, and loyalty.

With people analytics, HR and chief people officers can avoid the long term effects of the pandemic on employee turnover with a data-driven approach.