Addressing the Talent Shortage with Big Data

A prolonged labor shortage threatens to limit the economic rebound of companies and national economies, inciting numerous campaigns to attract and retain talent. In this highly competitive labor market, Big Data analysis offers companies’ talent management departments the ability to develop more successful attraction campaigns and increase retention rates by identifying expectations and necessities.  

“Applying data analysis to this department allows companies to improve engagement with talent, such as knowing their employees better, controlling differences and gaps that may occur such as salaries, knowing the compensation that benefits the most or discovering the degree of motivation of the team,” explains data analysis company, Shapelets.

Early applications of Big Data analysis were concentrated on identifying market and consumer insights, which has since revolutionized the way companies interact with consumers. Now, companies stand to extract this same functionality to build better employer–employee relations, which in turn could optimize overall company performance. Supported by artificial intelligence, talent management teams can implement six potential data analysis uses: find the best talent, find talent gaps, motivate employees, improve retention, improve productivity and adjust compensation systems.

Data collection and analysis allows companies to ascertain specific skills the company needs over time, allowing recruiters to clearly define desired profiles and optimize their selection process. Inversely, it can also be used to spot general talent gaps that the company could counteract with training as needed. Meanwhile, individual profiles could help employers discover hidden skills that could be useful to the company performance.

On the other hand, Big Data surveys can help companies evaluate how employees feel about the company, use the data to anticipate performance problems before they arise and inform effective motivation campaigns. Currently, companies can draw out patterns about talent flight and develop counter strategies of which will be supported by proposed action plan variations. 

Finally, HR departments will be able to pinpoint moments of productivity generally and at an individual level and use the information to discover what conditions lead to the observed peak. From there, companies can attempt to recreate the environmental conditions that generated the greatest individual performance to make better use of time and capital. Respectively, companies can objectively observe top performers and adjust their compensation accordingly.

Overall, data analysis can be an effective tool during the great resignation by helping attract and retain specialized talent. Mexico’s manufacturing sector, which leads the country’s digital transformation, is poised to swiftly implement this solution and begin to mitigate a 15-year high talent deficit.