By Cat Distasio
Business agility relies on data, which can help organizations retain talent and reduce turnover, address pay equity and support diversity and inclusion efforts in meaningful ways.
In the world of business, it’s impossible to prepare for every possible outcome or chain of events. But when organizations invest in flexibility, it allows leaders to act faster and make better decisions when the need to pivot arises.
Having access to the data you need, when and where you need it, is a major component to business agility. Tools that offer prescriptive insights can be even more valuable, as they help leaders dig into the whys and hows of the challenges they must overcome.
“For leaders, it is about being ready to act by being close to your people and your data,” says Linda Mougalian, Senior Division Vice President, Growth Marketing at ADP. “You’re ready to act because you have can visualize the trends as they shift, and you know how your people feel. This is incredibly valuable as you look to make key business decisions that will impact both your people and your business outcomes.”
There is a growing trend toward tools that help leaders become more nimble in their ability to act — and react — to changing circumstances within their organization and in the world beyond. Part of this is the development of tools that surface key trends and anomalies and then allow leaders to drill down data to a more granular, individual level, to make more educated decisions about their workforce.
The benefits can be numerous. Business agility can help organizations retain talent and reduce turnover, address pay equity and support diversity and inclusion efforts in meaningful ways. Here’s a deeper look into how business agility impacts each of these three areas.
Retention and turnover
Organizations work hard and invest a lot in finding the right talent. Keeping employees engaged and keeping turnover low are key objectives — ones that often elude leaders if they’re unable to gain insights into why people are leaving the organization. Tools that offer a holistic view of teams can help leaders understand what is influencing employees and help them identify problem areas before it’s too late.
“ADP offers dashboards and tools to help leaders uncover the root causes that can lead to costly turn over.” says Mougalian. “Employers are struggling to find and keep qualified talent. The ability to look at risk potential proactively is critical. There are numerous drivers of turnover and they vary by role, team and locations. Tools that can help to identify the relevant drivers allows leaders to be proactive in building plans to retain key talent and making better hiring decisions for long term success. “
Are there other factors within your control that may cause your team members to look for new opportunities outside your organization? With the right data, leaders can take action to mitigate problems and make work better for employees, which can help them stick around a lot longer.
Pay equity
Visibility is perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to achieving pay equity throughout an organization. A pay equity dashboard can help to shine light on potential inequalities within your organization.
“Having trusted and insightful data allows companies to take action with confidence and then measure their progress.” says Mougalian. “Making improvements often takes a mix of approaches to address unique situations that have emerged over time. Once you can see where you stand you can make a thoughtful plan based upon deeper understanding.”
The right tools can illuminate potential problem areas, such as when two employees with the same job title have drastically different compensation. Tools powered by robust data can give leaders a full view of the situation, including years of experience, certifications, education and other factors that can affect pay differences.
By exposing these insights, leaders can identify actual pay equity problems and address them, while simultaneously spotting patterns and trends that can help them create plans to reduce future instances of inequality.
Diversity and inclusion
It’s been said many times that diversity and inclusion initiatives alone will not and cannot create a diverse organizational culture. True diversity and inclusion can only happen when leaders are personally invested in understanding where their organization is, and then taking conscious action to make change.
A diversity and inclusion dashboard offers data-informed insights that can help leaders understand the organization’s current state and help to identify opportunities to improve beyond pay equity to hiring and promotion approaches.
Building agility today to do business tomorrow
When leaders are equipped with the right tools and information, they are ready to respond quickly to all kinds of business challenges. Organizations that invest in tools to make this kind of data easily accessible and readily available when leaders need it can identify opportunities faster and work toward alleviating problems before they get out of control.
As recent events have illustrated, organizations have a better chance at success if their leaders can plan for a number of possible scenarios and be ready to act — no matter what challenges are presented.
“The more insights we can give to business leaders from organizational trends to individual situations, the more confident they can be in planning and making decisions based upon meaningful data they can trust,” says Mougalian.
