Dive Brief:

• If HR is serious about using analytics, then it needs to include an employee engagement survey in its overall engagement strategy, according to an article by the Association for Talent Development (ATD).
• Unlike most other sources of HR data that generate “descriptive statistics,” employee surveys can answer “why” questions.
• Done right, employee surveys can provide fact-based, actionable insights into the drivers of (and impediments to) better business results, say authors Lauri Bassi and Dan McMurrerr, of McBassi & Company. When employee surveys are merged with other HR, learning and professional development data, it is possible to make statistical linkages between your “people strategy” and your business outcomes.

Dive Insight:

Despite the value of this strategy, many HR departments don't take advantage because they are "stuck in out-of-date ways of thinking" about what engagement surveys can and should do.

To get it right, the article says employers must ask the right employee survey questions. In other words, employers must do a great job of designing the employee survey content. Additionally, HR must analyze employee survey data "cleverly." One idea here is to design any analysis to identify the most important drivers of the organization's employee engagement and how they reflect business goals.

Finally, HR needs to create compelling employee data reports. According to the authors, while a well-designed and cleverly analyzed survey is a great start, truly delivering "actionable business intelligence" means making it easy for busy leaders and managers to understand results. Busy leaders and managers don't like taking a lot of time trying to figure out what it all means, so perhaps focus on quality of insight rather data quantity. This is the "art" of analytics that makes the "science" understandable, compelling, and actionable, write the authors.