5 ways to use data in your talent strategy

In the dynamic landscape of the year to come, harnessing the power of data will be crucial to developing and implementing a successful talent strategy. Here are five key ways to leverage data and hiring intelligence to drive your talent strategy forward.

1. Understand the Jobs Market

Stay ahead of competition

In the ever-changing UK jobs market, staying on top of the latest talent trends in your sector is crucial for gaining a competitive edge. Whether you’re growing your team or wanting to avoid losing top talent to competitors, using data to understand what’s happening in your industry arms you with the facts you need.

Keep salaries in line with your industry

Understanding the salary and benefits expectations of jobseekers is key to attracting top talent efficiently. By using industry-specific data to benchmark your teams’ salaries and benefits, you can reduce your employee turnover and improve employee engagement.  

Using a salary and benefits benchmarking tool is the first step in creating a strong, data-driven talent strategy. With a data-driven approach, you can make informed decisions and ensure your compensation packages are in line with your industry.

2. Streamline your recruitment process

Target the right candidates

Conducting a talent mapping exercise enables your talent search is targeted and efficient. By leveraging these insights, you can attract the right candidates using data-led marketing campaigns across various platforms.

Eliminate bottlenecks  

Keeping candidates engaged in the recruitment process is critical when it comes to having an effective talent strategy. Data provides valuable insights into why candidates might drop out, allowing you to audit and streamline the recruitment journey for enhanced efficiency. Some data to collect could include: 

• Time-to-hire
• Job offer acceptance rate
• Candidate feedback 

Know what your competition is doing

Using bespoke compensation benchmarking helps you understand how your offerings compare to your direct competitors. Hiring intelligence identifies your unique selling points and areas for improvement, aiding in attracting and retaining the best talent.

3. Avoid losing top talent to competition

With the Salary Survey revealing that 49% of UK professionals planning to leave their current company in the next year, employee retention is crucial to a good talent strategy. Using data to drive your retention strategy keeps you ahead of the competition.

Ensure your offering is competitive

Are your competitors offering higher salaries? Benchmarking your teams’ salaries against industry averages ensures your compensation package is competitive enough to retain top talent.  Benefits and compensation benchmarking will solve many issues organisations face in 2024. By using data-driven insights specific to your business, you save time trawling through generic reports, avoid financial penalties and retain top talent.

Identify areas to upskill

To combat skills shortages, knowing the most in-demand skills in your industry can help you keep ahead of the jobs market. With the 2024 Salary Survey, you can use data-driven insights to invest in upskilling your existing employees. Hiring intelligence can give you the impartial data you need to make reliable business decisions when it comes to your talent.  

4. Drive your Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) strategy:

Embedding data into your Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) strategy is pivotal for fostering an inclusive workplace:

Identify hidden bias

As recruitment processes evolve, bias and barriers are likely to weave their way into each step of the process unintentionally. By auditing your recruitment process from an ED&I lens, companies can create meaningful changes based on data and ensure they are attracting a wider, diverse pool of candidates.

Learn how Legal & General and the NHS audited their recruitment process for bias and used data to drive meaningful change in their organisation.

Attract a more diverse talent pool

Using data can be a powerful way to communicate your progress in the ED&I sphere. For example, conducting and publishing pay gap reports shows potential candidates and current employees a commitment and transparency when it comes to diversity and equity in the workplace.

Improve employee engagement

Using diversity data to evaluate outcomes, such as promotions and progression, within your organisation can highlight any disparities that need to be addressed. With employee retention crucial for most employers in 2024, data is an effective, measurable way to monitor and improve the employee experience for all.  

It’s important to ensure any collection/analysis of diversity data complies with relevant local data protection legislation.

5. Improve your employee value proposition

When it comes to attracting and retaining top talent, auditing your current employment offer is a good place to start.  

Auditing your employment offering:

Is your benefits package in line with the most favoured benefits across your industry and region? Salary and benefits benchmarking helps you compare your current employment offering against direct competitors.  

Creating an attractive offer for top talent starts with understanding the experiences of your employees. By collecting data at touchpoints like employee engagement surveys and stay interviews, you can audit and improve your employee value proposition.

Auditing and improving your employment offering help attract top candidates. Likewise, this data-driven approach enhances employee satisfaction and contributes to long-term retention by addressing concerns and improving overall experiences.

Transparency is key: Ensure that when collecting any data from employees, you are transparent about what it is being used for - and be transparent about the results. Partnering with an external partner can help make sure data is valid and interpreted in a non-biased way, increasing trust and confidence from your employees.

Incorporating these five data-driven strategies into your recruitment process positions you to navigate the evolving landscape of 2024. The effective use of data not only enhances decision-making processes but also fosters a workplace that attracts, retains, and nurtures top talent in today's highly competitive job market. Stay ahead by embracing the power of data in your talent strategy.