What is workforce intelligence and why it matters now

Workforce intelligence will revolutionize how people leaders work. It will also create more equitable and impactful organizations by ensuring no one is hidden. The new world of work will be designed with inclusive, data-driven decision-making. Every people leader will have a workforce strategy that they report to shareholders on and integrate into organizational planning.

— Siobhan Savage, CEO and Co-Founder at Reejig

It's time for workforce intelligence to get on the strategic business agenda

For many years, talent teams have fought an uphill battle for investment in enterprise AI infrastructure. Despite people being an organization's most expensive and most important asset, investment in AI that maps an entire workforce is dismal. Skills, experience, learning, and career pathways remain invisible compared to finance, marketing, and sales.

70% of company executives believe people analytics is a top priority. Yet workforce strategy only accounts for 17% of AI adoption use cases across all industries.

It took a global pandemic and recurring recessions to spotlight this underinvestment. Now the need is crystal clear.

AI capability is compounding. Work visibility is not.

For enterprises to optimize their workforces, they need real-time visibility over workforce skills. They need a task-level approach to finding, retaining, planning, and reskilling talent. This has always been on the people agenda. Now it's front and center on the strategic business agenda.

The impact of siloed data and outdated workforce planning

1. Companies have no visibility over workforce skills. Businesses typically rely solely on what candidates and employees are willing to share via profiles. On average, less than 20% of employees ever fill them out. This makes it nearly impossible to take a skill-based approach.

2. Knowledge across talent teams is siloed. When talent acquisition and management teams don't share data and KPIs, unnecessary and costly hires happen. Skills often already exist internally. A single unnecessary hire can cost up to $136K USD in redundancy and rehiring costs versus reskilling.

3. Employees are feeling the impact. Disconnection and lack of visibility lead to unclear career paths. One-third of employees today lack confidence in their career path. They're considering quitting because of it.

Organizations are "flying blind." They have no easy or scalable way to get 100% visibility of skills, experience, and potential. And no easy way to ensure talent decisions are fair, equitable, and free of bias.

The impact is three-fold:

Why organizations need workforce intelligence

As organizations navigate the AI era and an uncertain economic outlook, workforce optimization has never been more important. Or more challenging.

The emergence of workforce intelligence gives executive leaders unprecedented understanding. They see where people and their skills are best served. This visibility solves many of the burning challenges holding organizations back. It creates a world where organizations have the data and resources to optimize at scale.

When an organization Maps their entire workforce, from people and skills to jobs and pathways, through a Work Operating System, they gain the knowledge and foresight to:

1. Access your skills inventory. Consolidate all talent data into one place. Apply AI models to produce a live Work Context. Understand the interrelationships between the skills your people have and the skills required to prepare for any scenario.

2. Action a skill-based strategy. Inject a skills-based approach to how you hire, develop, retain, and reskill talent. Based on the needs of your organization today and tomorrow.

3. Drive workforce optimization. Develop and deploy people where they're needed most. Real-time insights into the DNA of your workforce, from skills and experience to diversity, supercharge your strategies. Ensure you have the right people, with the right skills, at the right time.

4. Create personalized career pathways. Identify skill gaps early. Start personalized learning journeys to reskill or upskill talent. Engage employees with their own career pathing journeys. Match them to their skills and potential in real time. From next move to succession or job adjacencies.

5. Automate and scale change. Create change at scale through automated nudges that benefit both the company and the individual. Communicate widely. Or with hyper-targeted messages in the moments that matter. Without losing a second of efficiency or an ounce of personalization.

What workforce intelligence delivers for your teams

What Workforce Intelligence delivers for your teams?

Research shows leaders, talent departments, and people are in need of data-driven decision-making support. The future of these decisions is intelligence. Technology acceleration continues for all organizational departments. But giving talent and people departments the ability to build and access workforce intelligence has a knock-on effect. It changes your organization for the better.

With data-driven, skills-based decisions, leaders strategically plan to scale. Successfully, diversely, and ethically. A Work Operating System gives a complete, unbiased picture of your workforce. Teams and organizations understand and plan for market shifts. They move people based solely on skills and potential.

When you place the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles, you actively plan for a fair, optimized future.

With workforce intelligence:

• Executives and people leaders strategically optimize workforces. Right skills. Right place. Right time.
• Workforce strategy teams plan for today and the future with actionable insights.
• Talent management teams see the full picture of skills and talent. They build management and succession plans at scale. They engage people with personalized pathways.
• Learning and development teams gain visibility into skill gaps. They build the right learning programs for the business.
• Talent acquisition teams get 100% visibility across the entire talent ecosystem. They build shortlists with high-quality, diverse candidates in seconds.
• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging teams reduce bias in recruiting and management processes. They proactively engage underrepresented talent. They track progress to diversity goals.

Make workforce optimization a priority.

Book a demo to see what a Work Operating System does for your organization.