The impact of social, mobile and predictive analytics

Gavin Olivier

As a leading local performance agency, LRMG used the conference to showcase Saba, the leader in next generation cloud solutions for talent management.

"Social and mobile learning and analytics (big data) are rapidly changing the way organisations manage their talent," says Gavin Olivier, LRMG partner and managing Executive. "Within that context, Saba has developed its product to be more people-centric, relooking their offering to address the specific needs they see developing in the market. The essence of the new offering will enhance employee engagement and increase better decision making and productivity."

The modern employee expects flexibility, mobility, accessibility and easy collaboration. From a management perspective, a next-generation talent management solution gives you the ability to manage employees from a single point of contact. Saba provides a platform for the entirety of the employee lifecycle, from the hiring to the pre-boarding, the onboarding, the development of the individual, their learning, their career path, followed by all of the performance support, performance management, goal-setting, succession planning, and finally retention. "Through all of these processes, the system collects data that can be mined in order to make predictive and intelligent recommendations to an individual and managers," says Olivier.

This is predictive analytics at work - but, predictive analytics requires a big enough data set to mine. "The key to this is the creation of a system that offers an engaging user experience with personal benefit to users.

Completing work transactions or collaborating with colleagues should also be as easy as it is on the social networks that many of employees are currently actively engaged on," explains Olivier. "The system provides a platform for managers and employees to engage with people and gain access to information and ideas across their entire people network to be more productive. It also helps people develop themselves and take charge of their career through engaging feedback platforms, timely coaching and accessibility to relevant learning offerings."

Given the unstoppable advances in technology - smart phones and the popularity of social networks - the modern employee is demanding more mobile access to their work applications and data wherever they are, on whatever device they have access to. Organisations need to be responsive and give employees access through a technology toolset to successfully accomplish their work. At the heart of the Saba solution is the employee profile - it is the single point through which not only formal data such as performance scores, skills and talent indicators, but also informal information such as content, expertise, experience, interests, and contributions to the people network to help everyone find what they need to get the job done.

"The more information we have about our people, the more informed we are and better able to manage our talent risks and opportunities. Using Saba as the platform of engagement you are now able to identify those employees and business units that need a better focus on development, as well as identify those employees that are at a high risk of leaving or who are underperforming. In other words, HR predictive analytics are assisting human resources in making a greater impact across the business by developing people strategies that meet the needs of the company," concludes Olivier.