Why You Need to Empower Employees with Analytics

If you thought money is the only thing that keeps your employees motivated and buy you more productivity you are anything, but closer to the truth. Yes money matters a lot to your employees, just as much as perks, flexible work schedules and recognition programs do. These guarantee you loyalty and commitment but do not quite provide you with what your business actually needs today i.e. a sense of ownership. What you actually need from employees is contributions through thoughts and participation in the company’s business strategy. To make this happen, you need to put analytics in the hands of every employee.

Analytics Empowered Employee is More Engaged

There are many who may not subscribe to this belief and if you, like them, believe that it may lead to too much confusion, which may even disrupt an orderly process then here’s something to reflect about.

Think about those days when software was not part of our lives and centralized data processing departments run by experts used to call the shots. Now cut to our times wherein software has become core to our existence and where every business user empowered with Word, Excel and PowerPoint finds it easy to establish his point of view to others. Thanks to these software, today’s employee feels he is well integrated into the organization and feels confident that his views will be counted upon. If software could transform office productivity completely, analytics too can increases employee engagement, loyalty and retention if made accessible to every business user.

It’s time we realize that in today’s fast paced and ever changing market conditions, a centralized command and control approach cannot help us in taking fast and on-the-move business decisions. What organizations need today is the ability to react to ever-changing opportunities, which can only be ensured by giving all employees access to analytics. In doing so, organizations will stop depending on a small group of experts to tailor future strategy.

Will Employees Embrace Analytics

Making sense of analytics is no easy thing and employees may find it too heavy to handle. When skeptics say that cleansing data, manually checking it for statistical relevance, and determining the right questions should best be left to experts, they are not too wrong, because employees being no experts, may find the task less empowering and more burdensome. One thing for sure, it would rob them of the valuable time needed to perform their core tasks. If they are made to undergo training, chances are remote that they would adopt it fast. So, the move may eventually backfire.

The solution

The solution to this conundrum perhaps lies in embracing analysis software. It is a tool which analyzes data within minutes and gives employees the insights needed to make the right moves. This would make it easier for them to move on to the next item on their to-do list. It would also give them the courage to take decisions on their own, and in the process, participate with a true sense of ownership.