Accelerating productivity to achieve growth expectations 

Top-performing organizations often create a process linking HR, Operations, and Finance to connect financial data with human capital metrics. This is done through a deep understanding of workforce drivers of revenue and costs. Resulting insights help leading organizations develop labor plans best suited for their go-forward business needs.

• A Fortune 100 manufacturing company used workforce profitability analytics to make informed staffing decisions. They adjusted direct staffing levels at different times of the year, balanced part-time and full time labor, and improved flex and overtime policies. In addition, they identified and rewarded top performers. These actions helped retain valuable employees and support their career growth, which was crucial for the company’s success translating into stock outperformance since the implementation of those staffing decisions.

• A market-leading high-tech company facing high operational and stock price volatility needed to change its product strategy which had become relatively expensive compared to competitors. To make this a fact-based review, they analyzed labor costs associated with revenue generation across different teams and departments. The analysis helped them identify lower-performing areas of the organization for intervention, reskilling, or upskilling to help execute the new go-forward product strategy. They are now seeing higher profit margins and growth utilizing this approach.

Cutting-edge organizations are using holistic skills analyses to develop innovative and dynamic internal talent marketplaces. Conversations are shifting from solely focusing on labor supply to considering the actual skills needed to ensure the financial sustainability of the workforce. Skills-informed transformation strategies are yielding high returns in profitability, innovation leading to increased future growth opportunities, and employee satisfaction. They also provide a foundation for future AI integration and transformations. Some examples include:

• A Fortune 500 tech company wanted to improve productivity by optimizing their talent resource allocation. They conducted wide-scale skill and competency analyses on an individual, team, and department level. This provided the in-depth understanding needed to develop a flexible internal talent marketplace (i.e., employees can move jobs to different teams based on business needs). Now assignments and projects flow through the organization to available and capable workers. This dynamic technology-driven solution maximized cross-functional collaboration, used talent resources efficiently, and enhanced the employee experience by promoting ownership and exploration while minimizing the risk of burnout. The company has since outperformed, in terms of total shareholder return, its most relevant peer competitors.

• A fast growing startup perceived a shortage of skilled talent needed for continued growth. In addressing this risk, it conducted an analysis to determine overlapping skills for the unicorn-type roles they were hiring for relative to more common roles in the market.

Top organizations use generative AI (GenAI) to reshape their workforce and talent models. GenAI is supporting workforce analytics and fundamentally transforming work, substituting human tasks and augmenting high-value work. Leveraging GenAI is allowing workforces to achieve outsized levels of productivity and engagement, while enhancing the broader employee value proposition. Two case studies illustrate these impacts.

• A mature property and casualty insurance firm conducted a by-role time allocation analysis to identify which current employee tasks are best suited to leverage AI. Leveraging the results, the firm trained all employees on how to utilize AI on tasks best suited for AI which allowed the employees to allocate greater time and attention to higher impact tasks. 

• A fast-growth electric vehicle (EV) company used employee engagement surveys to predict potential turnover risks. The largest risks identified focused on employees’ uncertainty of career progression and a lack of training on skills that would help them execute on their career progression. To address these risks they implemented a one-stop digital employee-facing AI solution to provide individualized training, networking, and clarify career progression opportunities. The AI tool served as an integral touchpoint for employees and managers to engage in transparent career growth conversations, positively contributing to the broader employee experience. Since implementing, the company has outpaced the growth of its competitors in the EV space.