Love is in the air. Valentines Day is just around the corner, promising a day full of sentiments, chocolate, and probably some broken hearts. Falling in love is one of the most unique and fascinating feelings in the world. In fact, falling in love is known to pact the same neurological effects as cocaine. Both falling in love and taking a dose of cocaine will give your brain similar feelings and a sensation of euphoria. Falling in love produces several euphoria-inducing chemicals in your body that will stimulate about 12 areas of an individual’s brain.
So while you are considering love this Valentines Day, consider falling in love with Kronos Version 8.0 and Kronos Analytics! The release of version 8.0 brought with it many new features; each designed to help organizations better handle the increasing demands of Workforce Management. One of the highlights of the new software suite is the analytics package. Kronos has taken great strides to provide a better analytics platform. Analytics is the number one reason that organizations adopt HCM technology, yet 69% of organizations have no embedded analytics tools. For the 31% who do use analytics, the number one concern is accessibility to necessary data and analytics and how to best use that data.
The Kronos Reporting and Analytics functions of version 8 are more visually compelling and full of actionable insight. The new layout implements improved navigation to allow for easy accessibility of data. There are integrated features from MicroStrategy’s 9.4.1 platform, along with geospatial visualization. It is no longer enough to simply see a dashboard with predictive analytics; the new analytics feature is prescriptive, responding to violations and situations by sending alerts and changing schedules accordingly, without any input of a manager. Time and cost effective, prescriptive analytics allow managers to focus on tasks beyond labor analytics. So how do your ensure that you get the most from your Analytics package?
There are three main participants who can help you get the most from your Analytics package:
Vendors (such as Kronos)
Vendors are responsible for assisting the client during the sales, discovery, requirements analysis and implementation processes. There are a couple key factors that a vendor should bring to the client’s attention before they decide to invest in analytics software:
Budget: How much will it cost to purchase and implement an effective analytics package?
Change Management: Does the client have a strategy in place for Change Management? Will they communicate the purpose of the software and train the talent effectively?
If these factors not carefully considered, organization’s can fail to see the ROI that should come with investing in a comprehensive analytics program.
Consulting Firms
When a consulting firm works with an organization, their goal should be to make sure the client gets everything they can out of the software they are purchasing. While consultants are often responsible for the same processes as the vendor, consulting firms also have the responsibility of being the voice of reason. If an organization has neither the talent nor the budget to successfully implement analytics, a consultant will not encourage you to purchase the software. A Vendor’s job is to sell licenses. Your consulting firm’s job is to make sure you are getting the absolute best results with your software.
A Kronos Consulting firm, like Improvizations, will have the difficult conversations with not only the purchasing department but IT, HR, Payroll, Benefits, Finance, Operations and more to build confidence and understanding of how important analytics data is and how to get the proper information out of the system. Change management takes time. It should be a slow consistent change because it can affect man across the organization, not just the owner of the new software. Consulting Firms can help to successfully merge your organization’s WFM history with its future. In order to successfully use an analytics package, the previous collected data needs to be considered.Choosing a consultant should not be like a box of chocolates... You should always KNOW what you are going to get.
It is crucial to have the difficult discussions with not only the purchasing department, but also IT, HR, Payroll, Benefits, Finance, Operations and more to build the confidence and understanding about how important this data is and how great a challenge it can be to get the proper information out of the system. The best way to go about these big changes is slowly.
The Organization (YOU)
Analytics are different than any other type of implementation. There are two major factors needed within the organization to successfully implement analytics:
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Budget: Make sure your organization has the resources to devote to your analytics project. It is nearly impossible to implement analytics on a shoe-string budget. In order to see significant ROI, you have to dedicate the necessary resources upfront.
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Talent: If your organization is implementing analytics, they also need to recruit talent who have a solid footing in what BigData can provide to the analytics package and how to use the software to generate the promised ROI. Software is useless without the proper talent. Does your organization have the talent necessary to pull the insight from the produced data? Will HR and the Operations groups be able to manage the new programs?
Before deciding to implement Analytics, make sure your organization has all the necessary resources and relationships to ensure the highest level of ROI. If all those factors are in place, Analytics can revolutionize your workforce management.
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