How Can Workplace Analytics Metrics Benefit Your Business?

Even the best strategies for driving employee productivity and creating an optimized office space can fall flat without the tools to measure them. After all, how can you tell if your plan has been successful unless you track its impact?

This is where workplace analytics metrics come in. With accurate, reliable data in place and the software to generate it for you, you can figure out which areas of your business are working, which aren’t, and where you need to course-correct. Here we dive into the top workplace analytics metrics you should be tracking and how doing so can benefit your company.

Quick Answer

Workplace analytics metrics help you make logical, data-driven decisions for your business. They can help you cut costs, retain top talent, optimize your office space, reduce compliance risks, and make safer choices that are more likely to pay off.

What Are Workplace Analytics Metrics?

Workplace analytics metrics enable you to measure how effective your workplace and workforce are. They can help you determine where you’re succeeding and where you may be falling short, so you can make data-driven decisions to grow in the right direction.

For example, these metrics can show you how your employees are using your office space, so you can optimize your layout and equipment and better support collaboration. They also allow you to analyze factors that can affect your company’s growth, such as employee productivity and engagement.

Why Are Workplace Analytics Metrics Important?

The global workplace analytics market is expected to grow from $2.07 billion in 2024 to $6.04 billion in 2032. There’s a good reason for it: workplace analytics metrics are essential tools that help business leaders figure out how to optimize their space and support employees.

Having reliable data-driven insights is crucial for your company’s strategic planning. Without it, you may just make decisions based on feelings, biases, or assumptions. Using workplace analytics metrics is a more reliable way to make decisions related to your workforce.

Plus, the right data allows you to quickly look at how your business is performing from a variety of angles.

You can see a high-level overview of your company, which makes it easy to spot problem areas. You can also drill down into specific issues, such as productivity, engagement, and space management, for more detailed information.

5 Types of Workplace Analytics Metrics You Should Track

So what areas of your business should you focus on? Here are five areas worth tracking with workplace analytics.

Employee Productivity

Labor costs can make up as much as 70% of your total business costs, so it’s important to track your employees’ productivity. But it’s difficult to get a gauge on productivity without having data to back it up.

Here are a few key metrics you can use to track employee productivity:

• Employees’ idle time vs. working time
• Frequency of employees hitting their goals
• Expected time to completion for a project vs. an employee’s actual time to completion
• Employee attendance rates
• Employee error rates
• Quality of work rating on a scale of one to five

Employee Engagement

Trying to get a sense of how your employees are feeling about their jobs can be difficult without valuable insights from data.

But when you quantify the employee experience, you can easily see which aspects of their work they enjoy and which ones are frustrating.

Surveys are a great way to determine employee satisfaction. You can ask questions to find out how challenging they feel their jobs are, if they feel overwhelmed, and if they enjoy coming to work every day (and why or why not).

For example, in 2019, Microsoft conducted Daily Pulse surveys on small samples of employees to get a sense of how they were feeling. Then, they turned their answers into analyzable data.

You can also use analytics to look at how tasks are distributed across your workforce. If some teams have a high workload while others don’t have much going on, employee engagement may be off balance.

Talent Management

Talent management data encompasses metrics that your HR department will use to hire the right people for your business. Ideally, you’ll get employees that will stay long-term and help you grow.

Here are a few talent management key metrics you can track:

• Current headcount
• The headcount needed for each department to meet its goals
• Cost per hire at every level including wages, benefits, equipment, and desk space needed
• Demographics of your workforce including age, diversity, gender, and level of schooling
• Time spent hiring an employee
• Time spent on employee training and onboarding

Space Utilization

Space utilization metrics can help you make the most out of your office space. For hybrid companies, managing desks and meeting rooms is essential to ensuring your workforce can be as effective as possible. You can also better understand patterns of collaboration and team dynamics, which can help you better support your teams and delegate projects.

Start by tracking space utilization metrics like these:

• Passive occupancy: This occurs when people think a desk is being used (for instance, because an employee left their jacket there), but it’s not. Read more about occupancy planning here.
• Ghost booking: When an employee books a room, doesn’t end up using it, and doesn’t cancel the booking. Other employees think the room is occupied, so they also don’t use it.
• Workplace attendance: This can show you where you may be able to cut costs on utilities, supplies, and seats.

Customer Retention

It’s not always possible to get feedback directly from your customers. So to figure out how many customers you’re retaining, and if they’re satisfied with your product, you need insights from data.

Analytics metrics can tell you why your customers are sticking around or canceling, which can help you prevent the latter. For example, Netflix uses big data to save over $1 billion on customer retention every year.

Here are some customer retention metrics you can track:

• Customer churn rate
• Revenue gained or lost from repeat customers
• Customer growth rate
• Active users (which you can track daily, monthly, or quarterly)

The Benefits of Workplace Analytics Metrics for Your Business

Keeping track of analytics adds another task to your or your management team’s plate. However, taking a data-informed approach to workplace management has a lot of benefits. Here are four of them.

Productive Employees That Stick Around

Not only are engaged employees happier, but they’re also more likely to show up to their jobs every day, produce great work, and stay with their companies for a long time. Plus, businesses with highly engaged employees generate higher earnings per share.

Higher Payoff on Investments

Using data to drive your decision-making is more reliable than basing your decisions on emotions or opinions. When you’re investing in things like hiring new people, developing your current employees, and growing your office space, use analytics to make safer choices that have a higher chance of paying off.

Increased Transparency Around Spending

One huge benefit of using workplace metrics is that they can help you see exactly where you’re spending (and wasting) money. You can easily see how much is going to your employees (and look at high vs. low performers), utilities, equipment, and office space.

Data makes it much easier to tell where you can cut costs, especially when you can look at your spending from a high level. For example, you might find that a certain department has employees with tons of free time, or that you have a whole room full of unused equipment.

Fewer Compliance Risks

Having accurate data around employee performance metrics and workforce demographics is an important part of protecting your company from compliance risks. For example, when letting an employee go or placing them on a performance plan, it’s necessary to have data that documents their poor performance.

A workplace analytics tool can also help you track how many times HR policies are violated, as well as bad customer reviews and the reasons for them.

The Top 3 Tools for Tracking Workplace Analytics Metrics

If you’re ready to start implementing workplace analytics metrics in your business, here are three tools to try.

OfficeRnD Workplace

If you have a hybrid company, hybrid work management tool such as OfficeRnD Workplace makes it easy to grow your business based on clear, accurate data. It allows you to quickly look at advanced analytics that can help you make smart decisions to drive employee engagement, productivity, and high space utilization rates.

You can use pre-built workplace reports to track your key performance indicators (KPIs) or build customized dashboards and reports.

ADP

ADP specializes in talent management metrics. You can use it to track recruitment efficiency, employee turnover, wages and benefits, and demographics. It’s also easy to create customizable dashboards to look at top performers, potential pay gaps your business may have, and areas where you can cut costs.

You can also compare your company’s metrics to your competitors and the industry standard. This will help you create competitive benefits packages that can attract top talent, for example.

Microsoft Power BI

Power BI can get data from many sources (like OfficeRnD Workplace and ADP), analyze it, and turn it into clear visuals. Unsurprisingly, it also easily integrates with all other Microsoft platforms (like Excel and Teams).

You can send these data visuals within your company, and Power BI lets you distribute them to your customers as well.

Make Data-Informed Decisions with OfficeRnD Workplace

Using workplace analytics metrics to make decisions for your business can result in less money wasted, an optimized office, and higher employee productivity. But you need the right tools in place to get accurate, reliable data that’s easy to understand.

OfficeRnD Workplace allows you to seamlessly track metrics around resource utilization, management strategies, employee engagement, and even team dynamics. Plus, you can easily customize your dashboards and reports, so you can focus on the information that matters.

FAQ

What is Workplace Analytics?

Workplace analytics involves collecting and analyzing data about employee behavior, productivity, and workspace usage to improve organizational efficiency. This data can include metrics on collaboration patterns, time spent on tasks, and occupancy rates of office spaces. By leveraging workplace analytics, companies can make informed decisions to optimize workflows, enhance employee well-being, and better utilize office resources, ultimately supporting a more productive and efficient work environment.

What Does Workplace Analytics Do?

Workplace analytics provide quantitative data so that you can make informed decisions for your business. They can help you manage your spending, reduce compliance risks, and retain top talent.

What Do I Need to Implement Workforce Analytics?

First, figure out what information you need and what you’re trying to drive (like productivity or higher morale, for example). Then find the right software that can help you gather and analyze the data that you need. Once you’ve analyzed your data, turn your findings into actionable strategies that you can implement to improve your business.

What Is an Example of Workforce Analytics?

A workforce analytics metric is a specific measurement of something you’re hoping to track and move the needle on. For example, you can track your current employee retention rate. Then, you can try to increase it by implementing strategies and monitoring if they affect your current metric.

How is Data Analytics Used in the Workplace?

Data analytics is used in the workplace to assess productivity, streamline operations, and enhance decision-making. By analyzing patterns in employee performance, collaboration, and resource utilization, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize workflows. This data-driven approach helps businesses make informed decisions, improve efficiency, and create a more supportive work environment.