Visier Customers Reap Benefits of Increasing People Analytics Maturity

Research shows Visier customers are continuing to benefit from increasing people analytics maturity. Read our updates to our 2021 report.

By Visier Team

5M Read

Access to insights is one thing, but it’s what you do with it that actually matters. Which is why in 2018 and again in 2021, Visier surveyed its customers on their people analytics maturity to see the progress they’ve made and the impacts they’ve had on their organizations. In both reports, we found that our customers’ practices have matured and have received value because of it—including better financial performance and people analytics expanding outside of HR.

In 2022, we continued our research efforts by conducting maturity assessments with half of these customers. We compared their practices to others in their industry and by employer size to explore potential opportunities for advancing their practices and learn what steps taken over the past year led to this maturity.

What we found were significant insights from even last year’s report, with promising advances of their people analytics maturity. Here are four updates that stood out, including the fact that Visier customers continue to outperform financially compared to benchmarks:

Update #1: Visier customers continue to advance their analytics maturity

People analytics process maturity ranges from manual practices such as using spreadsheets to track people data, to transformational—using people data as a competitive advantage for their organization.

In 2022, Visier customers are continuing to move up in people analytics process maturity. The number of customers who reported their people analytics processes as being “transformational” doubled, which means they believe their people analytics practice is a competitive advantage for their organization. Further, 50% of Visier customers are now in the advanced category—up from 32% in 2018. This means that Visier customers are continuing to evolve from people analytics process efficiency—getting reporting done in a timely manner—to using people analytics as a more strategic role in the business.

Visier customers continue to trend towards the “advanced” people analytics maturity category.

Update #2: The highest level of value trends towards “business outcomes”

“Business outcomes” is increasingly viewed as the highest level of value from people analytics.

Companies are also shifting their perspective on people analytics in general. Previously, people analytics was viewed as a valuable tool for HR, but more and more customers are seeing it as a means to business success. There was a 55% increase from 2021 to 2022 towards “business outcomes” being the highest level of value, compared to last year with “HR effectiveness” being highest.

While human capital management (HCM) systems streamline and automate the transactions between employees and employers—vacation requests, sick time, performance reviews, etc. for the purpose of efficiency and compliance—people analytics platforms like Visier can improve employee-related decisions that affect the entire organization. We refer to this bridging of people data to business outcomes as the people cloud.

Update #3: People data expands outside of HR

Leaders outside of HR are using people analytics in their decision making.

While historically, it was HR analysts or HR business partners who were using people data, our customers are starting to give finance teams and people managers direct and ad hoc access to these insights to make better decisions. In 2021, roles served by people analytics expanded outside of HR with advanced organizations beginning to serve finance and people managers. This allows those who are best equipped to make decisions to have better insights at the appropriate moments of need. In 2022, this trend continues with at least 50% of all customers serving finance and people managers.

Companies benefit when HR and executives have access to people data and can see trends and make predictions about the workforce. So why shouldn’t your company’s front line managers have the same advantage? Data-driven decision making outperforms guesswork.

Update #4: Visier customers continue to outperform financially

Visier customers outperform benchmarks on profit margin and return on assets.

Visier customers continue to outperform financially when compared to benchmarks on two key metrics: profit margin and return on assets. (Profit margin measures the profits generated annually from operations and is calculated as net income/sales, whereas return on assets (ROA) measures the return that business assets generate for investors and is calculated as net income/total assets.) Publicly-traded Visier customers have seen higher financial performance on these measures than the overall market for the past six years. The consistent overperformance since we started to run these correlations has also been tested through a cross-lag analysis which examines causal influences. This statistical analysis shows that its adoption of best practices that enable organizations to outperform rather than organizations with better financials having money to spend on people analytics.

We’re excited to see that Visier customers have continued to receive value from our product, not only for their HR teams, but for their organizations as a whole. If you’re interested in learning more about the value of people analytics or our research process, click here to download last year’s report: The Age of People Analytics 2021: Practices Leading to Value from People Analytics Maturity.