Unlocking the Power of Data for Successful Human Capital Management in K-12 Operations

Effective Human Capital Management (HCM) is a key factor in determining the success of a school district and its mission.
 
In a recent webinar, Susan Walters, Principal Solutions Consultant, Jen Hahn, Solutions Consultant and Stan Wisler, Strategic Account Advisor from Frontline Education, explored the crucial role data plays in Human Resources and best practices for creating a data-driven culture within a district.
 
Read on for more!
 

Creating A Data-Driven Culture

Stan Wisler walked attendees through “data-driven culture” at a high-level, and how it can be used to improve outcomes and build trust in school districts. As a school district administrator or HR professional, you should know your district’s data. When staff, board or community have questions, having this data be readily accessible and properly managed is a must. That way, decisions related to professional development, staffing and recruitment, expenses and rates, retention strategies and a whole multitude of other processes or concerns are informed by real circumstances and root issues, rather than gut feelings.
 
Now, a “data-drive culture”doesn’t mean that experience, judgement and environmental factors should be abandoned. Data doesn’t have to make a school environment rigid or sterile; data that is relevant, timely, and easy to understand can be complementary to these other sources of information. Data helps keep you current, enhances transparency and helps tell the story of your district.
 

“The goal is to turn data into information,
and information into insight.”

Connecting a Data-Driven Culture with the Best Practice of HR

By actively embracing a data-driven practice and culture, your staff can continue to ground your school’s culture in data and make important decisions based on evidence.
 
Here are three areas where data can make a huge difference when it comes to HR responsibilities and processes. Jen Hahn walked webinar attendees through ways that data helps pose and answer important questions and improve outcomes.

• Absences, and low absence rates: What is our substitute fill rate? Is our compensation effective?
• Recruiting, and withdrawal of applicants throughout hiring process:
  Which recruitment efforts work best?
  What is our open position fill rate and how many applicants per open position are there?
• Professional Development, and incompletion of professional development:
  What is our turnover %?
  What is the cost of turnover (financial and educational)? Do our current retention strategies work?

Using Human Capital Analytics Software to Drive a Data-Driven Culture

Susan Walters rounded out the panel by discussing next steps – implementation of data analytics in these previously painted scenarios. Human Capital Analytics and an HCM system can make all the difference when working through these issues, providing consistent reporting and standardized analysis and communication of trends.

• Using data to solve low fill rates for absences: You don’t want to assume compensation rate is the root cause. In many cases, there are other issues that can be addressed that don’t require more (or much more) money to be invested. Creative strategies can be implemented to attract substitutes to the positions that aren’t being as readily filled. Professional development resources can be used to encourage a wider pool of subs to fill roles that they might not otherwise.
• Using data to explore the connection between district hiring practices and retention:
  It’s important to start by examining how candidate and successful applicant pools are built. If you know word-of-mouth is a common way candidates find out about positions, for example, this might change the ways candidates are pursued. How can you give staff and community more tools to help them spread the word?
• Using data to perfect professional development strategy: Once applicants have been hired, think carefully about the professional development you offer. PD will help retain these professionals, who all have different needs and desires in their professional learning. Would more video, or on-demand access, be effective?

 
Here are a few advantages of Frontline’s Human Capital Analytics solution.
The software, in addition to helping you identify and solve issues those explored above…

• Consolidates data into one place
• Delivers turnkey analysis and trends of district workforce
• Reduces “Time-to-Insight”
• Creates graphical, easy-to-use reporting
• Frees up IT & HR resources, creating and maintaining complex reports
• Provides research and data that contextualizes K-12 best practices

Nadja Redmond

Nadja Redmond works with the content team at Frontline Education.