IBM Targets Predictive Analytics at Hiring, Retention

As it builds more data analytics into its cloud infrastructure, IBM is trying to leverage predictive analytics as a new recruitment tool to help companies find and attract top talent.

IBM said it is now offering a talent consulting practice to allow companies to use predictive analytics and “workforce science” to identify the best candidates as part of a “Smarter Workforce” initiative. The cloud and computing giant claims 25 years of experience with workforce science, which it defines as a discipline that helps clients apply behavioral science, statistical analysis and psychological principals to find top talent and improve organization performance.

IBM’s consulting practice includes more than 100 behavioral scientists using social analytics and other big data tools to help identify top candidates and guard against “future talent attrition.”

The company said it documented in a recent study that human resources executives are most worried about disruptive trends and technologies that create competitive threats from organizations that were once outside their industries. Consequently, the pace of change has forced many organizations to rethink their hiring practices.

“A major challenge is the ability to attract and retain top talent while making sure the existing workforce is fully engaged,” IBM said in announcing the workforce consultancy.

Analytics is expected to play a key role in “managing change” within organizations. Hence, IBM is promoting its SPSS predictive analytics package that includes data collection and statistical analysis among other features. The statistical tool, for example, crunches corporate data to identify trends used to produce accurate forecasts.

IBM said it is expanding these generic predictive analysis tools to deliver three new cloud-based tools to build a “next-generation workforce.” Its “Kenexa” package includes a predictive hiring tool that provides access to workforce analytics and behavioral assessments used to develop “dynamic” job profiles used to ensure that the most qualified candidates are hired.

Kenexa also includes a “workforce readiness” tool designed to help clients assess their current workforce to help define employment roles and team design. A retention tool compiles high-volume data about a company’s workforce to identify employees most likely to leave and creation of incentives to reduce attrition.

IBM said it is offering a “data-driven approach that uses workforce science to predict the best fit for an individual or team across a number of personal and organizational traits.”

IBM said the predictive analytics tools for hiring and retention are available now and would soon be accessible through the IBM Cloud Marketplace. The company said it has so far invested more than $24 billion on big data analytics research and development as well as acquisitions.

What remains unclear for now is whether there is sufficient demand within corporate HR departments for such predictive analytics tools or whether IBM’s workforce initiative is a data analytics tool in search of a problem to solve.

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