How LinkedIn are using people analytics to enhance employee purpose, retention and engagement

Raymond Huner, Director of LinkedIn Talent Solutions joined HRD Connect to talk about building your personal brand on LinkedIn and the power of predictive analytics.

Throughout your extensive experience in people analytics, what are the best ways to ensure employees remain purpose driven?

It’s not about focusing on your employees only to stay purpose driven. You have to focus first on what makes them purpose driven.

A LinkedIn study revealed that employees are purpose driven around three areas:

1. Relationships. For 38% of the Dutch professionals this is the number one reason to be fulfilled at work

2. Making an impact

3. Personal development

We work because we want to have a positive impact on others, experience personal growth and build great relationships. Good relationships in the workplace don’t happen by chance. They are the result of shared culture and values – and the best way to ensure that culture and values are shared is to embed them within your business DNA and live by them. That’s why finding a way to make sure they understand the company’s culture, to those who don’t work for you yet, is such the key element of building and managing a talent brand.

So it is not only about focusing on your goal, it is about focusing on the way to achieve your goal.

How can the process of predictive analytics help to retain employees?

We see that talent that is engaged on LinkedIn with the company they work for, is staying at a company for longer. For example, when a person is engaging with company content,  shares a lot of company information or writes blogs about company projects, that individual is more engaged with the company overall and therefore we know that that person has a lower risk of leaving. This is what for example what one of our products called Elevate can be used for.

How do you make digital engagement relevant and accessible for all employees, not just younger or tech workers?

In 2015 we introduced a tool called LinkedIn Elevate. Elevate helps companies empower their employees to share content. A lot of professionals share content, like articles, blogs and presentations on social networks to strengthen their professional brands. And lots of companies share content on social networks to attract talent and market and sell their products and services. By empowering employees to be social professionals, companies empower their business as well. For example, when a LinkedIn member shares six pieces of content, on average, they receive six profile views and make two new connections, which helps them strengthen their professional brands. At the same time, the company they work for receives six job views, three Company Page views, and one Company Page follower, which helps them better hire, market, and sell. LinkedIn Elevate helps companies and employees curate high quality content, share easily to social networks and measure the impact.

LinkedIn Elevate combines algorithmic recommendations from different sources, and human curation, to equip employees with a ready stream of relevant content they can share. Sharing is simple with the Elevate iOS, Android and desktop apps. Digital engagement via Elevate is accessible not only for the young and social savvy professionals but for everybody.

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By applying predictive analytics, how can HR Leaders adapt and innovate to meet future demands?

With LinkedIn we measure what part of the talent you want to attract is actually engaged with your company. We look at followers of your company on LinkedIn versus the total pool of relevant talent.

We also measure how you are doing compared to your peer-companies in terms of attracting talent. Therefore we use tools like Talent Brand Engagement and the Talent Brand Index.

With our Talent Analytics tool we can help companies to find geographical locations that have the talent they look for and where there is less competition in terms of peer-companies aiming for the same specific talent.

With these tools we help companies and HR professionals gaining knowledge about where to find the best talent so they can meet future demands.

Building your professional network has been made possible through the exponential growth of LinkedIn, do you have any special tips on building your personal brand on LinkedIn?

Building your network on an ongoing basis can bring you a lot of opportunities.

Don’t use your network only when you need it, but help others by sharing your knowledge and added value as a professional.

The 4 tips below can help you build your personal professional brand on LinkedIn:

1. Show what makes you special

The things you achieved is what distinguishes you from other professionals. You are unique in your qualities, personality and work experience. Nobody does a job in the same way that you do. Use your digital space to position yourself as the unique professional you are. Share your passion and talent using concrete examples and talk about who you are as a person.

2. Tell others what you are proud of

Of course it’s important to have an overview of where you worked and what training/courses you followed. This will help you be found by clients, companies or recruiters. But what makes them decide you’re really the right person for the job, is what you have done ‘on the job’. Using images and video, you can show which projects you’ve helped become a great success. This says a lot about your talent and passion!

3. Be generous and build relationships

The biggest misconception is that personal branding is mainly about taking.

It’s about giving! You share your knowledge, invest in relationships and give compliments to others if they share interesting information. Relationships are the key to success. This way you build a strong network, on- and offline. You can ask your network for a recommendation or an introduction to a company that seems interesting to you. Don’t wait until you need your network, then you’re too late.

4. Stay authentic

To get where you want to be, you need to know your own brand first. It’s important to be aware of your personal brand at all times. But above all, make sure you are authentic. For example: google yourself and see if the results you see are consistent with who you are or who you want to be. If there is a big difference, then you know your starting point.