In business, actionable insights are conclusions drawn from business data that can inform strategic decisions and actions. Unlike raw data or standard reporting, actionable insights – which involve advanced reporting and deep analysis – help key decision-makers understand which steps to take to improve recruitment and hiring, business performance, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and other business outcomes.
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Actionable insights vs. raw data vs. standard reporting
Raw data is unprocessed, un-analyzed data. | Standard reporting puts raw data into more understandable or structured formats, including metrics, charts, or tables. It may involve some level of analysis – but not much. | Actionable insights inform strategic decisions concerning which actions the business should take. They typically involve advanced analysis and reporting. |
Examples: Employees’ start and exit dates Transcripts of employee exit interviews | Examples: The involuntary turnover rate A report that summarizes each exit interview by employee | Examples: Advanced reporting compares involuntary turnover rates for different departments, revealing that rates are highest for the sales and marketing departments Considering this, the company creates an advanced report with a bar chart that illustrates the most-cited reasons for departure given by sales and marketing employees. The top-cited reason for both groups is lack of support, so the company concludes that, to reduce its involuntary turnover rate, sales and marketing employees need better support structures. |
How to glean actionable insights
Finding actionable insights involves analyzing and interpreting raw and/or structured data – which provide you with some insights but don’t show the full story. This might involve identifying patterns, asking the right questions, and considering the broader context.
For instance, turnover rates alone don’t provide you with insights you can act on. But, they might provide insights when you 1) look for patterns (are rates higher in specific departments?) or 2) combine this data with additional context – like content from exit interviews.
This sort of analysis can help you draw meaningful conclusions and come up with an action plan.
You can also uncover actionable insights using technology. For example, data analytics tools that offer advanced reporting using sophisticated algorithms, AI, or machine learning capabilities can provide key insights, uncover hidden trends, make predictions, and more.
Here are some examples:
Talent assessment software like TestGorilla tests job candidates on job-related skills and qualities. It automatically scores and ranks candidates – helping you hire someone with the skills and qualities to succeed.
Digital marketing tools like Google Analytics enable you to analyze your business’s website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates. The insights you glean can help you adjust your marketing strategies, optimize ad spend, and improve customer experience and customer journeys.
Since technology can be flawed, it’s often best to complement its analysis with your own.
4 types of actionable insights
There are four different types of actionable insights in business.
1. Descriptive
Descriptive insights help you “describe” previous business activities.
Example: Your company has recently experienced a slowdown in recruitment.
Descriptive insights: Hiring reports help you discover when the slowdown occurred, which roles were most affected, and how the number of applicants compared with previous months.
2. Diagnostic
Diagnostic insights go further than descriptive insights by helping you “diagnose” the root cause of issues and other happenings.
Example: Your bottom line is suffering.
Diagnostic insight: The recent drop in sales volume is linked to an outdated product line that no longer meets consumer demands.
3. Predictive
Predictive insights help you “predict” the potential impact of business activities by using historical data and forecasting the future.
Example: You've observed that certain product categories tend to outsell others during specific seasons.
Predictive insight: Historical sales data helps you predict which new product categories will likely perform well during upcoming seasonal peaks.
4. Prescriptive
Prescriptive insights help you “prescribe” actions to take based on the data.
Example: You learn that time-to-hire increases every year around the summer – a time when several team members take vacations.
Prescriptive insight: Bringing in extra, temporary staff to help with hiring processes might help reduce time-to-hire during this period.
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Why are actionable insights important in hiring?
Actionable insights are key to running an effective hiring process. They:
Reduce time-to-hire. By helping pinpoint issues and areas for improvement, actionable insights help you streamline your recruitment processes and significantly reduce time-to-hire.
Improve candidate onboarding. Actionable insights help you improve candidate onboarding by showing where new hires may struggle or start to feel disengaged so you can offer more support.
Improve recruitment ROI. You can significantly improve your return on investment for your recruitment costs by uncovering opportunities to optimize your cost-per-hire and reduce wasted spend – for instance, by focusing on high-performing recruitment channels.
Support recruiter performance. Tracking individual recruiter performance offers valuable insights into how each recruiter is contributing to the hiring process so you can discover areas for improvement.
Enable better workforce planning. Predictive insights help you forecast future recruitment needs, enabling you to plan stronger recruitment campaigns.
Support a data-driven approach to candidate selection. Instead of relying on gut feelings or guesswork, you can base hiring decisions on hard data and select someone with the skills necessary to succeed in their new role.
Top tips for leveraging actionable insights to improve hiring
Here are three ways to use actionable insights to make informed decisions during hiring:
1. Fill skills gaps
Ask your current team to take skills assessments and collect real-time insights into your organization’s skills gaps. This will enable you to hire more strategically by specifically targeting new hires with the skills you need.
2. Use candidate assessments at the top of the hiring funnel
Using candidate assessments to screen all your applicants will give you a wealth of data you can use to uncover candidates with the skills, qualities, and potential you need. This way, you won’t miss out on qualified candidates you might otherwise eliminate during initial screening. Use a platform that automatically scores and ranks candidates to keep this process short.
3. Enhance candidate experience
Use the data collected from your candidate assessments to streamline your candidate journey. For example, if several applicants drop out of the process after a lengthy assessment, you may want to adjust test length to keep candidates engaged.
FAQs
What are the key attributes of actionable insights?
Actionable insights are derived from analysis of data. They’re based on a broader understanding of the business context (for example, customer data is usually best understood within the context of broader consumer trends). They’re actionable, meaning they help you understand a link between an insight and the action required. They’re also relevant and timely – addressing pressing business challenges at the right times.
Are actionable insights like SMART goals?
Actionable insights and SMART goals are related – but different. Both are specific, relevant, and timely. But actionable insights help you understand actions to take to improve business outcomes, while SMART goals involve a framework for setting clear, measurable, and attainable goals based on such insights. Both are used in business strategy, but SMART goals are commonly used in professional development, too.
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