Using enterprise social network (ESN) data for benchmarking is a sure-fire way to understand how departments, teams, and employees perform.
At a time when “35% of employers are grappling with changes in employee productivity,” HR managers need visibility across organizations to boost team performance, including monitoring community morale and ensuring new employee satisfaction.
That said, ESN benchmarking is not always easy to do. The manual way of benchmarking performance—working with spreadsheets and compiling reports—takes time and increases the risk of inaccuracies.
That’s where an ESN benchmarking feature comes in—it’s a game-changing way to understand and guide team performance using your Workplace, Yammer, and Teams data.
What is benchmarking?
Benchmarking is a data-based comparison system that organizations use to monitor and improve productivity.
ESN benchmarking allows HR managers to compare social network engagement activity (e.g., between departments) with the ultimate goal of improving overall performance.
Give any department a performance tune-up
With your analytics and benchmarking tools’ help, it’s easy to set up and activate the comparison process.
Start by segmenting the population of members you wish to compare. Within a few clicks, you can sort the members by department (e.g., IT, marketing, or sales) and by criteria such as location or seniority level (which can be pulled from the members’ Workplace profiles).
From there, you can use the benchmarking feature to create and implement your performance-improvement strategy.
Here’s a three-step process to guide your benchmarking efforts:
1. Identify performance metrics
Once you have your members segmented, choose the performance metrics you wish to analyze and compare.
Tapping into groups’ ESN activities will help you understand why performance levels have changed.
For instance, maybe your national sales departments are getting varying results. The teams’ social network interactions (or lack thereof) will help you identify areas of concern.
2. Analyze the data
Now, it’s time to drill down into the data to uncover the performance ‘story.’ Let’s say you want to compare executives’ interactions with employees across the organization.
Their social network activity, such as the number of daily posts and comments they contribute, will help you understand where possible performance gaps exist.
You can also analyze the data across multiple locations. That might include comparing executive teams’ employee interactions between New York, Tokyo, and Paris offices.
Additionally, the benchmark tool will help you understand a community’s ‘health’ status in different areas of the organization. Is one Workplace group thriving with consistent shares, comments, and posts? Maybe a similar group’s activity has dropped off —possibly due to a change-management issue.
3. Provide accurate, useful feedback
Once you identify performance metrics and understand where possible gaps exist, working on improving performance can begin.
That said, giving feedback is not always easy.
Start by showing team managers where performance problems exist, using the accurate and specific ESN data you’ve collected. The data ‘proof’ will help you steer managers and teams toward correcting and improving performance.
Also, having access to precise information allows you to build and implement successful performance strategies—without the risk of subjective assumptions creeping in.
On the practical side, HR managers can create a sharable report and get the information to the right team leaders—with minimal effort.
Conclusion
Benchmarking is an effective way for HR managers to compare segments of members and identify where performance levels need a boost.
Using the ESN benchmark feature consistently allows managers to monitor and maintain progress over time.
Additionally, HR managers can identify and nurture strengths and successes—such as the marketing team’s latest campaign victory or the sales department’s record-breaking numbers.
Ultimately, the ESN benchmarking tool will make your comparison tasks more manageable, the analysis more accurate, and the feedback highly valuable.