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\n Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. <\/p>\n
I want to talk to you about something important: the price of pho. A few years ago at the Vietnamese noodle joint around the corner from my office, a large bowl cost $12. Now it’s $17.<\/p>\n
How did my bill for the exact same meal jump almost 50%? It’s no mystery. Businesses of all kinds are wrestling with unprecedented inflation<\/a>. But that’s not their only challenge.<\/p>\n Even as the cost of doing business keeps climbing, geopolitical tensions are hampering trade and rattling stock markets. Meanwhile, employee engagement<\/a> is in the dumps, and finding the right talent remains elusive. Then there’s AI, which is disrupting work in ways we’re just starting to grasp.<\/p>\n The result is a business survivability emergency. It’s no exaggeration to say that companies today are facing an existential threat on multiple fronts. No wonder almost half of CEOs<\/a> believe that if their business stays on its current path, it won’t be viable in 10 years.<\/p>\n Here’s why companies find themselves in such a tough spot and how they can turn things around by better understanding the one resource that’s right in front of them \u2014 their people.<\/p>\n Related: AI Will Radically Transform the Workplace \u2014 Here’s How HR Teams Can Prepare for It<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n Despite all of our technology, people \u2014 the basic driver of any business’s success<\/a> \u2014 remain a black box at most companies. Today, we can get real-time insights on customers and prospects through modern sales and CRM tools. But when it comes to the people working alongside us, we’re often flying blind.<\/p>\n We’ve had people analytics for generations, of course, but they’ve been confined to spreadsheets and limited to HR wonks. And even when information about people is available, it’s typically siloed and inaccessible to the managers who need it most. At the same time, performance isn’t systematically tracked.<\/p>\n The result is a performance erosion crisis. Productivity<\/a>, in no uncertain terms, has flatlined. In fact, it’s now at a 75-year low<\/a> and is the number one challenge, according to executives.<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, half of employees<\/a> are disengaged, making them more likely to be unproductive or simply walk out the door, and three out of four<\/a> businesses are having trouble hiring skilled talent. As a result, 1.9 million manufacturing jobs<\/a> could remain unfilled in the U.S. by 2033.<\/p>\n And don’t forget the elephant in the room: AI. Employers reckon that almost half of workers’ skills<\/a> will be disrupted in the next five years. For companies, uncertainty about who to hire leads to inefficiency and churn. If people are expensive, that makes things even worse.<\/p>\n Just ask blue-chip stalwart Intel<\/a>, which is laying off 15,000 people \u2014 15% of its workforce. With revenue declining, the tech giant admits that it’s failed to benefit from AI.<\/p>\n In short, growth expectations are as ambitious as ever. But as productivity has stalled relative to operating costs, businesses everywhere are headed in exactly the opposite direction.<\/p>\n To pull through in these uncertain times, businesses must capitalize on their most valuable resource: now, more than ever, they need real-time insights that connect the dots between their people and business results.<\/p>\n What I’m talking about is categorically different from the people analytics of yesteryear \u2014 dense tables reserved for HR analysts. What’s needed are on-demand insights accessible across the company, in real-time. For people data to be useful, it must be intuitive enough for managers to use to drive daily decisions, big and small.<\/p>\n The good news is that while AI is a catalyst for disruption, it’s also giving businesses a workforce edge<\/a> when it comes to tackling the performance erosion crisis.<\/p>\n Think of the questions that every company has about how people impact business outcomes. Who are our top performers? Who’s most at risk of quitting? Where is productivity dipping?<\/p>\n Related: AI Is Changing the Way We Look at Job Skills \u2014 Here’s What You Need to Do to Prepare.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n New platforms let managers ask those questions in plain language \u2014 and instantly deliver a clear, actionable response. The best of these draw on a vast database of millions of anonymized employee records across industries to deliver tailored results and accurate benchmarks.<\/p>\nUnpacking the “performance erosion crisis” <\/b><\/h2>\n
How companies can come out on top<\/b><\/h2>\n