There are many opportunities to use the vast stores of employee data in the Federal Government to evaluate potential issues and enact change at a large scale. But due to a lack of resources and systems to leverage these resources, many agency components are unable to do so. They focus more heavily on data collection and organization than they do analysis, and the result is a lack of data-driven decision making.
One of the areas most impacted by this is the annual MD-715 reporting. With every agency required to complete this reporting, it is integral to ongoing efforts to address potential gaps in diversity in the workplace. But due to this lack of resources, frequently it’s difficult to get past the data gathering and reporting to the analysis that will enable recommendations for change.
The Value of Federal Employment Data
In MD-715 reporting, the first and most important step is to ensure all data is organized and clean. Technology tools can streamline this process by drawing from existing sources in the National Financial Center to populate the tables. Information is already available, and for those who already use FedHR Navigator, EconSys’ Diversity Analysis tools help streamline the collection and organization process from start to finish.
By tapping into existing data sources and using technology to organize and create these reports rapidly, human resource specialists in agencies are subsequently able to spend their time analyzing and taking action based on the data.
Data-Driven Decision Making in Federal Agencies
Once MD-715 reporting is completed, agencies can use the results to look for potential triggers that need to be investigated. Barrier analysis allows them to evaluate what might be an issue and how it can be addressed to improve diversity in that agency. With more efficient data collection, they are able to invest time in analysis and decision making instead of pulling data together and building these reports in Excel, a time consuming and laborious process.
Management is able to visualize, summarize, and highlight pain points, and drill down to the specific data backing up those assessments as needed in the evaluation process. Not only can these analytics tools go beyond high-level reporting to get to opportunities for improvement, they can help to build action plans to remove barriers and address diversity gaps.
Taking Action on MD-715 Data to Drive Change for Federal Agencies
With the reporting that this process provides, management at all levels of government can start to evaluate and determine what issues are most impactful on the agency and then take action to address them–whether in the recruiting, interview, hiring or internal performance management processes.
To learn more about how technology can improve MD-715 reporting and support change, download our eBook, How to Shift from Data Gathering to Data Driven Decisions in Your MD-715 Reporting
