Planning in Uncertain Times:

Finance, business and economics professionals use trend analysis to identify past and present patterns in the market in order to assess business performance and make forecasts regarding upcoming shifts.  This information is then used to improve strategies with data-driven decisions. Read on to discover the ins and outs of trend analysis with examples of how you can use it to make strategic business decisions for now and as you plan to grow. 💡Key Takeaways: Trend analysis is the method of comparing an organization's financial patterns. It utilizes financial reports to forecast future performance or pinpoint patterns using historical data. There are three types of trend analysis in finance: uptrends, downtrends and horizontal trends. Sales patterns, expense reports and budget and expense tracking are a few examples. Identifying turning points can be challenging because historical data may not be available on certain data sets, such as new products or a newly hired salesperson's sales performance. What Is Trend Analysis in Finance? Trend analysis compares business financial patterns within an organization. It uses financial reports to forecast future performance or identify market trends using historical data records.   The process involves collecting data from prior performance records of past trends. Finance professionals use these records to plot the information onto a graph or chart to identify economic patterns. Using this technique, they identify trend lines–grid columns connecting data sets that specify market pattern fluctuations. Three Types of Trend Analysis You can calculate trend analysis using numerical data. Once you retrieve this data for trend analysis, you add it to a chart, indicating one of the three following market trends. 1. Upward Trend This trend is also called the "bull market" trend.  Uptrends mean that your data sets are on the rise. When analyzing your organization's valuation, this is the pattern you want to see.  However, when prices for operational expenses are on an uptrend, that means the cost of supplies and services for your company will increase, raising the cost of doing business. Understanding this data will help you determine when to raise prices due to these increased costs. 2. Downward Trend This trend is also called the "bear market" trend. When a market faces a prolonged price decline, we experience a down market. If an organization has more than a 20% decline, that company is going through a downtrend.  This trend is generally associated with a loss of business or a decrease in sales. It can also indicate a decline in performance. A drop in business asset valuation is another downtrend. It also applies when other financial and economic variables, such as stock prices, take a downward trend. 3. Horizontal Trend This trend is sometimes called the "stagnation" trend.  This trend indicates no upward or downward movement in sales, prices and other financial metrics. A horizontal trend exhibits a steady general direction.  However, making financial business decisions based on these trends is extremely risky because it is difficult to predict what will happen next. We recommend proceeding with caution when evaluating these trends. Examples of Trend Analysis Past events generally reflect future possibilities in business—and in life. You can use this strategy to detect patterns and determine if these trends will continue.  You can also compare data points over a specified period, key performance indicators (KPIs), sales performance and customer purchasing patterns, to name a few. For instance, trend analysis enables you to prepare sales commission forecasting reports to determine appropriate and cost-effective sales incentives, bonuses and additional performance perks.  Here are a few more examples of trend analysis in finance to give you a better understanding of this concept: Sales patterns: Financial analysts can review sales patterns to determine if they're rising or falling and what is causing these shifts. Sales patterns vary because of new customers, new products, or differing sales regions' specifications. Expense reports: Accountants can examine expense reports to confirm all payments are legitimate. It may substantiate the data to represent accurate trades to assist financial analysts in making fair and honest assessments and predictions. Budget forecasting: Financial analysts can estimate expenses and revenue to predict upcoming results and create budgets. Businesses benefit from budget forecasting to optimize profits and prepare for future downward trends. Expenditure tracking: Finance professionals can observe operating expense line items during any reporting period. It allows these experts to identify any abnormal expenditures to investigate further. Breaking Through the Data Limitations Identifying when there will be a turn in business outcomes is a significant issue in trend forecasting. These turning points are more evident retrospectively. Additionally, it is challenging to identify whether these turning points are simple deviations or the beginning of a new trend. Long-term predictions will require additional data points. But this information isn't always available—especially when there is a lack of historical data, such as the launch of a new product. Time is another issue when it comes to trend analysis of historical data. You cannot make predictions using information that is too far out. Time unavoidably introduces new and unforeseen variables. You risk making mistakes in your forecasts. To avoid making these mistakes,  examine your data and act only when you are confident with your numbers. Be aware of potential inaccuracies or relying too heavily on historical data that might not reflect current trends. For instance, some pre-pandemic statistics might not reflect current data points. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, 17% of the U.S. workforce worked remotely. Post-pandemic, It more than doubled, with 44% working from home during the global health crisis. Source: Statista Discover How To Excel at Trend Analysis Data availability for trend analysis enables improved data-driven decisions. It is an incredibly valuable tool for investors, business owners and finance professionals. Vena Complete Planning enables you to perform more in-depth trend analysis and leverage internal and external data. It's the best way to anticipate future events to enhance business intelligence and find more promising revenue opportunities.

With approximately 4,000 degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States, there are thousands upon thousands of finance professionals staffed with the responsibility of tuition planning and forecasting. 💡 Key Takeaways: Review your historical data, educational trends and external factors when making assumptions to forecast more accurately When working with a specific department or group of employees, use filters to narrow down your view Use templates to assist your tuition planning, budgeting and forecasting Accurate budgeting and resource allocation allow education professionals to create a better student experience, all while reducing the risk of a costly financial error. If this sounds like something you need, here are five tuition planning and forecasting best practices to implement immediately. 1. Start With Accurate Projections With so many unknowns, it’s natural to assume that tuition planning and forecasting is guesswork at best. But that doesn’t have to be the case. When you start with accurate projections, there’s a greater chance of everything else falling into place.  Answering these questions will help you and your team make more accurate projections: How many returning students are you expecting? How many new freshmen will arrive on campus?  How many students will live on campus? How many will live off campus? How does tuition vary between undergraduate and graduate students? What’s the enrollment for both categories? What’s the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition? What’s the projected enrollment for each group? The assumptions you make as a higher education finance leader depend on historical data, educational trends and external factors.  For example: Historical data: How many new freshmen has your school historically welcomed each fall? Has this number increased, decreased or remained relatively steady over the past five to 10 years? Educational trends: Is enrollment declining as more students seek employment directly after graduating high school? Are you losing students to local community colleges as a result of the financial crunch? External factors: The COVID-19 pandemic is the best example at the present time. For instance, many institutions are experiencing a decline in international student enrollment as students are unable or unwilling to travel to the United States for their education. A careful review of the past will help you make more accurate projections today and in the future. 2. Keep All Team Members on the Same Page It’s safe to say that you’re not the only one with your hands on tuition planning, forecasting and budgeting. And for that reason, it’s critical to keep all team members on the same page. Two things allow you to do this: Gather data in real-time: Manual data gathering is a thing of the past. Just the same, sharing data via email or printed reports is no longer a viable solution. Gathering data in real time ensures that everyone on your team has access to the same numbers. Dashboards and reporting: It’s one thing to have access to real-time data but another thing entirely to share data-driven insights with the appropriate party, such as a board of governors. With advanced dashboard and reporting functions, it’s simple to provide timely, accurate and easy-to-understand data and projections to anyone who requires it. 3. Use Filters When Applicable There are times when a big-picture view is important. There are also times—such as when speaking with a specific department or group of employees—when you must narrow down your view.  Here are some of the times when it makes sense to use filters: To plan student enrollment by cohort. For tuition planning by student type, such as in/out of state, domestic vs. international, undergraduate and graduate. When assessing revenue streams based on your enrollment management plan. Filters that are built into your templates allow you to make quick and accurate adjustments while also better digesting the data that’s available to you. 4. Model Multiple What-If Scenarios When it comes to tuition planning and forecasting, modeling multiple what-if scenarios is an absolute must. Models should address factors such as student enrollment, registered credits, cost of tuition, cost of room and board, student fees, etc. For example, models for student enrollment should be able to answer questions such as: What will happen if enrollment numbers decline next semester? What departments will it affect the most?  What impact does the potential for online learning have on enrollment? Can a tuition increase offset a trend of declining enrollment? Will student fees increase if enrollment declines?  What areas of the budget will be looked at first if enrollment and tuition revenue decline?  Without the right model in place, you’re unable to answer these questions. Subsequently, if one or more of these situations comes to light, you won’t be prepared to immediately and effectively manage it. Reminder: You can plan with agility with our higher education reporting software. Change assumptions on the fly, review the results and analyze the financial and organizational implications. 5. Take Advantage of Templates Templates save you time. Templates save you headaches. Templates keep all team members on the same page. At Vena, we have multiple built-in templates to assist with tuition planning, budgeting and forecasting. Some of the most commonly used include: Tuition templates Student fee templates Enrollment planning templates Room and board planning template OpEx and revenue planning template And of course, you can use these templates as is or build a new one from the ground up to meet your specific requirements. Summary These five tuition planning and forecasting best practices will benefit you, your educational institution and its many students. At Vena, we’re aware of the many challenges facing higher education professionals. And that’s why we created a complete solution for the higher education sector. With one solution for budgeting, forecasting and reporting—all with the flexibility of an Excel interface—you can quickly gain full control of circumstances while making more informed and confident decisions.

If your not for profit is struggling to finance the resources needed for your services—especially during times of uncertainty—you’re not alone. In a sector that heavily leans on government funding and private donors, many not for profits have had to pause their “non-core” programs, if not their core services, too.  With fewer resources, not for profits are suffering from staffing constraints—trying to maintain salary expenses at the benchmark of 65–70% of revenue—and they don’t have the people to provide these services. With fewer grants available as we approach year three of the COVID-19 era, to increase the success probability of your grant proposals, you need to prepare stronger, evidence-based submissions. In this blog, we’ll cover three questions every one of your grant proposals should answer, and how—with Vena’s Pre-Configured Solution for Not for Profits—you can strengthen your proposals with quantitative evidence. 1. How Much Grant Management Experience Do You Have? Grantors want to see how long you’ve been doing this. They’ll weigh your grant management experience in their evaluation of your proposal, so you’ll need to demonstrate your experience. Whether fair or not, it’s easier to trust—and award a large grant to—an organization that’s done it before. Take a look at the video to see how you can use Vena’s Grant Income template to report your historical, existing and planned grants. This template lets you create reports filtered by an individual grant or grant category—restricted, unrestricted or undefined—or all grants.   To watch the full episode of The Exchange: Not for Profit Meetup, become a Plan To Grow member and join the community. 2. What Is Your Grant Allocation for This Fund? Grantors need to see how you’ll allocate the grant for which you’re applying. How you’ll spend this grant is, probably, the most important question in their assessment you must answer, so you need to demonstrate that your allocation is cost effective. Grantors want to know their funding will be spent effectively and responsibly. See how you can leverage Vena’s Grant Allocations template to show how you’ll spend this grant by watching this video. This template lets you report your planned allocation by expense, by project and/or by month. 3. What Are Your Historical Grant Outcomes? Grantors want to know your prior grants have made an impact. They’ll consider the outcomes of your previously awarded funding when they review your proposal, so it’s critical to your success that you highlight that impact. After all, grantors want to feel confident that their grants will make a difference. Watch the video to see how you can leverage Vena’s Grant Utilization template to report your overall allocation and post-allocation spending. This template lets you create reports filtered by entity, department, restriction—and perhaps most importantly—by project to highlight the impact that each grant has made toward achieving your mission. Your Grant Proposals To generate more grant funding, your submissions need stronger, quantitative evidence of your grant management experience, your grant allocation and your historical grant outcomes. With Vena’s specially priced Pre-Configured Solution for Not for Profits, you can answer these three questions with evidence—empowering you to write stronger, winning grant proposals.

Your two most important assets are your people and your data. As your employees run detailed reports that contain confidential HR information, and these move along the workflow across the business—from person to person, between departments, internal and external—it’s hard to be certain that your employee data is protected. Sure, you want to maintain a transparent process, but you also know you need to protect your greatest assets. Are you confident that no one other than those authorized to view a specific report has seen that data? As compensation details, other payroll expenses and more sensitive employee-related data are passed along—often back and forth—do you know exactly who has access to what data? With governmental personal information protection laws (GDPR, PIPEDA, CCPA, etc.) and the increasing importance to safeguard your information against hackers, you need to ensure your employee data is private and secure. It’s especially important if you’re a high-visibility company that's subject to a greater risk of a data breach. In the spirit of “Safer Internet Day”—a global celebration on February 8 that joins stakeholders to make the internet safer for everyone—we’re focusing on better (and safer) employee data protection protocols for organizations and their people. Today, we’ll cover three signs that could indicate that your company needs better employee data protection when running reports. 1. Version Control Frustrations One team is spending time—a lot of extra time—manually consolidating data before you can run your reports. Because everyone worked off slightly different numbers that came from disparate data sources, a few employees now have to scour through every edit between v1 and v6 to assemble those edits, scan the changes and find the employees who entered that data to ask about their entries. That’s more auditing time—and people power—scanning through and passing around sensitive employee information during account reconciliations and financial consolidation.  If your best method is reviewing ‘Last Accessed’ or ‘Last Edited’ details when auditing, it’s difficult to retain confidence in knowing who worked off which version, what changes were made or with whom that data was shared. You need an audit trail—a drill down into the history of a spreadsheet for every cell and data point—and templates that you can leverage across multiple profit centers, rather than one template for every department. Without audit trails and data integration, you risk violating key foundational security controls.   Watch the video to hear J.T. Cecchini, General Manager at LevelUp Financial Partners, talk about using Vena for data restrictions and the risk of emailing company salary information.   To watch the full episode of The Financial Reporting Meetup, featuring J.T., become a Plan To Grow member and join the community. 2. User Access Level Uncertainty You’ve been given a report and have questions about something you’ve discovered. The person you asked doesn’t have an answer and is taking a while to get the information you need. If they’re unsure of who to ask, it’s likely your employees don’t know who has access to what information and who’s completed what tasks—whether inside or outside your organization. This is an indication your company isn’t following the following foundational internal control guidelines: Principle of Least Privilege: Employees should only have access to what they need to complete their tasks. Segregation of Duties: The assignment of tasks—within a process that involves shared responsibilities and multiple people and departments—to minimize fraud or error. If your employees don’t know who to consult when they notice inaccurate data—for instance, payroll staff seeing questionable variable compensation numbers and asking the wrong managers for confirmation—who will they ask? By sending information to the incorrect people for verification, it significantly increases the risk of your sensitive HR details reaching unauthorized users. 3. Offline Employee Database in Excel Your data is stored offline and your employees send reports back and forth through email. Without a central, cloud-based environment, you’re more susceptible to data breaches— especially if you have staff members who don’t always follow safe internet best practices.  And if you’re using Excel spreadsheets to hide and filter data manually, without the ability to track changes, you don’t know who’s viewing, editing or sharing this data. While there are offline options to secure Excel data, hackers can use Excel’s security features against it. This is where high-level encryption measures become necessary to thwart nefarious actors. Employee Data Security Vena’s Excel-based Complete Planning Platform has a role-based access control feature that lets you restrict or grant data permission to employees. The control system has an audit trail that drills down into the history of a spreadsheet—for every cell and data point—so you have complete visibility into, and control over, who has viewed what data and from where those numbers came (stamped with date, time and user). This adheres to information protection laws. The strict control system enforces the segregation of duties and follows the principle of least privilege, keeping unauthorized users from viewing, editing and sharing data. The platform has a built-in version control system that ensures everyone is working off the same data in the Vena Cloud—a secure, enterprise-class environment that’s encrypted with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit encryption and private keys managed by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Key Management System. As your employees run reports and confidential HR information moves along every stakeholder, with Vena, you can feel confident your employee data is fully protected. Celebrate Safer Internet Day by trying the Complete Planning Platform. You’ll discover how to better protect your two most important assets: your people and your data.

As companies pursue strategies for digital transformation in finance, CFOs are the key drivers of this digitalization. Digital technologies will transform every sector by 2026 and will continue to impact the future of finance. As a result, CFOs need progressive solutions to ease the transition.  According to a Garner study of over 2,150 professionals, 69% of business leaders say digitalization projects are increasing. As more organizations adopt digitalization measures, we expect these numbers to continue to grow.  This means CFOs will be called upon to work closely with IT departments as companies progress with their digital transformations. With this in mind, here's what CFOs need to know in order to drive digital transformation within their organization. 💡Key Takeaways: There are several key benefits to making the digital transformation. The most prevalent include streamlined processes, better decision making, lower risks, fewer errors and higher ROI. Roughly 93% of finance experts agree that digitalization must result in readily available data that remains centralized in the finance structure and is the default finance function. Upgrading internal systems and avoiding data silos from legacy platforms will help financial firms overcome roadblocks to growth by providing real-time data for analysis. Modernization of a financial firm's FinOp tools enables scalability. This scalability is essential for accounting professionals, like CPAs, due to the seasonal nature of their work. Key Benefits of Making the Digital Transformation To comprehend the true benefits, we must first understand what digital transformation is exactly and its impact on the financial industry.  In the video below, CEO of Third Stage Consulting, Eric Kimberling, explains what digitalization means and discusses the origins of this corporate buzzword.   According to Kimberling, digital transformation merely means the "use of technology to improve business processes." That includes anything from enterprise resource planning software (ERP) and digital experience platforms (DXPs) to cloud-based data storage solutions. These software programs and platforms simplify the day-to-day tasks of employees and  the daily operations of corporations. Here are the leading advantages of digitalization in the financial industry: Streamlined accounting and compliance Better planning and forecasting   Enhanced decision making  Decreased risk and higher returns Lower costs and fewer errors 4 Ways CFOs Are Driving Digital Transformation in Finance Roughly 93% of finance experts agree that digitalization must result in readily available data that remains centralized in the finance structure and is the default finance function. Unfortunately, past digital transformation in finance has been unsuccessful. Approximately 39% of industry leaders state that prior efforts failed to deliver the expected benefits, and only 36% report tangible advantages to their organization. Source: Gartner To improve the success of digitalization and automation, CFOs must commit to initiatives that will deliver the value necessary to make the transition feasible. Here are four ways CFOs can drive a successful digital transformation within their organization: 1. Upgrading Internally Built Systems CFOs must advocate for digital upgrades throughout the organization. That includes the company's IT tech stack, computer systems and on-prem servers, especially those that use legacy platforms. In-house technologies, such as CRMs, CMSs, accounting solutions and billing platforms, took an initial investment to improve internal processes. Without proper maintenance and regular upgrades, these resources become sources of revenue loss, data silos and human errors.  SaaS solutions and cloud-based storage services offer flexibility and increased security, and these products publish regular updates to their software. This ensures your finance firm's digitalization platforms remain up to date. 2. Avoiding Data Silos Legacy systems are not the only solutions that can create data silos. Organizations that use multiple digitalization programs must ensure that these systems automatically sync data.  For instance, if multiple users input information into your firm's CRM, this data must sync with your CMS, client portal, ERP, etc. That way, duplicate information does not clog the system.  Data silos create mountains of inaccurate data, creating roadblocks. Digitalization will help financial firms overcome these roadblocks to growth by eliminating data silos and providing better planning and forecasting with real-time data for analysis. 3. Optimizing Finance Operations Financial professionals perform a vast array of duties throughout their day. Digitalization enables the automation of tedious financial tasks to optimize operations. These solutions offer new technologies such as: Automated billing software Expense management tools FP&A software AI-powered client portals And more It's essential to understand what financial organizations can automate and how difficult adaptation would be. The chart below from McKinsey breaks down each task based on whether adoption is possible using digitalization technologies. Source: McKinsey & Company McKinsey Global Institution’s automation research discovered that financial firms can automate approximately 42% of its finance activities and mostly automate another 19%. Keep in mind how this automation potential improves performance. 4. Supporting Business Scalability Modernization of a financial firm's FinOp tools enables scalability. This scalability is essential for specific sectors of finance, such as those in accounting (i.e., CPAs). This is due to the seasonal nature of their work.  Furthermore, a digital transformation in finance allows businesses to scale up or down as needed according to budget. CFOs of small to medium businesses can recommend additions to the company's tech stack that will work for them no matter how many employees work for the organization. Tools To Accelerate Digitalization in Finance A digital transformation in finance is not something your company can tackle overnight. Full integration into your organization's tech stack can take a year (or even longer), and wise CFOs understand that digitalization is an ongoing process.

The CFO is one of the highest-ranking executives in a company. Most hierarchy diagrams will place CFOs on equal footing with other chief officers (e.g., CTO, COO, etc.) and have the CFO report directly to the CEO and board of directors. As a CFO, managing the relationships between your CEO and board is key for the successful leadership of the company. To continue your professional growth in the role of CFO, we compiled some key concepts to consider as you manage the relationship between the CEO and the board of directors. Key Takeaways: The dynamics between a company’s CEO and board is unique due to various factors and identifying these dynamics is key to effective relationship management as a CFO. CFOs need to respect the chain of command between them and their CEO while still developing an independent relationship with their board of directors. CFOs need to communicate with transparency and with attention to the financial background of their CEO and board to build trust and effectively share company knowledge. Identify Current Board and CEO Dynamics The first step in effectively managing the relationship between the CEO and board of directors for your company is identifying the current landscape of those relationship dynamics. Knowing where things stand can help you maintain what is currently working and navigate areas for improvement. This applies regardless of how long you have been with the company or serving as CFO. Take a few moments to evaluate the current playing field at your company. Many factors contribute to C-suite and board dynamics that will result in unique relationships from company to company. Some of the factors to look for in this evaluation process include: Number of board members  Size and nature of the company (e.g., private or public, number of shareholders, etc.) The level of stakeholder interest among your board of directors (i.e., how much of the company do they own?) Personal or external relationships between board members and C-suite officials (i.e., where do loyalties lie?) The history (what prior roles have these people provided for the company that might influence their decision-making lens?) It’s important to continually build your understanding of board and CEO dynamics as it will give you necessary context for communicating information or framing recommendations.  Source: Gartner Respect the Chain of Command With Your CEO As the head of your C-suite and company, the CEO can be your greatest cheerleader and ally when it comes to interactions with your board. Likewise, you are an important reflection of the CEO’s performance as the person who communicates the company’s financial position to the board. A co-dependency exists between the both of you for mutual success and maintaining alignment when possible is beneficial. In many cases, alignment means respecting the chain of command between you and your CEO. It’s essential to building trust, credibility and rapport that can reduce friction and help push your company’s mission along. Demonstrating this respect often boils down to communications with your board of directors and allowing your CEO to lead the relationship between the C-suite and your board. Conflicts and disagreements will inevitably arise, but learning to resolve those disputes without board intervention will help you maintain that united front. Are You a CFO in Training To Be a CEO? The CFO is often a natural successor to the CEO, creating an inherent tension between the positions. If you have ambitions about being a CEO in the short or long-term, you will have a decision to make about sharing that drive with your CEO. Being upfront about your career aspirations could ease that tension by reassuring your CEO that time is in the distant future. Ultimately, that choice will depend on your timeline and other dynamics with your CEO. Develop a Relationship With Your Board While Respecting the Chain of Command Respecting the chain of command with your CEO and board doesn’t mean you can’t have a relationship with the board that is independent of the CEO. You will have moments where you must present information to the entire board, and you will have opportunities to build deeper relationships in communications with related subcommittees (e.g., the audit committee). Be mindful of other dynamics when developing relationships in these opportunities will help you grow while still being respectful to your CEO and other C-suite members. Lead With Transparency for Your CEO and Board of Directors One of your core responsibilities as CFO is communicating key financial and operational data to your CEO and board along with collaborating on related strategy development. Your CEO and board will expect transparency about the state of the business derived from your data points.  Being transparent will be easier in some cases compared to others—particularly when delivering good news versus bad news. The challenge of transparency will be in times of delivering unfavorable or unexpected results. However, this is when transparency is most important for maintaining trust. Managing this part of the job will be about delivering the news with proper context and demonstrating that you have command over the situation. Know Your Audience When Communicating Financial Information as CFO Being transparent about communicating key financial data also requires a firm understanding of your audience (i.e., the CEO and individual members of your board). Part of this understanding comes from knowing the relationship dynamics discussed above. However, knowing your audience as CFO also means meeting the CEO and board members at their level of financial familiarity.  You likely have mastery of finances that comes with its own set of acronyms and jargon. Communicate more effectively by knowing when these terms will be overwhelming to your audience and identifying opportunities to integrate technical financial concepts to help the board learn and grow. Collaborate More With Your CEO and Board With Vena Complete Planning At Vena, our mission is to help transform how business, finance and operations leaders Plan To Grow™ with the Vena Growth Engine—the SaaS platform and methodology that empowers and inspires your plans guides your growth journey. Our wide range of solutions in FP&A, extended planning, regulatory compliance reporting and other business planning functions can help you and your teams improve processes, increase efficiency and enhance communication throughout your organization, providing numerous opportunities for C-suite members and your board of directors to access valuable data and collaborate on company strategy by leveraging insights derived from that data. Vena Complete Planning can benefit all industries—but we offer tailored programming for banking, insurance, higher education, professional sports, healthcare and many other fields. Transform how you share data with your CEO and board and surprise yourself with what you can build together.

The time is nigh. Or at least a possible recession may or may not be around the corner. With inflation and interest rates trending upwards, many economists are predicting a 2022 recession. That, understandably, has businesses of all sizes concerned. And while there’s no reason to panic yet, smart organizations know to be proactive. If that’s you, you’re likely already starting to try to figure out how to weather the possible storm ahead.  That starts with reevaluating your strategic workforce planning best practices and goals. After all, in a worst-case scenario, recessions can come with layoffs and other workforce adjustments. But when they’re not planned correctly (or avoided completely), layoffs can affect your ability to meet your business goals, bring down employee morale and threaten your company culture and productivity as a whole.   So how do you use workforce planning to recession-proof your business while still keeping your team working at its maximum capacity? We have five strategic workforce planning best practices to help: 1. Start by Assessing Your Existing Team If you do find yourself needing to make adjustments to your workforce in the near future, you want to be prepared. And that starts by getting a clear idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the workforce you already have in place. One of the strategic workforce planning best practices we recommend, then, is evaluating your current team. That means looking at all of the relevant data you have with a critical eye, to determine how everyone is contributing to your strategic goals, whether the right leadership is in place to guide them through turbulent times and what mix of skills you need to get you through to the other side of a recession. Where can you make changes to build new efficiencies or optimize what’s already in place? And would automation or new technology help?  This kind of workforce analysis will help you determine which layoffs and workforce adjustments will have the least impact on your business objectives—and where those layoffs can be avoided altogether.  But there’s more you might want to consider during this stage as well. 2. Create a Diverse and Resilient Workforce A recession doesn’t mean it’s time to throw out your commitment to the greater good. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are still important issues for many of your customers, partners and staff. And if you want to be a good corporate citizen, they should be for you as well. In fact, since recession-era unemployment rates are often higher for people of color (and even more so for women of color), now is the perfect time to prove your commitment to those ideals. Source: Forbes via Bureau of Labor Statistics But even more than that, a diverse workforce is often a more resilient workforce. According to Gartner, companies that demonstrate strong DEI practices during a crisis are often viewed more favorably—but those whose actions don’t align with the values they’ve expressed will be looked at less positively by the customers and stakeholders that help keep your business thriving. So when you analyze your workforce with the goal of recession-proofing your business, don’t forget your DEI goals. Instead, build a plan that keeps diversity and inclusion front and center. In this video, Vena Chief Customer Officer Debbie Lillitos discusses how workforce data and analytics can help fuel D&I—and why it's important to not take that data out of context. 3. Open up the Lines of Communication Our next tip? Don’t plan for a recession in isolation—get everyone involved. In other words, don’t surprise your teams with layoffs or other major changes that will affect how they do their jobs. It may be a tough conversation to have, but if you want to keep employee morale from sinking and keep productivity up, you need to prepare your employees and make them feel like they’re part of the discussion. If you don’t, you risk leaving your employees out on a limb and feeling like you don’t care about their well-being. So be transparent. Share the reality of your business’s financial situation and ask your employees for their ideas on how to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. In doing so, you make them part of the process, while also benefiting from a range of perspectives coming from throughout the organization.  The result? Maybe ideas will emerge that will make layoffs unnecessary. A reduction in hours, perhaps, or voluntary pay cuts. Or something else altogether—something you hadn’t even considered. Which brings us to number four… 4. Don’t Make Layoffs Your First Course of Action If you want to empower your business through the recession and be ready to hit the ground running when the economy turns around again, you need the right people on your team. You want those people to be experienced in your unique way of doing things, and happy and productive so that they’re giving you their best work.  For those reasons and more, layoffs shouldn’t be the first course of action in your recession plan. So why not look for other cost savings you can draw on first as you build out a plan to recession-proof your business? By reducing expenses, eliminating redundancies and reimagining business practices that aren’t adding to your revenue, you might be able to find the savings you need without laying off any staff at all. That way, as the economy turns around and your business does as well, you’ll have the team you need to keep up. 5. Don’t Forget the People Behind the Numbers And that brings us to number five—the last of our strategic workforce best practices. After crunching the numbers and considering alternatives, you may decide you can’t altogether avoid making cuts to your workforce. It’s unfortunate, but it happens. However, that doesn’t mean you need to make it worse for the people on the other side. To the people you’ve decided to lay off, that decision will be life-changing. So treat those people like, well, people—not just numbers on a spreadsheet. By being empathetic to their situation and addressing each layoff like the life-impacting event it is, you’ll show how much you really care. And don’t stop caring when the layoffs are over, either. Chances are the team that remains will be left doing more work than they were before, all while worrying about the future status of their own jobs. Programs that support mental and emotional health, non-monetary perks to reward work well done and continual communication can all be ways of making your team feel valued and safe. Any Other Strategic Workforce Planning Best Practices You Need To Know? Of course, this is all just a start. Preparing for a recession means creating a workplace planning environment that strives for continual improvement. That means looking for ways to constantly add efficiencies, stay agile and optimize the way you do business.  And if you want to truly be proactive, all of that should be in place before the economy takes a downturn. So if you haven’t already, start creating that culture of improvement now. That way, if the possibility of a recession turns into the reality of one, you’ll already have a plan in place that leaves as few casualties as possible in its wake.

HR data visualization, on a real-time dashboard, can generate insights into how your people affect your bottom line. Whether or not the Great Resignation will accelerate or subside in 2022, it’s still essential to track and monitor your most valuable asset—your workforce—to support data-driven decision making in HR. We’re uncovering 10 HR insights you can instantly generate by visualizing your people data—including a few employee well-being insights in the spirit of International Day of Happiness (March 20) that impact your bottom line—in Power BI, the only AI-powered, end-to-end reporting and analytics solution in the marketplace. By slicing and dicing data you’ve collected along your organization’s employee journey, you can monitor employee health and performance, track how these insights affect your bottom line and ensure you have the talent for your company’s objectives of today and tomorrow. What can HR data visualization do for your bottom line? Let’s explore 10 insights by following the employee journey, from candidate sourcing to employee separation. 1. Candidate Sourcing The first question: If you know a hiring manager’s ideal start date for a role, do you know how soon you need to begin sourcing candidates for that position? (We’ll circle back to this.) If you’re sourcing talent through referrals, internal transfers, your talent acquisition team and external agencies, you can determine which sources are most effective and which are least effective. If you track the source of hire, performance ratings and employee tenure, you can determine which recruiters source the best employees and which external hiring agency sources the employees who leave your organization the fastest. Making a low-quality hire is more expensive than hiring no one, so identify which sources produce the best hires and higher retention likelihood. 2. Talent Acquisition How are you turning candidates into employees? As your talent acquisition team moves candidates along your hiring funnel, you can monitor the pass-through rates and the average number of days of each hiring stage—from preliminary phone screenings to onsite or remote interviews, to the assessments and finally the offer period. When thinking about candidates who don’t become employees, you can analyze those reasons through your candidate data. Monitoring your candidate rejection rate may help you find causes behind potential candidates not completing applications, say if there was a recent change in your online process. Tracking candidate experience scores could indicate the likelihood that a candidate who isn’t hired will re-apply to your company in the future. And for candidates who receive an offer from your company but decline, that’s another data point you can follow to see how many declined and why. Every second one of your teams awaits incoming talent—especially so for a backfill—means lost productivity, so analyze your hiring performance to discover any outliers, trends or biases keeping the best people from joining your company. 3. Training, Learning and Development They’ve signed the contract—what comes next? As you onboard new hires through training and regularly deploy learning and development programs to all staff, you can measure the effectiveness of your programs for people onboarding, enablement and leadership development. By analyzing hours spent, program costs, budget and performance target scores, you can optimize training expenses by comparing employee performance improvement against the time and money spent on each program. You can also look for any correlations between onboarding experience and employee retention or employee performance. If you collect information from new employees on differences between job description expectations and job responsibilities, training sufficiency or their relationship with their manager, you may find patterns that inform you in optimizing training expenses to improve employee performance and retention. 4. Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging What people data do you collect? To slice and dice information collected along your organization’s employee journey, you need to know through which demographic parameters you want to analyze your people data. Here are some parameters: Age group Gender Geographical region Function Department Tenure Contract type Education level Ethnicity Sexual orientation Religion Disability Family Status Remember that some parameters can only be disclosed voluntarily by employees and candidates. But with more demographic parameters to analyze your people data through, you can generate deeper HR insights around how to bridge variances of employee experience on belonging and inclusion. Focusing on these areas can improve employee performance and retention.   Check out this video of Power BI Embedded, the only AI-powered, end-to-end reporting and analytics solution in the marketplace—now directly embedded into Vena’s Complete Planning platform. You’ll learn about scenario analysis, decomposition trees, predictive analysis and more. 5. Headcount Who are your people and how many do you employ? With the volatility of salary expenses, having an overview of your workforce to quickly view actuals, budgeted and forecasted headcount, attrition and retention—all filtered by month and year—helps you plan better. Whether you’re planning for growth or downsizing, having instant access to a real-time overview of your people will help you create more accurate HR budgets and forecasts when workforce planning. 6. Total Rewards Now that we’re on to salaries—what else does your workforce want? That’s why collecting deeper demographic data can better align your salary expenses, benefits and total rewards with the desires of your employees (and candidates). Remember to ask your people through surveys and to never make assumptions about what they desire in compensation. Do they need parental leave? Which observance days are important to them? What health benefits do they need? Are they interested in stock ownership? You also need to compare your compensation package offering against your industry benchmarks to remain competitive. With more data around total rewards sentiment available, you can better manage incentives to learn which types of compensation will best improve employee performance and retention. 7. Employee Performance How do they perform? You can track productivity by department, role, individual employee or leader. By assessing performance reviews and scores, you may uncover opportunities to raise productivity. Perhaps one department of your company needs more leadership training. Maybe the employees of one particular role at your organization don’t have the resources they need to perform well at their job. Is there one demographic that receives a significantly lower rate of promotion when compared to all employees? When you collect data behind individual performance, you can generate peer-to-peer performance learnings to help identify lower performers who need additional support and top performers to promote. And when monitoring promotions, you can see status elevations by job change, transfer or lateral movement. By discovering areas of performance improvement and promoting the right employees, you can raise organizational productivity—and ensure the most deserving employees receive a raise themselves. 8. Employee Engagement Do you regularly ask your people about their experience at your organization? Conduct a survey on their employee experience regularly and monitor the results from poll to poll to help determine if your organization’s initiatives to increase engagement resonate. If you analyzed one department’s feedback on their confidence in their managers and whether or not those employees would recommend working at your company to a friend, perhaps there’s a correlation with that department’s performance. If that department scored the highest amongst all your teams, that department's job openings could receive higher candidate referrals. Don’t forget to consider your company’s Glassdoor ratings as an external source, too, when collecting employee engagement data. Employee engagement affects performance and retention, so measure the efficacy of your engagement improvement efforts and their respective costs. 9. Employee Retention What level of tenure tends to exit your organization at a higher rate? Do you meet your retention target rates? By tracking your retention rates against your targets and industry benchmarks, you can learn which of your teams retain their employees longer, which need improvement and your average employee tenure—by role, function, team or department. You can also uncover which employee demographics exit fastest and which times of the year your company sees the highest seasonality of employee attrition. Hiring can be expensive and timely, so monitor your retention rates to avoid exceeding your hiring budget. 10. Employee Separation Why are your employees moving on? As your people depart, you can analyze their sentiment (compensation, growth or relationship with manager) as well as how your organization would categorize the separation (involuntary, voluntary non-regrettable or regrettable). As positions open, track—by role—your average time to hire and average time to fill. Those insights answer that first question we posited in the employee journey: If a hiring manager provides an ideal start date, do you know how soon to begin sourcing candidates for that position? With that insight, you can plan ahead to minimize the number of days a hiring manager lacks the talent they need for their team. This ensures your organization has the workforce for your company’s objectives of today and tomorrow. Now, could you plan even better, by predicting when an employee will depart and begin sourcing candidates even before they resign? Well, if you’re tracking and monitoring employee tenure by role, it’s possible. HR Data Visualization with Power BI Embedded With Power BI Embedded—the market’s only end-to-end reporting and analytics solution—now directly embedded into Vena’s Complete Planning platform, you can integrate AI-informed data strategies into company-wide business intelligence, enabling instant insights at scale for you to work smarter and faster—without requiring additional Power BI licenses. Using out-of-the-box interactive dashboards, you can turn data on your most valuable asset—your people—into real-time, actionable insights for every one of your users in their data-driven decision making. As you drill into your collected HR data, you should be able to visualize and review your unbiased data against baselines, generate insights and make proactive decisions about your people to impact your bottom line.