From “I’ll Get Back To You” to “Here’s the Answer”: Real-Time Workforce Insights for HR

The boardroom moment every HR leader knows

There’s a particular kind of dread most HR leaders know well.

You walk into a board meeting with a well prepared pack. You’ve answered the questions you were asked to prepare. You’re ready.

Then the conversation shifts:

• “What’s going on with time to fill, and where are our bottlenecks?”
• “Are we seeing any change in hiring quality?”
• “What’s our attrition trend in the last quarter, by team or manager?”

You know the answers exists. But you also know they’re spread across systems, spreadsheets and people. Getting a reliable answer means time, coordination and follow up.

So HR falls back on a familiar line.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

For Anne, this isn’t hypothetical – it’s a lived experience.

For decades, that gap between the question and the answer has limited HR’s influence.

Today, that gap is finally starting to close.

Moving from admin to strategy: what actually changes?

For years, HR has talked about “moving from admin to strategy”. In reality, many teams are still spending large parts of their day on:

• Updating templates and compliance letters 
• Chasing approvals and managing workflows
• Building one‑off reports explaining what happened last quarter

None of this disappears. Compliance and process will always matter. But they don’t elevate HR’s role.

Anne draws a clear distinction:

The real shift happens when HR can:

• See patterns and risks leaders can’t see yet
• Use connected, current data, not static reports 
• Turn insight into recommendations, not just charts
• Do it in the moment, while the conversation is happening

Imagine being able to say,

“Our attrition rate last quarter was 14%, but the risk isn’t evenly spread. One manager’s team is trending upwards with exits linked  to workload. Certain roles are experiencing higher turnover and longer vacancy periods than comparable roles elsewhere in the business.
Here are the actions we can take now to prevent this escalating.”

That’s the difference between an administrative function and an intelligence function.

And for Anne, the emotional weight of that change is signficant:

The hidden cost of “I’ll get back to you”

Every time HR has to leave the room to “get back” with an answer, there’s a cost:

• Time: hours or days spent pulling data from multiple systems, rebuilding reports, and validating numbers.
• Momentum: decisions stall, discussions lose energy, and teams move ahead on gut feel
• Credibility: HR’s influence weakens when answers aren’t available when needed most.

When HR can answer confidently in the moment, or enable leaders to explore the data themselves, three things change.

1. The tone of the conversation
   HR moves from explaining what happened to advising on what to do next.
2. Executive expecations
   Leaders begin to see HR as the place to go for workforce intelligence, not just policies and processes.
3. The emotional experience for HR leaders
   Those “nightmare” board moments where you’re bracing for the one question you can’t answer?
   They turn into opportunities to demonstrate value instead of fearing you’ll lose credibility.

What makes this possible now

This shift isn’t about working harder. It’s about the foundations finally being in place.

1. Centralised, connected data

Instead of information living in silos – recruitment in one system, learning in another, payroll somewhere else, HR has a single source of truth.

Headcount, budgets, onboarding, performance, turnover, learning are connected, current and consistent. 

2. AI-powered analytics and natural language

ELMO Insights is designed to be the intelligence layer of ELMO’s next-generation HR platform.

It allows HR leaders to:

• Ask plain‑language questions (for example, “What’s our attrition rate by manager over the last 12 months?”)
• Instantly see the most effective visualisation
• Work from near real-time data, refreshed on an hourly cycle

There’s no need for SQL or a dedicated analyst for every question, just strong governance and the right platform.

“The dream is: if there’s one question you repeatedly get asked, you can have the answer at your fingertips. In a world of AI‑powered insights, that’s no longer a fantasy – it’s something HR can genuinely expect from their tools.” – Anne Tosky, Chief People Officer

3. Role-based access with built-in guardrails

Democratised insights don’t mean a free‑for‑all. 

With role‑based access, people see:

• The data relevant to their role
• In a format they can understand and act on
• With privacy and compliance built in from the start

That’s how line managers make better decisions, without compromising sensitive information.

Not every strategic question will be answered instantly. Some will always require deeper analysis or external data. But far fewer conversations end with, “We’ll have to get back to you.”

The conversation HR has been working towards

HR professionals have been talking about this shift since the early 2000s:

• Less time on manual reporting
• More time on strategic partnering
• HR as a source of real‑time workforce intelligence

For years, the technology simply wasn’t ready.

Now it’s realistic to imagine a world where:

• Board meetings use live dashboards, not static slides
• Workforce questions are answered on the spot
• Employees see data-backed career pathways
• HR, Finance and business leaders are working from the same numbers

The line “I’ll get back to you” won’t disappear forever. There will always be complex questions that deserve deeper work.

But the baseline expectation is changing.

The HR teams that embrace real-time workforce insights now will help shape strategy—not just report on it after the fact.

And that may be the most important shift of all: moving from explaining yesterday to guiding what happens next.

Want to see it in action?

Watch the replay of our ELMO Insights demo, or book a call with our team to explore what real-time workforce intelligence could look like for your organisation.

Watch the webinar