Since Buffer’s historic announcement, large and small companies alike from supermarket chain Whole Foods to marketing analytics startup SumAll have enacted open salary policies and made employee compensation data available internally to all employees. Travel insurance company Squaremouth takes it a step further and turns transparency into accountability by giving its employees the power to vote to approve or deny their coworkers’ requests for a raise.

Why is this open salary trend sweeping the nation? The Millennial takeover of the workforce has transformed many aspects of the workplace, including which topics are and are not taboo for workplace discussion. Since the Millennial generation is accustomed to sharing personal information via the internet and social media, it’s not entirely surprising that they feel comfortable discussing salary with coworkers. For this reason, it’s likely that word about employee compensation will get out, whether you want it to or not.

More importantly, many industry experts suggest that being transparent about compensation can have many positive outcomes for your company. Let’s explore how an open salary policy could generate equality, an atmosphere of trust, and higher quality employees within your organization.

Equality

According to the 2014 U.S. Census, women are still paid an average of 79 cents for every dollar that men make. April 12 marked Equal Pay Day 2016, the symbolic day when white women’s earnings matched their male counterparts’ earnings from the previous year. But did you know that the pay gap is even wider for women of color? Equal Pay Day won’t come until August 23 for black women, September 13 for Native American women, and not until November 1 for Latina women. How can you eliminate such inequities in your company? With open pay policies. “Salary transparency is the single best protection against gender bias, racial bias or orientation bias,” said Dane Atkinson, CEO of SumAll.

A 2012 study published in the Penn State Law Review indicated that open salary policies do in fact narrow the wage gap. For instance, the study cited that the gender pay gap for all U.S. full-time workers, based on median annual earnings, is 23 percent. However, in the federal government, where salaries are transparent and available to the public, the gender wage gap is only 11 percent.

“I’ve unfortunately acted evilly in the past where I’d meet with a woman and a man and they’d both offer themselves up at different salary ratios and I’d happily pick whatever they were looking for,” said Atkinson. These blunders, Atkinson said, will “come back and haunt you.” According to Atkinson, open salary policies lead to “more conversation about salary” and demonstrate a “desire to correct salaries along the way.”

Many big tech companies are beginning to agree that transparency is the way to go. At the insistence of Arjuna, a subsidiary of investment firm Baldwin Brothers, organizations such as Intel, Apple and Amazon have released details regarding what their female and male employees make. Intel reports 100 percent gender pay equity, whereas Amazon and Apple report 99.9 percent and 99.6 percent equity, respectively. By releasing this information to employees and the public, the companies are publicly recognizing the inequalities that exist within their organization as well as pledging to close the gap.

Follow these companies’ example and take a step toward equality in your workplace by implementing an open salary policy.
 

Trust

Open salary policies can do more than close the gender wage gap. Being transparent about pay also creates an atmosphere of trust.

Why is earning employees’ trust important? Research indicates that trust fosters creativity, conflict management, empowerment, teamwork, leadership and higher performance in employees. However, only 49 percent of U.S. employees trust their senior management. Want to make progress on gaining your employees trust? Then it’s time for an open salary policy.

“Open salary policies mandate truthfulness and ethical behavior in organizations that would otherwise abuse the secrecy,” said Atkinson. Whole Foods co-founder and co-CEO agrees with Atkinson: “if you’re trying to create a high-trust organization, an organization where people are all-for-one and one-for-all, you can’t have secrets,” said John Mackey, in reference to the need for pay transparency.

Employees of pay-transparent companies appreciate the dynamic that these innovative policies have created. For example, adapting to an open pay policy was “both uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time,” according to SumAll employee Scott Pollack. “It removes a layer of something that can be frustrating in other companies. Knowing your colleagues, either they know something about you or you about them. But here it removes that layer and you can focus on doing the best work you can do.”

In a workforce full of Millennials who are accustomed to sharing personal information, it’s likely that salary information will get out whether you want it to or not. “I’ve never been in a company where salaries haven’t leaked out at some point and caused a huge amount of damage,” said Atkinson. You might as well beat the mistrust and confusion brewing in your workplace by implementing full pay transparency.
 

Higher Quality Employees

Some companies are staunchly against salary transparency because releasing the information “is too disruptive, and not worth it,” says Kevin Hallock, dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Conversely, HR expert Sharlyn Lauby argues that “misunderstood pay can be a huge distraction—for both the employee and the company.”

According to a 2015 study coauthored by Peter Bamberger, pay secrecy is linked to lower employee performance and a higher likelihood of quitting when employees suspect unfair criteria for setting pay. The study also suggests that people would rather look for a new job than ask for a raise. Atkinson found this hypothesis to be true at SumAll—since enacting the open salary policy, SumAll’s employee turnover rate has been less than 10 percent.

Pay-transparent companies have also experienced an increased number of job applicants. For instance, in the 30 days after Buffer announced its open salary policy, the company received 2,886 applications for job openings in comparison to the 1,263 it received in the month before the announcement. In addition to a higher volume of applicants, some companies believe that open salary policies have led to better quality hires. “Because people who think they’ve earned their salary and have no issue with that tend to be better teammates,” Atkinson said.

Implementing an open salary policy is a commitment to transparency, equality and trust. Be prepared for people who value these principles to flock to your company.

In a candidate-driven job market, companies are always looking for ways to appeal to candidates and retain the best employees—pay transparency might be exactly what your company needs.

What are your thoughts on open salary policies? Sound off in the comments!

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1. Choose a clean, professional font

Resumes are just not the place for Comic Sans or a curly, cursive font. The average recruiter spends just six seconds looking at a resume, but you can guarantee it’ll be even less than that if you use a clunky, difficult-to-read font. Resume experts recommend using a clean sans serif font consistently throughout the resume.

2. Be clear

Recruiters look at thousands of resumes a day. They want to find the information they need as quickly as possible on your resume. Don’t want your resume to be thrown out unnecessarily? Then visibly state your name and current position at the top, include dates by each of your previous roles and be sure to clearly identify each of the different sections.

3. Nix the objective statement

Nine times out of ten, objective statements are vague and superfluous. If your objective statement resembles something along the lines of “seeking a challenging position…”—just take it out. Obviously, you are seeking a job, or else you wouldn’t have submitted your resume. So get rid of the objective statement, and use the extra space to make sure your experience matches up with the job description.

4. Take out school experience

While we’re eliminating unnecessary components, go ahead and remove your high school job and college club memberships from your resume. There’s simply not enough space on your resume for things that aren’t absolutely relevant to the position you’re applying for.

5. Less can be more

When writing about your relevant experience, don’t go into copious detail about each of your duties. Instead, use bullet points to concisely summarize your accomplishments, and try to include as many pertinent skills as possible. Removing unnecessary articles like “a”, “an” and “the” can help cut down your word count, as well.

6. Quantify your success

Along those lines, replace the qualitative descriptions of your work achievements with quantitative explanations. Adding in numbers, dollars and percentages will help prove your success. For example: “Planned and coordinated a fundraising event that resulted in $500,000 of revenue” or “Increased website traffic by 40%” or “Managed 10 client accounts”.

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“Tell me about yourself.”

This is a common way to start a phone or in-person interview, and it is also a great way to start a video interview. It allows the candidate to warm up and feel more at ease about the potentially awkward technology situation. Additionally, it’s always interesting to learn about candidates from what they decide to share. You might be surprised by how much you can learn about a candidate without asking specific questions.

“Why do you want this job?”

This question is crucial for two reasons: first, it shows whether or not the candidate has researched your company and fully understands the role they’re interviewing for; and secondly, it indicates whether or not the candidate has real passion for their work, your company, and your industry.

“What kind of work environment do you prefer?”

One of the biggest obstacles of video interviewing is determining if the candidate would fit in well with your company culture or not. This question is the great way to gauge cultural fit. Does their ideal work environment match the one you can provide?

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Get a fuller picture of the candidate by assessing their career aspirations. Would your company be a step along the path to success or the final destination for the candidate?

“What kind of qualities do you look for in a boss?”

Because of the virtual setting, your interactions with the candidate may be stunted in comparison to how they could flourish face-to-face. Asking this question can help you understand what candidate hopes for in a leader, and if those qualities match the ones that the boss possesses.

“If you were here in-person, is there anything that you would do differently?”

According to a 2013 study published in Management Decision journal, researchers found that interviewers perceived the candidates they video-interviewed less favorably than those they interviewed in-person. First of all, make yourself aware of this unconscious bias that might cloud your judgment of a candidate. And secondly, ask this question to get the candidate’s perspective and see how the interview might have changed in a different setting.

A survey of over 700 people conducted in July 2015 revealed that over 70 percent of these professionals had used real-time video interviewing in their hiring processes—it seems that this trend is evolving into something more permanent. Embrace the future of recruiting and continue to find the right candidates by including these questions in your video interviewing process!

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Embrace social and mobile recruiting.

You’ve heard about the importance of social and mobile recruiting, and you’ve been meaning to ramp up your tactics, but…no more excuses! Your first recruiting resolution of 2016 should be to create or enhance your social and mobile recruiting strategies.

Let’s talk about mobile recruiting first. This year, the number of smartphone users in the United States will grow to 198.5 million, and 90 percent of these tech-savvy Americans will search for jobs on their phones. Of that 90 percent, about 44 percent will apply to jobs directly from their phones. That being said, you can’t afford to ignore mobile recruiting any longer. Make sure that your company website, career site and all other pages are optimized for mobile use, and rework your lengthy application process. Applications should be relatively short and easy to fill out on a mobile device—one popular tactic is to accept LinkedIn profiles in lieu of formal resumes. More than one-third of companies have already taken steps to improve mobile recruiting, according to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management. Don’t get left behind.

Now, time to talk social. With 156.5 million Americans on Facebook, 66 million on Twitter, and 122 million on LinkedIn, social media is no longer an area that recruiters can afford to ignore. In fact, LinkedIn’s 2015 U.S. Recruiting Trends Report indicated that LinkedIn has surpassed online job boards, corporate career websites and referrals as the best place to find quality hires.

Image courtesy of HRSmart.com

Aside from using social media to search for high-quality candidates, make a resolution to step up your social media game. Create profiles for your company and interact with potential job candidates in order to build your employer brand, and spend extra time on social media advertising in order to attract fresh talent. This is a resolution you won’t regret.

Strive for diversity.

Next on your list of recruiting resolutions should be to make diversity a priority—as a recruiter, you are in a unique position to increase diversity within your company. Not only is being inclusive in hiring people from different backgrounds the morally right thing to do, it is also good for your business.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review revealed that diverse companies were 45 percent more likely to experience growth in market share, and 70 percent more likely to capture a new market than non-diverse companies. Why? When you bring together a group of people from different backgrounds, ideas are challenged and innovation is unleashed.

According to Katherine Phillips, an associate professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, diversity actually enhances group work. “The mere presence of diversity in a group creates awkwardness, and the need to diffuse this tension leads to better group problem solving,” Phillips says. Meanwhile, in groups that represent cultural fit—meaning groups full of demographically homogenous and similarly minded people—members are more likely to blindly agree on everything, rather than cause any disturbance in the group dynamic. Overall, diverse groups have been found to complete tasks better than non-diverse groups do.

So, what can you do to diversify your recruiting efforts? Try recruiting from a different candidate base than you normally do. Use this gender decoder tool to see if your job descriptions are subtly deterring one gender from applying. Enlist the help of intelligent sourcing tools that aren’t susceptible to human bias. Finally, set some goals for yourself. Need some inspiration? Pinterest recently hired its first head of diversity in an attempt to increase the hiring rate of women in engineering roles to 30 percent, and increase the hiring rate of minorities in non-engineering roles to 12 percent.

Follow Pinterest’s progressive example. 2016 is the year that you need to finally get serious about diversity.

Think like a marketer.

With the job economy looking the best it has looked since the Great Recession, you should make it a priority to model yourself off of your pals in the marketing department.

As of November 2015, there were 3.8 million job ads listed on online job board Indeed. How will you make sure that your jobs stand out from the others? You’ll need to put your marketing hat on. First, revisit your job descriptions to confirm that they are written in an appealing fashion that will attract your ideal candidate. Secondly, do some research on the basics of search engine optimization to ensure that your job ads are easily searchable. Next, reevaluate the placement of your job ads. Are they being seen by the right people? Perhaps your desired audience would be more likely to see your ad on social media than on a job board, for instance. Learn how to use marketing analytics to guide your efforts.

In a candidate-driven market, recruiters have to work harder than ever to land the best talent. Make a conscious effort to think like a marketer this year—you will thank yourself later.

Construct your employer brand.

Though it may not be included in your official job description, you should vow to take an active role in shaping and exemplifying your company’s employer brand this year.

An employer brand is how employees, customers, potential job candidates and the general public collectively perceive a company. It’s important to create a unique personality for your company, because employees and candidates alike want more than just a paycheck from their job. Employees want to believe that their company is more than some cold, corporate machine.

So, what can you do? First and foremost, enhance your company’s career site. Your career portal might be the first experience that a candidate has with your company, so make sure the site is engaging and effectively tells your company’s story. Consider making recruiting videos to help showcase your company culture. After all, one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words, according to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research.
Additionally, your company.

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1. What does your desk look like?

A. Cluttered with technology: your tablet, work cell phone and personal cell phone are easily accessible, and at least two computer monitors are up and running. There are also a few coffee mugs and pendants emblazoned with your alma mater’s logo.

B. Bright and colorful! You have lots of photos of family and friends, and there are fresh flowers and plants for good vibes.

C. Neat and orderly. You have a large desk calendar for keeping track of appointments, and there are interesting articles and news stories pinned to the walls.

D. It’s a bit of an organized mess. Your coworkers might not be able to find anything on it, but you know where everything is!

2. Your boss just assigned you to a new open req. What is the first thing you do?

A. Rack your brains and scan your social networks. You’re pretty sure you already know someone who would be a perfect fit for the job.
B. Call the hiring manager to determine what kind of person would be the best fit for the position—do they need a compassionate employee? An ambitious employee? A collaborative employee? Matching candidate personality to job personality is key!
C. Begin writing a carefully crafted job description to post on multiple job boards. You make sure that the description is thorough and clearly states what the required skills and experience are.
D. Look through your short list of high potential candidates, and start banging out phone calls. You want to fill this position as fast as possible.

3. If your coworkers had to compare your working self to a character from a TV show, who would they choose?

A. Lisa Vanderpump from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
B. Phil Dunphy from Modern Family
C. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory
D. Olivia Pope from Scandal

4. You’re going to an event with your significant other, and word on the street is that there will be a C-Level executive in attendance that would be beneficial for you to meet. What’s your game plan?

A. You find out who your mutual acquaintances are so you’ll have a reason to strike up a conversation and an immediate connection.
B. You’re aware that an important person will be there, but you won’t spend your entire evening trying to find them and introduce yourself. If you happen to meet them, great! If not, it just wasn’t meant to be.
C. You extensively research the executive and create a detailed list of talking points to guide your conversation.
D. You don’t need a plan—you love a good challenge. Besides, your confidence and winning personality have never let you down in the past.

5. What is the most important thing you look for in a candidate?

A. A good reference from someone you trust.
B. The right personality. It’s about more than what you can find on a resume!
C. Skills and experience. Can the candidate do the job well or not?
D. Candor. You want a candidate who is upfront and honest about what they have to offer, but is also confident in their ability to excel in the job.

6. How many close friends do you have?

A. It’s hard to say…you have your best friends from college, your childhood friends, your work friends, your friends from the adult softball league…
B. About 4-5 best friends, but you seem to easily make new friends all the time!
C. 2-3 best friends that you’ve been close with for as long as you can remember!
D. You’ve got a group of about 10-15 good friends that you hang out with pretty regularly.

7. What is your spirit animal?

A. A dolphin. You are extremely social, and you would be completely lost without your pod of family and friends!
B. A puppy. You get along great with most people, but you can also quickly tell when someone is a bad apple.
C. A bumblebee. You are methodical, diligent and hardworking. You love sticking to schedules and following an established process!
D. A fierce lion or lioness. You are used to being the leader of your pride of friends, family and coworkers.

Mostly As: You are the Networker

“I know of a guy who would be great for this…” is a phrase that you often hear yourself saying. You are a total people-person, and you use that to your full advantage as a recruiter. You are a firm believer in the power of social media, and you often use it to place the right people in the right jobs. Your social nature is crucial to your ability to win over candidates and clients alike.

Mostly Bs: You are the Intuitive One

All it takes is five minutes of conversation for you to know if you like someone or not—this same intuition strongly influences your work as a recruiter! Phone calls and in-person meetings are crucial for you. You strongly believe that a candidate’s personality and attitude can outweigh a lack of skills or experience, and vice versa. Although trusting your gut might have led you to a few bad placements over the years, most hires you submit are right on the mark.

Mostly Cs: You are the Logical One

In stark contrast to the Intuitive One, the Logical One never bases their actions or decisions off of emotion. You approach everything with reason and a level head. You consider all options, but you trust data and facts above all else. Though you don’t often go out on a limb, you are great at determining who the right fit for a job is, and you are great at communicating why.

Mostly Ds: You are the Closer

You mean business, and everyone you meet knows it. You pride yourself on your willingness to tackle any challenge that is thrown your way and on your high success rates. Your confidence and persuasion skills have helped fill countless jobs over the years, and many of your colleagues look to you for leadership and guidance.

Hire AI to unify your workforce and procedures and eliminate prejudice. If you utilize AI recruiting tools with a people-first attitude, they may help you attract and maintain a more diverse workforce.

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As a recruiter, one of your duties is to stay abreast of industry trends so you can attract the best talent by offering candidates what they want. Candidates want a higher salary, right? As it turns out, 67 percent American businessmen and women said they would take a pay cut if it meant maintaining a better work-life balance, according to the Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll. What is this elusive work-life balance, and is it possible to attain?

Glassdoor recently released a report identifying the 25 best jobs for maintaining work-life balance in the United States, and two recruiting industry positions made the list. According to the report, talent acquisition specialists have the third best work-life balance out of all jobs in the United States and recruiting coordinators enjoy the sixth best. This is great news for the individuals in these positions, but I think it begs a bigger question:

As a recruiter or HR professional, do you have a responsibility to help your employees achieve a healthy work-life balance?

While I certainly wouldn’t suggest that the responsibility of realizing this goal lies solely on your shoulders, I do think you are in a unique position to facilitate this desired equilibrium. Let me help you help them—here are four ways that you can support employees who are in search of a balance between work and their personal lives.

Offer workplace flexibility.

Here’s the obvious fix for creating work-life balance: allow your employees to have flexible schedules. There are many ways to go about offering workplace flexibility. For example, you could follow the trend that is sweeping Swedish companies and implement six-hour workdays, or follow tax advisory firm KPMG’s example and try out a four-day work week…or you can take a more conservative approach. Give your employees the first Friday of each month off, allow employees to work remotely, or perhaps just work out flexible schedules on a case-by-case basis.

The benefits of workplace flexibility are twofold: your employees will be happy to spend more of their lives away from the office; but also, many companies that have implemented shorter work weeks have observed higher profits and greater productivity in employees. Though this easy fix won’t work for every company, it is something to consider.

Provide family-friendly options.

Help assuage the mom—or dad—guilt that is plaguing your employees by offering family-friendly options. Draw inspiration from tech company SAS, which offers on-site daycare for employees’ children, on-site healthcare facilities, and even the option to work fewer hours for single parents. At SAS, working parents don’t have to choose between being career-driven and family-focused—they can be both.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that SAS consistently ranks as one of the top places to work—in the world.

Make plans with your employees.

Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney weighed on the work-life balance conundrum saying, “We all complain about not having enough time, but very often we don’t have enough focus.” As an HR professional, help your employees find that focus.

Use what’s left of this month to make plans with your employees for the upcoming year. Find out how they feel about their current work-life balance, and see if you can accommodate their needs if they’re unhappy. Lead professional development courses on how to set goals and be a “ruthless prioritizer” as Brady Stewart, vice president of global e-commerce operations for Levi Strauss & Company, puts it. With your guidance and focus, you can help your employees attain a proper work-life balance.

Set the example.

This tactic might be the hardest of all for you to employ. As an HR professional, you should set the example of living a healthy work-life balance, and you should encourage company leadership to set an example as well. Here is Nike’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Sprunk’s take on what management’s role should be:

“If you are a leader, you have got to find some balance in your life, so that you can provide that to the organization. Because I am a firm believer, and I will use the male part of the gender, that the better father, son, brother, uncle, friend you think you are, the better employee for Nike you are going to be…If you see me as the COO walking out the door to go coach my kids’ teams, you should say to yourself: ‘Geez, if Sprunk can do it, I got to find a way to do it.’ Yeah, I want you to find a way to do it. If that’s how you get energy, do that. If it is a hobby, find time for the hobby. If it is traveling, find time to travel.”

I can’t think of a better way to say it.

Americans have earned the stereotype of being workaholics, but with the changing generations in the workplace, it is high time that we ditch this reputation. Employees who maintain an appropriate balance between their work lives and their personal lives will not only be happier and healthier individuals, but they will also be more productive and better at their jobs. Do your best to dispel the notion that we have to choose between being successful at work or being successful in every other aspect of life.

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Farms

What could big data possibly have to do with farming?
Well-known agriculture companies like John Deere, Monsanto, and DuPont have been exploring big data for the past few years. Old-fashioned farming equipment has been replaced with tractors that drive themselves and are equipped with technology that can do things like track the exact placement of every seed planted. By analyzing the data these high-tech tractors collect, farmers are able to determine everything from which seed variety will be most effective in their climate to where there is a potential for disease outbreak in their crops.

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, big data analytics in the agriculture industry have reduced input costs by 15 percent and have increased crop yields by 13 percent. In this historically low-margin industry, big data has huge potential for farmers.

The NFL

Sports and data might not seem like a natural duo, but the National Football League thinks that players, teams, and fans alike can benefit from big data analytics. Although the NFL has been crunching numbers for years, the League is demonstrating a renewed commitment to data collection.

The NFL recently announced a partnership with tech firm Zebra that will allow the League to harvest and analyze an increased amount of data. To collect this data, special chips with radio-frequency identification (RFID) transmitters have been installed in players’ shoulder pads and in all 31 NFL arenas. “These location-tracking devices from Zebra Technologies will provide real-time statistics for every movement of every player on every inch of the field in every NFL game this season,” Zebra said in a statement. Information like player speed, acceleration, and distance traveled will be made available to coaches in order to guide their strategies and play calling. Coaches already spend hours watching football film, and NFL officials hope that this added level of analysis will help them in recruiting, game planning, and player training.

There is, of course, also an opportunity for revenue: NFL officials plan to make all of the additional statistics and analysis available to diehard fans—for a fee. “The best fans are the most engaged fans,” said Michael King, director of sports products at Zebra. “[Fans] will pay for subscription plans to get this data.” In other words, Fantasy Football just got taken to the next level.

The White House

The government is infamous for its bureaucratic, outdated processes—but that is starting to change. Under President Obama’s guidance, the federal government has been utilizing big data more than ever before. Dhanurjay Patil is the White House’s first chief data scientist, and since he was hired in February 2015, Patil has been working hard to “responsibly unleash the power of data to benefit America”.

How is Patil achieving this feat? For starters, Patil and his team are collecting medical records and personal health information in order to create precision medicine, which is described as “an innovative approach to disease prevention and treatment that takes into account individual differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles”. They’ve also encouraged data sharing among police precincts in order to help officers make more informed decisions, and they are working on projects in education and housing.

Not only is governmental use of big data improving American lives, it is also making the government more efficient and secure. Patil and his team have helped 60 percent of agencies reduce capital costs and operating expenses while assisting 55 percent of agencies in improving their IT security.

The Music Industry

Ever wonder how platforms like Pandora and Spotify are able to suggest songs that perfectly match your taste in music? The answer is simple: big data.

Spotify, a leader of big data in the music industry, owns over 28 petabytes of data. How big is a petabyte? According to Wes Biggs, chief technology officer of mobile advertising company Adfonic, “one petabyte is enough to store the DNA of the entire population of the US—and then clone them, twice”. What could one company possibly do with all this information? According to Alisa Orlander, VP of Strategic Insights and Research at Universal Music Group (UMG), it enables Spotify and other companies using big data to Learn More about who their customers are and how people engage with, purchase, and consume music. By mining data like listener behavior, social media mentions, ticket sales, and music sales, Spotify is able to put the right tracks in front of the right kids of consumers and record companies have a better idea of which songs will be the next big hit.

In essence, big data means big revenue for the music industry.

The ultimate goals of every business owner are to create a loyal customer base and increase profits. Big data is helping businesses do just that. Be on the lookout for the spread of big data analytics into other industries, and continue educating yourself about big data in HR.

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