Dive Brief:
- Data analytics are rising in areas such as marketing, supply chain and finance, helping those areas make smarter decisions. Today's massive amounts of people data should benefit HR departments, too, but many companies have a lot to learn about how to effectively use it, according to IBM.
- Blog author Sheri Feinzig, director of Research Integration, IBM Smarter Workforce, calls analytics one of the "biggest opportunities" for HR, but after seeing results from a study commissioned by IBM, experts note that HR has yet to truly reap the benefits of using analytics.
- According to Feinzig, the prime factors uncovered by the IBM study that can help drive better analytics use include external forces (labor market trends, regulatory issues) and the availability of new data sources, with internal organizational factors being strategic business shifts and mounting workforce challenges.
Dive Insight:
Luckily, HR leaders new to analytics can soak up knowledge from those areas that have been using analytics successfully for longer periods, Feinzig said. She also singled out several capabilities identified by the study as critical to success, including "building analytics roles and skills, having the right tools and technologies, and maintaining focus on data security and privacy." The latter factor is, of course, paramount with people data in order to secure employee trust.
Another success factor, Feinzig writes, is keeping the word “human” front and center when using human resources data analytics. The data is important, but the decisions are about people. As HR data becomes more available/accessible, and analytics tools become more effective and easier to use, seeing both the "value" and "limitations" of analytics will need to happen.
