The Beginner’s Guide to HR Analytics and Data Powered Talent Management

When Chandler said he was into data reconfiguration and stuff, he passed it off as dull and boring. But the fact is that data has always been crucial to mankind in business operations since then and even before. Today, data has become a key ingredient to the successful operations of many companies, businesses, and startups. As more organizations wake up to the inevitability of data, this is the time businesses also pressurize one of the core departments of any business – the HR – to implement data analytics into its operations as well. Data is seen as a crucial aspect of not just recruiting and training new people but also in maintaining the existing talent pool in terms of job satisfaction and pay.

What is HR analytics?

In simple words, it is the use of analytics and statistics to identify patterns in HR data and come up with perspectives that aid in the enhancement of existing HR operations, find flaws in the workflows or simply produce better results. HR analytics is all about providing insights into concerns that the HR associates never knew existed and help them identify key patterns that could have a huge impact on the operation of businesses and departments.

If you notice, HR is a treasure chest of employee data. Some crucial information about employees that even the reporting managers are unaware of rests with the HR personnel. With such access to data that can influence the business, it is upon them to analyze the data, identify insights and pave way for an optimum work environment.

So far, most of the decisions the HR people come up with are instinctive with no proper data to back their reasoning or action. But now, with HR analytics, they have priceless data like an employee’s work history, attendance record, job completion statistics, error-free deliverance, attitude towards the job and manager and more. With these chunks of data, several crucial concerns can be solved and better productivity could be brought in. These could also be used to solve office politics, cold wars between departments, ego clashes and other psychological factors that disrupt productivity – even before they begin!

One of the best areas where HR analytics can work wonders is the difference in the pay scale between women and men. Instead of considering just experience and eligibility as a criterion to make decisions on fixing the pay scale, if the HR can work on the finer details of the employees, this could fix the inequality in gender-based payments at the grass root levels.

Metrics in HR Analytics

Since some of us are new to HR analytics, let’s just brush up on the few important metrics that can bring about significant changes in the workplace. Metrics like resignation rate, performance appraisal involvement rate and time taken to recruit to hire can impact the way recruitment happens in an organization, employee retention, and attrition management, performance in sales, safety and health of employees and probable talent gaps.

However, HR analytics and data-powered talent management are not without its challenges and hurdles. To attain the perfect work environment, conditions and talent pool, a lot of factors have to be considered and many regions have to be explored and exploited for the benefit of employees. We will be discussing them in the coming weeks and from a beginner’s perspective and see how data can challenge and change conventions in the HR function.

Click here to know what you need to learn to become a competent HR Analytics professional.

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