How and Why You Should Take the Leap into HR Analytics

Around two years ago, we’d spoken to a former student of ours, Roopa Kumari, about how she entered the world of analytics. We recently had a word with her again and she’s still going strong, having now become the Group Head of HR at Worldwide Logistics. She gave us a bit more insight into her career so far and what it’s like making the leap into analytics.

“My educational background was in computer science but I began streamlining my career towards HR and studied the human resources program at IIM-A to supplement that move further,” she told us.

“Even when I started looking at moving into analytics, I knew I wanted to stay true to my HR experience, which is why I enrolled in the HR Analytics program at Jigsaw. I realized the importance of our decisions and how they impact people around us, be it monetarily or otherwise. Since you are dealing with people, decisions you take could in turn affect a family and not just that one employee.”

Roopa also noticed that as HR professionals, she and her team were more often than not only conducting a post-mortem of decisions that had already been taken. “We were only analyzing the past but we weren’t using anything predictive to get an idea of what lay ahead,” she said.

“With analytics, we had a good idea of what was needed for the next year, of what patterns were likely to emerge and how the data would behave, and base all our decisions around that.”

She’s also very clear about the fact that understanding how these analytics techniques work is not an overnight thing. “No matter how good the content is when it’s provided to you, it’s still what you make of it that’s important,” she said.

“You have to try a lot of permutations and combinations and go through plenty of trial and error before you’re able to understand how to approach any problem with data, and how to solve it successfully. Making a lot of mistakes is the best way to move forward with your data education, as that’s the only way you will keep learning more.”

Roopa also believes that an individual’s passion for learning is one of the most important things to sustain anyone’s career.

“No matter where you’re from or what job you’re in, you have to keep learning whatever you can,” she says.

“After altering my path a bit with analytics, I’ve definitely felt myself grow in my job, and that keeps me going. You have to push yourself out of your comfort zone, and only then will you achieve what you want to.”