HR Analytics-Introduction
HR Analytics-Introduction
Nilanjan Sengupta
Why do we need HR Analytics
• HR not very popular- HR manager calling probably bad news-
• get reprimanded, put on notice, or even fired
• If it was good news, like getting a promotion, your manager would tell
you. Not HR
• Common perception- HR is a soft domain
• Fluffy-duddy, Old-fashioned,
• A lot of the work in HR is based on ‘gut feeling’
• HR doesn’t have a reputation of bringing in the big bucks or playing a
numbers game like sales
• HR also struggles to quantify and measure its success, as marketing and
finance do
• HR analytics changes all of this. A lot of the challenges just described can
be resolved by becoming more data-driven and analytical savvy.
Example questions
• How high is your annual employee turnover?
• How much of your employee turnover consists of regretted loss?
• Do you know which employees will be the most likely to leave your
company within a year?
• These questions can only be answered using data.
• Most HR professionals can easily answer the first question.
• However, answering the second question is harder.
• To answer this second question, you would need to combine two
different data sources: your Human Resources Information System
(HRIS) and your Performance Management System.
• To answer the third question, you would need even more data and
extensively analyze it as well.
HR analytics in literature
• HR analytics is the systematic identification and quantification of the
people drivers of business outcomes (Heuvel & Bondarouk, 2016)
• Over the past 100 years, Human Resource Management has changed.
It has moved from an operational discipline towards a more strategic
discipline.- Strategic human resource management (SHRM)
• The data-driven approach that characterizes HR analytics is in line
with this development
• Analytics enables HR professionals to make data-driven decisions
• analytics helps to test the effectiveness of HR policies and different
interventions
• Operational HR (1900s) ----- Strategic HR (2000s) ----- Data driven HR
(now)
How HR analytics helps Human Resource Management
• Like marketing analytics has revolutionized the field of marketing, HR
analytics is changing HR. It enables HR to: