With more and more organisations moving to highly sophisticated cloud based HR information systems, we have more access to HR data than ever before. The real question is what to do with it all and what is its ‘value’, specifically in relation to business improvement. HR metrics and measurements can be powerful in showing us areas where we could improve and better meet the needs of our organization and its employees.
The emphasis has never been greater on HR to talk the language of the business, drop the acronyms and ensure data is meaningful and assists us in making good commercial decisions.
The role of HR has many definitions but I think it is summed up accurately as ‘Supporting a business to achieve success through its people’. It is constantly focusing back on this definition that will assist HR professionals on keeping relevant and ensuring that HR metrics meet this brief.
The Wall St Journal recently featured a Deloitte survey targeting the key trends in Human Capital for 2015 titled ‘Leading in the New World of Work’, in which Josh Bersin, principle and founder of Bersin by Deloitte is quoted as saying “As demand for talent picks up, the balance of power in business is rapidly shifting from the employer to the employee, Moreover, workers are becoming more mobile, contingent and autonomous, and as a result, harder to manage and engage” —So with that the overall cost of talent management becomes a big business question that ‘HR metrics’ holds the answer to.
The Deloitte report, based on a survey of 3,300 HR and business leaders in 106 countries, reveals that analytics is one of the areas where organizations face a significant capability gap. Three quarters (75%) of respondents cited talent analytics as an important issue, but just 8% believe their organization is “strong” in this area—almost exactly the same as in 2014. This does the beg the question ‘why?’ an apparent business priority such as this has not seen an improvement in 12 months.
Josh Bersin goes onto say “HR and people analytics have the potential to transform the way organizations hire, develop and manage people. Leading organizations are already using talent analytics to understand what motivates employees and what makes them stay or leave. These insights help drive increased returns from talent investments, with huge consequences for the business as a whole”
This huge topic is widely debated from small business forums to global key-note speaking events from some of the most forefront thought leaders in the world. So, with so much to take in, I believe the key lies in the appropriateness of HR’s delivery of HR metrics to the business. Too much too soon will in all likelihood have a counterproductive result and discredit the good work being undertaken to develop smarter insights into our people. However, if you want a snap shot into its value – The Wall St Journal cited the following:
Based on a survey of 436 North American companies, studies reveal that advanced talent analytics is helping achieve better talent outcomes in terms of leadership pipelines, talent cost reductions, efficiency gains and talent mobility. Moreover, the studies found that share prices of the 14% of organizations in the study with mature talent analytics capabilities outpaced the Standard & Poors 500 by 30%, on average, over the last three years.
Of all the reading I have done on the merits of analytics and HR metrics, it is this statistic that gives the greatest ‘call the action’ for business leaders to elevate HR information systems as a top commercial priority.
