Today's post comes to us from board member Neil Reichenberg.
A recent research report “Beyond HR Metrics: HR Analytics” issued by the organization where I work, International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR), sheds light on why and how public sector HR professionals are implementing HR analytics programs at their organizations.
Key findings included:
- HR analytics result
in better communication with senior leadership and affect the strategic
influence of HR either somewhat or a great deal.
- The primary
reason for implementing HR analytics practices is to improve HR strategy and
performance.
- Data collection
focuses on impacting both internal and external processes.
- Data collected is
used mostly to predict trends and influence future decision-making, report to
both HR and the organization, and to answer specific questions or address
problems.
- The most commonly
collected HR metrics are headcount (87%), length of service (87%), turnover
(74%), and cost of benefits (61%).
Improvements resulting from the use of
analytics in HR functional areas that were cited include:
- Recruitment/Hiring
- Shorter time to hire, help HR departments to update their recruitment
strategy, and find better qualified candidates.
- Training and
Development - Develop more effective training, better able to identify training
needs, and improve training curricula. These improvements resulted mostly from
tracking participation, undertaking post-training evaluations, and conducting
annual surveys.
- Compensation -
Ability to provide more accurate and thorough data for market studies, update
compensation strategy, adjust salary ranges, and review benefits packages.
- Workforce/Succession
Planning - Ability to identify and report on areas where succession planning is
needed, improve succession plans, and develop training programs.
- Performance
Management - Increased completion rate of performance evaluations, assisting to
switch to a goal-oriented evaluation approach, and facilitating the use of more
frequent performance discussions.
- Diversity and
Inclusion - Ability to track and report demographic data, developing engagement
programs, and updating diversity goals.
Obstacles to implementing HR analytics
that were cited by the survey respondents included insufficient funding, lack
of training, and no access to analytics software. Only 1/3 of the survey
respondents are part of an organization that has a person or team dedicated to
HR data analysis, and only 20% indicated that their employer provides training
to HR professionals on data collection and analysis.
Overall, this report shows that more and
more organizations are looking to analytics to increase the strategic value of
HR. Despite this fact, organizations have not yet staffed this function appropriately
or provided training to their own staff to ensure the measurement is done
effectively. Staffing and training of this function are opportunities for
organizations in the coming months and years.
What
about your organization? Is HR using analytics to make better-informed
decisions? Or do you think they should? Tell us about it in the comments.