Agile human resources are those who are driven by data. That being said, HR professionals should know how to make use and dig the potentials of data they have. Are you one of them?
Why data is important?
The new domain of people analytics in HR is growing rapidly over the past few years. People analytics is a domain which applies statistics, technology, and expertise to a great sets of talents data. It improves management and business decisions in an organisation. People analytics also offers new opportunities to better hire, manage, retain, and optimise a workforce. With the growth of people analytics, a data-driven workforce is also increasing – as a result, businesses can improve their productivity and performance.
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Deloitte insight showed that workforce data is very useful to analyse, predict, and improve performance. When being used wisely, data can tell you a lot about how to improve overall business decisions as it helps you know which candidate is suitable for a particular position, when employees will leave, what makes employees happy, and so forth. Owing to the significance of data, Deloitte found that 69 percent of organisations surveyed are building integrated systems to analyse worker-related data in 2018. Majority (90 percent) companies in the survey already have accurate and timely data, while almost all respondents cited that they already have data security policies in place. These findings indicated that companies are investing more and more in their data to create a better prediction of the future – as well as better success for the company.
Bernard Marr, a futurist and business advisor, in his article commented that being an intelligent HR team means you should be able to maximise the use of data. HR teams, Marr suggested, can use data to make better HR decisions, better understand and evaluate the business impact of people. It can also improve leadership decision-making in people-related matters. Thus, it results in more efficient and effective processes and operations of HR tasks which in turn improving the overall wellbeing and effectiveness of employees. In addition, the top priority of data-driven management is to add value to the organisation in the smartest way possible.
“The role of the HR team is changing and, as our ability to gather and analyse ever-increasing amounts of data grows, so too do the opportunities for HR teams to add more value to their organisation. This is what makes HR data such an important asset.” – Bernard Marr
How to create a secure organisational context of a data-driven company
As data is an easy source to access, the likelihood of leakage, error, and data abuse is high. It will be risky for a company if their data on potential employees, customers, clients, and internal data is hacked by a cyber thief. So, companies who rely on data to improve their performance need to develop robust policy, security, transparency, and open communication to address associated risks.
Among the most important aspects of managing the risk is to know all the places where personal data resides. Mapping a flow of personal data of your employees and clients is vital to create transparency and install proper protections. The use of discovery, mapping, and classification tools can also help your firm codify structured and unstructured data. You should also classify and tell the data-holders what data you need, what data is being collected, and how you use it. It is meant to engage employees and other data-holders as informed stakeholders who understand and support the benefits of people analytics for their work and their careers.
“Data are not taken for museum purpose; they are taken as a basis for doing something. If nothing is to be done with the data, then there is no use in collecting any. The ultimate purpose of taking data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation for action. The step intermediate between the collection of data and the action is a prediction.” – W. Edwards Deming
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