FEATURE INSIGHT
Lisa Gillespie, Moorepay’s HR services director, explains why big data is important and advises of significant changes ahead Big data – big deal?
M ost HR professionals I speak to get into human resources (HR) because of an interest in working with people and helping them develop. None yet have cited an ‘interest in data’ as something that attracted them to the profession, but there is no getting away from the fact that analytics and data are pretty much 'where it’s at' in HR these days. And it’s not just about data on and within individual organisations. The collection and consolidation of data across industries, the labour force, regional and local populations, students and the future workforce are becoming the key business intelligence for planning the long-term resilience of any organisation, in any sector. Thirty years ago the Government was already talking to local authorities about managing care in a population with an increasing life expectancy through better survival rates from catastrophic accidents or long-term ill-health. New models of funding
and delivery of care services were created, opening up a whole new sector of self- directed care, but that’s just one example. In thirty years' time, most of the labour force may well be comprised of robots – more on this later. The name of big data in our world The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development identifies three main levels of HR analytics capability: ● basic analytics ● using multidimensional data, and ● predictive analytics. But what does this data do for an organisation? Nowadays, HR has a strategic role in any business to provide insight and fact- based analysis to inform decision-makers, stakeholders and investors. Organisations cannot afford to ignore their internal and market data because within it lies the insight needed to stay competitive, adapt to upcoming changes, weather external shocks and survive and thrive in the medium- and long-term. HR analytics basics To take a very basic example of how this data insight might work in practice, let’s look at the recent and planned increases to the national living wage and consider them in the context of an organisation’s people investment. The cost of employing people increases every year, and remember that people are the biggest investment most organisations make year on year, and the cost of salaries and on costs (pensions, National Insurance
contributions, paid leave etc) are part of that investment. Now, try to put a figure on the cost of recruiting one person into your organisation, then multiply it by the number of recruits each year, and then factor in the time/cost to train them up to full productivity. Now you have some factual data you can identify the proportion of your people investment lost due to staff attrition each year in your organisation. Is it too high? Do you need to address this? And if you do, how can 'big data' or HR analytics help? On a proactive basis, staff surveys, exit interviews and gathering data about the recruitment, induction and on the job training can help identify issues which contribute to attrition. If you know what the problems are you can ameliorate these and reduce attrition; consequently. your investment should be more effective. That’s basic analytics – data and analytics in its most simple form. Adding a new dimension We can go further. Multidimensional data is the art of using different data sets to examine the relationships between organisational activities and/or processes. This type of data can uncover more discreet information and really get under the covers of an organisation. At a recent event I spoke with an organisation that took data from their managers’ and leaders’ training and development activities over the preceding five years. They compared the data with staff engagement surveys during the same
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | March 2017 | Issue 28 38
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