'You have a profession that is increasingly being asked to make decisions based on data, but the skill set isn't necessarily there,' says HR instructor
The corporate world has loads of data available to businesses, and human resources teams should maximize these resources to ensure success in their processes.
However, most HR practitioners are not armed with the skills to maximize people analytics, says Ilia Maor, manager for HR technology and analytics at York Region and program/course reviewer at the Chang School of Continuing Education at Toronto Metropolitan University.
The typical pathway for an HR professional is to get a certificate program or a degree in HR and end up working in the HR department of an employer, he says.
“Most of the undergraduate programs – and even a lot of the master's programs – don't actually have a lot of components related to data analytics or people analytics embedded in them. Typically, there are no specific courses that focus on the workforce analytics and people analytics side of things.
“From that perspective, you have a profession that is increasingly being asked to make decisions based on data and support decisions based on data, but the skill set isn't necessarily there, built into the common knowledge and experiences of folks in the profession.”
Understanding analytics is no longer a nice-to-have but a core competency in today’s data-driven environment, according to a previous LinkedIn report.
The use of people analytics is becoming a requirement among HR teams, especially for those employed in big firms, says Maor.
People analytics has a lot of power that HR professionals can tap into to make sure they find success in their jobs, he says.
“You're able to identify your top performers. You're able to identify your high-potential talent. You have a sense of what's drawing and attracting individuals to your organization, [both for] employees and leaders. You have an understanding of why people leave and when, in their career, they will leave, and hopefully, you can prevent the preventable turnover from happening.
“You have a good sense of your compensation packages… pay, salary, benefits, perks and everything else is competitive with the markets.”
With data and analytics continuing to rise in importance in organizational strategy, some HR leaders are still scratching their heads as to how and where they should deploy the newest tech, according to a previous report from Zippia.
To get the benefits that people analytics has to offer, HR teams should be collecting data from their workers, says Maor, citing an employer that is losing people at a high rate, as an example.
“Lots of people are leaving the organization. So you're asked to say, ‘Why?’
“And typically, the ways that you find out why is through exit surveys… But if you're not asking those questions, how are you ever going to know?”
Employee surveys, satisfaction surveys, exit surveys, stay surveys, exit interviews – these allow you to identify the problem, he says.
After collecting the data, HR practitioners must then do the analysis to understand what they actually mean.
To ensure that HR teams can maximize the data, Maor says the employers should ensure that the skills to analyze the data should be available within HR teams.
“It starts with making sure that you have the right skills and not just making it up as you go. There's a standard, consistent way of going about it, and you can train your professionals to be able to see those areas and build that data literacy within the organization.”
The Chang School of Continuing Education at Toronto Metropolitan University offers a People Analytics for HR Professionals Postgraduate Certificate.
