Recently we posted a blog on the importance of analytics for the HR department to become a fully-fledged business department.
By quantifying a project, vision or statement interims of ROI and impact, you suddenly become an active and proactive business player. You take your initial fact-based reporting to an entirely new level. But how do you proceed to achieve this objective? The best intentions are there, the technology is available, … all you need now is a thorough understanding of the available data.
That is why every HR department should have its own data scientist. Compared to earlier, we have witnessed a very positive evolution. On the one hand, more and more organizations acknowledge the importance of figures and data and are welcoming experts in analytics or so-called data scientists. On the other hand, technology has become easier to use and to interpret. A data scientist need not be a math genius anymore, or a PhD in Statistics, a thorough understanding of the business has become far more important.
The data scientists have earned their place in the HR department. They can apply the available technology in such a way that we no longer need to base ourselves on assumptions - like we used to - but rather start from data as the term ‘data driven analytics’ implies. Rather than starting from pre-defined factors, we let analytics define the various factors and their correlation. So you may end up with insights and correlations that you hadn’t noticed at all in the past.
HR, more relevant than ever
HR has all it takes to become a strategic business partner: the desire to contribute, the technology that can make the difference and a growing awareness of the importance of figures. Our advice? Don’t think in terms of ‘cost’ when launching a project, but rather in terms of ‘contribution to the business’.
In closing, we would like to refer to (our CEO) Jim Goodnight’s vision. When asked what was his most important task as a CEO, he replied: “Making sure that the people who leave the office at night will return the next morning.” In the end, that is what it is all about, isn’t it?