Applying analytic processes to the human resource department results in improved employee performance and a better return on the human investment. HR analytics can show a cause and effect relationship between HR activities (hiring, training, paying, developing) and business results. The bulk of the HR data lake is textual data. Resumes, interview notes, employee surveys, performance evaluations, and exit interviews are just a few examples. (See related post: Augmented Intelligence in Human Resources)
Most companies today are not taking full advantage of this data. According to a SHL global assessment report, fewer than 20 percent of global companies are satisfied with the ability of their current data management systems to manage talent data. This is where the Stratifyd SignalsTM platform shines. Signals’ machine learning platform makes quick work of large quantities of textual data, enabling a line manager or analyst to easily glean insights from the data.
Providing better data to managers is a key function of HR, and the future trend is integrating analytics into the HR function. The Harvard Business Review wrote about changing your company with better HR analytics in this article. A key HR deliverable is providing insights to line managers, otherwise it can become a case of data overload. Specifically HR needs to present analytics that are:
- Valid. HR needs to show that the analysis and insights on employee data are of high quality in order to eliminate any doubts of the credibility of the recommendations. Tools like Signals use 100% of the data, eliminating the need for sampling. Examining the entire data set ensures no issues are left uncovered.
- Relevant. Machine learning tells the story of text data without biases inherent in pre-built taxonomies. This enables HR analysts to quickly produce insights from data mining. Signals organizes the information by category, clearly showing the most relevant topics and issues.
- Compelling. Presentation of raw data is usually not persuasive enough to managers to change behavior. The HR goal should be to tell a story with the data. Telling a good story means understanding your audience, show how data correlates, and delivering actionable insights that tie together the principal facts.
- Transformative. Ultimately, the actionable insights from textual analytics have to be effective in changing a leader’s behavior. HR can enable the business leaders to change his or her thinking and make better, faster decisions as a result of talent data.
Just remember that data analytics needs to be presented to humans for insights and decisions. When the people-analytics team at Google developed a formula to make promotion decisions and found it 90 percent accurate, they received a backlash from employees and managers. They learned HR exists to arm decision makers with better information, not to replace them with algorithms.
Would you like to try the Signals platform on your HR data so you can arm your business leaders with better information? Sign up and receive a 14 day free trial.
Questions? Contact us on chat or email (clientsupport@stratifyd.com) and one of our analysts will be happy to work with you.
