HR analytics (HRA) has emerged as a potential game-changer for Human Resources Management (HRM), offering a pathway to enhance its strategic recognition within organisations. Both tool vendors and the academic literature promote this promise. However, merely implementing HR analytics does not automatically guarantee success. In this blog post I will outline how, by understanding the nuances of HRA implementation and strategically navigating organisational dynamics, HRM professionals can leverage HRA to solidify their position as strategic business partners. Further, HR practitioners need to align their HRA initiatives with the prevailing organisational values and perceptions of what is deemed as strategically important. This means demonstrating how HRA contributes to organisational goals, supports decision-making processes, and ultimately enhances the bottom line.

Opportunities Presented by HRA

In our study, we identified three key opportunities that arise with the introduction of HRA, which can be leveraged to elevate the strategic standing of HRM.

• Centralised Oversight: Consolidating data into centralised platforms like data lakes provides HR practitioners a comprehensive overview of organisational data. This empowers HR to identify and analyse patterns and trends across the workforce, positioning them as a strategic source of insight for critical decision-making.
• Speaking the Language of Business: HRA allows HR to quantify their impact, aligning their communication with the data-driven language of top management. By presenting evidence-based insights and demonstrating the ROI of HR initiatives, practitioners can gain credibility and influence strategic decisions.
• Freeing Up Time for Strategic Focus: Automating routine administrative tasks through HRA frees up valuable time for HR professionals. This allows them to focus on higher-value activities, such as strategic workforce planning and talent development, further enhancing their strategic contribution.

However, these opportunities are not an end in themselves but need to be used advantageously to promote HR’s strategic recognition. For example, simply having more time does not necessarily mean that this time will be spent on strategic issues. Realising the full potential of HR analytics’ strategy implementation is critical. Through our interviews, four tactical manoeuvres emerged that HR practitioners can employ. It is important to note, however, that focusing HRA efforts on a few core issues proved to be the most effective. Organisations are therefore best advised to focus on a few tactics rather than trying to do everything at once:

• Framing Contextual Challenges as Opportunities: Identifying pressing business challenges, such as skill shortages or the impact of major events like COVID-19, and positioning HRA as a solution is a powerful tactic. By demonstrating how HRA can provide insights and solutions to these challenges, HR practitioners can secure buy-in from top management and highlight their strategic value.
• Running Stealth Projects: This tactic involves undertaking data analysis without prior stakeholder knowledge, focusing on identifying and analysing “floating issues” that are of potential concern to key decision-makers. Presenting compelling insights derived from these analyses as well as solutions showcases the value of HRA and encourages further investment. This can be pursued, for example, by analysing turnover rates within business units and approaching the relevant business partners. Ideally, thereby these stakeholders would recognise the strategic potential of HRA.
• Utilising Guerilla Tactics: This bottom-up approach focuses on building a user community for HRA within the organisation. By encouraging and supporting employees to utilise HRA tools and dashboards, HR can foster a data-driven culture and demonstrates the widespread value of HRA, potentially leading to increased organisational support.
• Busting Myths: By using data to challenge prevailing organisational assumptions or “myths” (for example, those related to age and sickness rates), HR professionals can highlight the importance of data-driven decision-making and position HRA as a tool for uncovering valuable insights.

Conclusion: HRA as a Pathway to Strategic Influence

"Not having the right data in the right quality" is one of the top issues cited by HR professionals when asked what prevents them from using HR analytics in their organisations. However, 'selling' HR analytics-related insights to the C-suite may be an even greater challenge. Above, I outline four tactics that can help HR professionals do this. For example, with the advent of new regulations (e.g. ESG reporting), HR practitioners can use these reporting requirements to their own advantage by not only reporting on metrics such as the gender pay gap, but also highlighting that their department is well-equipped to identify causes and solutions to narrow the gap. This can lead to increased investment in HRA, further strengthening the position of HRM within the organisation. I hope that these findings offer a valuable roadmap for HR professionals seeking to leverage HRA for strategic influence and recognition.

More about this topic

If you want to learn more about the topic take a look at our recent open access publication in the Human Resource Management Journal: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12583

About the author

Marco Rapp is an Assistant Professor at the Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam. In his research, Marco leverages his interdisciplinary background by applying a contextual lens to HRM & novel work phenomena, such as algorithms in HRM and non-standard work arrangements. If you have comments or questions, feel free to reach out to him via: m.l.rapp@uva.nl.