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3.9: Implications of People Analytics

  • Page ID
    46998
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    Learning Outcomes
    • Discuss the implications of people analytics trends for HR professionals

    There are three very similar illustrations of a person's silhouette next to a bar chart. The charts all have different values.

    Research by Deloitte, Bersin, LinkedIn, and others highlights the implications of people analytics trends for HR professionals. In particular, the data reflects a significant gap between the perceived importance of people analytics and associated analytical skills. In their 2018 Human Capital Trends report, Deloitte noted that 85% of participating companies consider people data “important” or “very important” but only 42% indicated they were either “ready” or “very ready.” Similarly, Deloitte’s 2017 Human Capital Trends report found that 71% of companies see people analytics as a high priority, but only 9% believe they have a good understanding of which talent dimension drives performance in their organizations.[1]

    Bersin’s conversations with executives underscore these findings. He relates a conversation with a CHRO who stated: “I’m tired of hiring HR professionals that don’t know the difference between a median and a mean. I’m thinking of asking all my HR teams to take a course in statistics.”[2] Related perspective point: “research shows that one of the biggest factors that predicts success in People Analytics is not just the skills of the analytics team – it’s the skill set of the HR business partners, analysts, and staff.” Bersin notes that it is human resources management’s responsibility to interpret people analytics for leaders—“[showing] him or her data which points out that their team has bias, poor work practices, weak skills, failing culture, or other problems that can be proven with data.”

    From a market perspective, LinkedIn reports that in the last five years (since March 2018), the number of HR professionals who list analytics skills and keywords on their profiles has tripled.[3] On the demand side, workforce productivity research firm Institute for Corporate Productivity, Inc. (i4cp) states that approximately 50% of high-performance organizations plan to increase their people analytics budget in 2019.[4] However, the firm notes that “as people analytics functions mature, finding and/or developing the right talent continues to be a barrier.”


    1. Collins, Laurence, David R. Fineman, and Akio Tsuchida. "People Analytics: Recalculating the Route." Deloitte Insights. February 28, 2017. Accessed August 06, 2019. ↵
    2. Ibid. ↵
    3. Chensoff, Grace, Catherine Coppinger, Pooja Chhabria, Candice Cheng, Alvin Kan, and Huiling Cheong. "The Rise of Analytics in HR." LinkedIn. 2018. Accessed August 06, 2019. ↵
    4. Mattsson, Alexander. "New Report: Four Ways to Advance Your People Analytics—I4cp." Institute for Corporate Productivity. May 30, 2018. Accessed August 06, 2019. ↵

    Contributors and Attributions


    This page titled 3.9: Implications of People Analytics is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Nina Burokas via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.