Fifty percent of HR professionals across Europe believe management and board members are dissatisfied with how HR analytics is currently prioritised within the industry, with only 9 percent being very satisfied. Contributor Brenda Morris, VP – SD Worx UK and Ireland.
At a time when HR wants to play a more strategic role in the business, this represents a significant challenge for organisations. Despite dissatisfaction being high, action is planned within the industry. More than three quarters (76 percent) of organisations are planning to increase investment in HR technology as a whole. At 68 percent of organisations, HR analytics is the most common area for future investment. 45 percent of companies are planning to increase investment in less than 2 years, growing to 65 percent within 3 years.
This investment has been earmarked as being critical for success, with nearly all organisations surveyed (95 percent) agreeing that high-quality data and analytics is important to the future success of the business. When it comes to understanding HR’s goals behind this increased investment, 76 percent of companies surveyed said that the biggest driver for investing in HR analytics is to enable HR to become a stronger and more strategic business partner. Six out of ten (62 percent) of the respondents said a key driver for investment is to identify key talent, with 58 percent saying it will enable better leadership and management.
“Good business analytics has become a core part of almost every business function, but adoption in HR has lagged other areas,” said David Wilson, CEO of Fosway Group, Europe’s #1 HR Industry Analyst, “But good analytics is fundamental to HR’s ability to strategically engage with the C-suite, as well as its ability to optimise its own processes and investment priorities. HR needs to really raise its game, but this will bring significant benefits to core processes too; from finding and retaining new talent, to improving internal processes and employee engagement. This impact will be felt business-wide.”
Brenda Morris, VP SD Worx UK and Ireland, comments: “These figures show the increasingly important role that HR is playing in business. It’s clear from the survey that there is a real appetite to make improvements from both HR departments and key decision makers in businesses. While the investment into HR is welcomed, it still has its work cut out to get buy-in from the whole organisation in terms of using HR data and analytics business-wide. That is going to be the biggest challenge for HR departments over the coming years. But, if it’s done well, it will have the biggest impact”.
