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Can data help HR improve productivity?

Experts share their views on how HR professionals can get closer to the numbers

People Management’s focus on productivity this month outlined the ways HR professionals can positively influence operational efficiency, from up skilling to reducing bureaucracy.

But the missing piece of the puzzle may be the most important: the ever-growing importance of metrics can help both HR and the colleagues it works with be more productive.

Data starts with basic absence figures and takes in timesheets and comments gathered from exit interviews, right up to the cutting edge work being done by social scientists who can use wearable technology to track health goals and identify stress flashpoints.

But getting hold of data is the easy part. It’s deciding what to do with it that’s more tricky.

Edward Houghton, CIPD human capital metrics and standards advisor, is studying how companies manage and use data as part of the Valuing Your Talent project. And he says: “There’s a real struggle to turn data into something that’s useful for the business.”

Many HR professionals, he says, haven’t previously been required to think analytically about metrics, and while perfectly numerate can find the idea of trying to make sense of statistics daunting. He suggests that collaborating with more analytically minded colleagues may be part of the solution.

“Other departments are doing data analysis really well,” he says. “Marketing, for example, regularly has to collect data on customers and performance on products and make use of it.” He advises HR to set up work shadowing or secondment schemes with other departments.

The data being collected also has to be appropriate for the task at hand.