Learning from practice: how HR analytics avoids being a management fad

Abstract

Human resource (HR) analytics is touted to have the potential to bring great value to general managers’ and HR leaders’ decision-making on human and organization capital by supplementing intuition and experience with evidence. Yet, it currently risks becoming another management fad, because HR analytics has too often taken an “inside-out,” HR-centric, and academic approach being governed by a Center-of-Expertise (CoE) distant from the business. A shift towards an “outside-in” approach with a focus on actionable, high-impact analytics is needed. This development is accelerated by technology, which is rapidly consolidating the analytics landscape. This shift enables HR analytics to be taken out of HR and become part of existing end-to-end business analytics, where human resources is just one element in the value chains analyzed. This leads to more business relevant findings and impactful interventions, as illustrated in two cases.