Human Resources (HR) Data, Systems, and Analysis

October 25, 2017 in
By Scott Waymouth

When it comes to Human Resources (HR), there are a variety of data and systems that organizations can use to inform strategic decision making and business planning. However, it is not always clear which data should be used for which purposes, or how to best track, access, and analyze this data so that it can be used in a meaningful way. In order to help HR professionals with these analytical challenges, Nathan Bailey and Scott Waymouth have developed a 1.5 hour interactive session to clarify the different types of HR data, their uses, the relevant systems supporting these data, and how best to analyze, interpret, and visualize the data so as to inform decision-making.

HR data consists of everything from employee demographics and performance ratings to compensation, benefits, and attrition rates. There are myriad data points that are stored in a variety of different systems and sometimes it can be hard to make connections between them. It’s easy to say “we have 30% attrition and 70% engagement”, but this means little in and of itself. The real value of HR analysis is to go the next step and identify meaningful relationships between these data. For example, in contrast to the previous figures that simply describe a level of attrition or engagement, it is much more powerful if an organization is able to say “if we are able to increase engagement 10% we can expect a 5% decrease in attrition.”

Among other things, this session will show you how you can take attrition data from one system, engagement data from another system, and performance data from a third system, and look at them together in a way that allows for you to see how employee engagement is impacting attrition and performance in employees across the organization. Dr. Bailey and Mr. Waymouth will start by providing an overview of the different types of data and what they can be used for, before transitioning into applied demonstrations of how to combine and analyze these data.

Special focus will also be paid to the use and development of interactive dashboards. Technology has advanced to the point where, with a little extra work upfront, you are able to turn any analysis into an interactive and automated dashboard. Dashboards allow for you to quickly update charts and figures with new data (e.g. for monthly or quarterly reports), and create “self-serve” analyses that can give users the ability to slice and dice relevant data with intuitive controls and visualizations – and minimizing the need to create all possible variations of the same analysis.

Altogether, this session will serve to explain the basics of HR data and systems, explain how best to combine and analyze these data points, and show how to incorporate these analyses into eye-catching dashboards that help to drive organizational improvement.

To attend Nathan and Scott’s session for NOVA SHRM’s Data Analytics and HR Technology Special Interest Group on Friday, October 27, 2017, register here or visit http://www.novashrm.org/.

To learn more about FMP’s data analytics capabilities, visit our website or email BD@fmpconsulting.com.