Why HR professionals struggle with big data

Making decisions based on data

To ensure that the best people end up in management positions and diverse teams are created, HR managers should rely on well-founded criteria, and big data and analytics provide these. By collecting and evaluating large amounts of data, HR managers can make better personnel decisions faster that are not (only) based on intuition and experience. In addition, they can use statistical methods, algorithms and machine learning to more easily establish correlations and patterns, and thus make predictions about future developments and scenarios.

The problem is that many companies still make little use of their data. In particular, human resources is still one of the least data-driven areas of a company, and potential is often not fully exploited. While data tends to be used in tactical-operational areas such as HR reporting and controlling, there is still room for improvement in the strategic area of people analytics. Most use master data to make daily processes more efficient and to optimize the use of existing resources. Aspects such as employee satisfaction and talent development are often neglected.

This is due, on the one hand, to the uncertainty associated with handling confidential, sensitive data and, on the other hand, to a number of structural problems. As a rule, a lot of data is available in the company, but it is stored in different systems and comes from various sources, which makes it difficult to link it. “In addition, there is silo thinking in many companies. Each department evaluates its own key figures, if at all, and looks at them in isolation from others. This makes it impossible to identify any correlations,” explains Viole Kastrati, Senior Consultant SAP – BI & Analytics at Nagarro.