Reporting or Predicting: Where Are You in the Data Spectrum?
While many firms have started the journey on the path to tracking and using analytics, very few have the ability to fully deploy the data into actionable policy. Josh Bersin in Forbes recently asserted that “only 4% of companies have achieved the capability to perform “predictive analytics” about their workforce.” Bersin breaks down the “Talent Analytics Maturity Model” into 4 progressive levels: Reactive – Operational Reporting, Proactive – Advanced Reporting, Strategic Analytics, and Predictive Analytics.
Often times, the most difficult part of getting to the right measurement mindset is determining the right questions to ask. Bersin also warns that, “One of the biggest challenges to Big Data analytics in companies we’ve talked with is getting people to change their behavior once they have data. Most managers have years of “belief systems” and “experience” that holds them back from using the data science.” Firms need cross functional analytics teams with the ability to combine “analytics” and “business” to convey the information in ways which can not only be easily understood but also accepted.
David Gartside, Managing Director at Accenture notes that, “Three things are driving the use of predictive analytics in HR... First, HR departments are getting much better at using operational processes and technology with an eye toward collecting good quality data to make better decision –making. The second piece is social data. Finally…vendors of HR solutions are increasingly building analytics into their core platforms.” These are good signs that firms are progressing along the path to the highest level from Bersin’s model.
Predictive analytics can bring some potential problems or ethical questions into play as well while firms develop. John Sumser in his blog HRExaminer explores who owns data in a series of blogs detailing the legal and political implications of Big Data. Sumser states “the source of the data and who owns it will be where the battles are. That’s because who has the rights to the data will determine who gets to use it, and how or whether it gets used.” Data and technological innovations are evolving at a pace that far exceeds that of the laws we would use to govern data’s usage.
Join HCI this January 9, 2014 at 1 pm ET for the webcast, The Economics of Labor Data – Make Big Data Work for You and hear Sumser share how an increasingly thorough understanding of the talent economy and data can guide an informed leadership. This session examines how data will change the face of HR, what firms should be measuring but they’re not, and why it’s so hard to get the data the CEO wants and what HR can do about it.