In this blog, I tackle a question that gets asked a lot:
“Can’t my HR & Talent Systems provide the analytics and reporting I need?”
The short answer is no. No matter what systems you’re using – and even if they are best-in-class – HR and Talent systems, on their own, do not provide the insight HR Leaders require. The reason is very simple – these systems are designed to capture and report on their own very specific data. This is only a portion of the information required to understand outcomes associated with HR programs and activities.
When considering the depth and breadth of analytics needed to demonstrate business value, 2 key shortcomings of HR and Talent systems surface:
- These systems are designed to automate business processes. Analytics is not the core competence of these solutions and, in fact, analytics and reporting are often add-on features.
- Each system captures its own data. The reality is that any reporting that comes from these systems is disconnected from the rest of the business, and therefore limited in business value.
While each individual HR system (HRIS, Talent Mgmt, ATS, Learning, Performance, Surveys, …) has some “reporting/analytics” capability, the reality is that these systems offer basic reports on their silo’d process. The reports generated may be sufficient for managing the process (efficiency) but they don’t provide the analytics that HR Leaders need to make smarter decisions.
Consider whether your HRIS can answer questions like these:
- What is the ROI of our new manager training program?
- What is the lost revenue / productivity by position for every fill that is not on target?
- What is the quality of hire by Line of Business and Job Category? By Recruiting Source?
- What is the 1st year turnover rate by Line of Business and Job Category?
- How much is this costing the business?
- For every 1% reduction in 1st year turnover what is the $$ impact for the business?
To answer these business questions and measure against business outcomes, you need to connect the dots – there needs to be integration across your disparate HR and Talent systems and those systems that hold business results data. This means stretching beyond the transactional HR data and systems and making connections with outcome sources.
This is easier said than done but with an analytics partner this can be made simple. There are 2 major connections that an analytics provider will make:
- Connecting all your HR/Talent Data sources
- Connecting HR/Talent Data to Business Outcomes (Results) Data
It’s not that your HRIS and other systems aren’t good enough – they are…at what they were designed to do. It’s just that they’re not enough on their own. What needs to happen to get to the next level, is to seamlessly connect these systems with one another and with business outcomes sources. With connected data you can start to talk about outcomes and demonstrate value to the business. You can answer each and every one of those questions above. Isn’t this where HR should be?
For more on the benefits of connected data click here. In this document you’ll see how easy it is to get the reporting and analytics you need, plus some examples of the great ways your data can be visualized.
Enjoy!
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- Is your HR reporting effective? Maybe it’s time to re-think your approach - September 25, 2017
Tom Smith says
Hi, notably missing from the data sources was Health and Safety related Data. This information which should contain both leading and lagging indicators, Many Health and Safety functions historically collect a lot of data that can provide meaningful insights into the attitudes behind specific workplace behaviours and when combined with other business metrics can give a a stronger overall understanding of areas of excellence and opportunities for improvement.