DATA
Theres No Such Thing as Big
Data in HR
by Peter Cappelli
JUNE 02, 2017
Big data has become such a ubiquitous phrase that every function of business now feels
compelled to outline how they are going to use it to improve their operations. Thats also true for
Human Resources (HR) departments, which is where most of a companys money is spent, and
where wed like to believe the real value lies.
One of the reasons for the special attention being given to big data in HR is that the department is
always under pressure to be more analytic which is justied to some extent. Some wishful
thinkers believe that the application of big data techniques will somehow rid HR of the some of
the attributes they dont like about it, such as the perception that theyre focusing on soft
issues and not detailing the return on HR-related investments.
As with most of the next big thing stories in business, big data is really important in some
areas, and not so important in others. As a literal denition, HR does not actually have big data,
or more precisely, almost never does. Most companies have thousands of employees, not
millions, and the observations on those employees are still for the most part annual. In a
company of this size, there is almost no reason for HR to use the special software and tools
associated with big data.
For most companies, the challenge in HR is
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simply to use data at all the reason being that
the data associated with dierent tasks, such as
hiring and performance management, often
reside in dierent databases. Unless we can get
the data in those two databases to be
compatible, there is no way to ask even the most
PLAY 2:44 basic questions, such as which applicant
attributes predict who will be a good performer.
The Explainer: Big Data and Analytics In short, most companies and that includes a
<span>What the two terms really mean -- and how lot of big ones dont need fancy data
to effectively use each.</span> scientists. They need database managers to
clean up the data. And they need simple
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software sometimes even Excel spreadsheets
can do the analyses that most HR departments
need.
Another major dierence in HR analytics is that the questions that really matter have been under
investigation longer than most other business topics. What determines a good hire, for example,
has been studied in almost the same way since WWI. So the idea of bringing in exploratory
techniques like machine learning to analyze HR data in an attempt to come up with some big
insight we didnt already know is pretty close to zero.
Consider Googles very prominent eorts over the years to analyze their people data with
initiatives such as Project Oxygen, a multi-year research project that was designed to try to gure
out what makes a good manager a much more substantial eort than most any other company
could pull o. Most of the conclusions from that very intensive exercise were ones that research
discovered decades ago and which could have been found in textbooks. That doesnt mean its
not a worthwhile exercise to test how those standard assumptions of management play out in our
own organizations, but expecting to nd big and new insights is simply a bad bet.
INSIGHT CENTER The very nature of HR data imposes some
unique limitations on analyses. Companies
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SPONSORED BY ACCENTURE operating in the European Union, for example,
know that employee data cannot be moved
Analytics are critical to companies performance.
legally and easily across other national borders.
Multinational companies cant legally examine
employee data across countries at the same
time. In the U.S., analyses on employee data that could reveal the possibility of adverse impact
on protected groups e.g., our female employees in this unit are paid less than the males
triggers the need for legal and then management responses that wouldnt happen in other parts
of the business. HR has to be careful not to turn their data over to other departments that dont
understand these limitations.
So, what should HR be doing with data, after we clean up our datasets? Anytime we analyze data,
it helps to start with the basics. First, just look at the big picture graphs plotting outcomes
across the organization and then over time: Where has turnover spiked, and when did it happen?
Are there places where there are consistent employee complaints? Second, look at more of this
data, more often. For example, the move to pulse surveys (short, very quick, sometimes daily
surveys) of employees that replace the annual and ponderous morale surveys are a good idea.
Smart companies like IBM compile data that the employees themselves generate on company-
sponsored social media, for example, to monitor morale and identify workplace concerns.
Finally, HR should be analyzing relationships among the data. Start by asking how your hiring
criteria relates to actual performance. This is important not just because hiring is arguably the
most important task an organization does (partly because it happens so often), but also because
we are required to use criteria in hiring that do not have adverse impacts on protected groups.
At the end of the day, everything starts with the quality of the data: If we dont think our
performance appraisal scores are good measures of actual performance, for example, then no
analyses that try to predict who will be a good employee will be worth doing.
Peter Cappelli is a professor of management at the Wharton School and the author of several books, including
Will College Pay Off? A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision Youll Ever Make (PublicAffairs, 2015).
This article is about DATA
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Related Topics: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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lupisedame2 lupisedame2 a day ago
like Stanley implied I'm startled that people able to prot $5278 in one month on the
computer . see more......www.smart-job5.com
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