People Analytics – A Key Strategic Enabler

With the growth of business analytics field and the associated data technologies, ‘People Analytics’ has come into limelight. The importance of using analytics is growing significantly. Organizations look at analytics as a strategic tool to enhance the organizational effectiveness. Analytics has been described as a ‘must have’ capability for the Human Resource (HR) profession, a tool for creating value from people and a pathway to broadening the strategic influence of the HR function (CIPD, 2013). According to PwC’s 15th Annual Global CEO Survey, more than 80% of US CEOs say they need critical talent-related insights to make business decisions (PwC, 2014). HR departments that deliver analytics are evolving into strategic partners and help achieve a sustainable competitive advantage for their organizations. Developing high performance workforce to meet the organizational needs has become a challenging task for the HR department. HR decisions have a long-term impact on the organization’s growth potential. Decisions made by HR managers must be backed by evidence in the form of data. The ability to predict the workforce trends in the firm by using human capital analytics will increase the effectiveness of crucial HR related decisions. Very few organizations are able to fully reap the benefits of using workforce analytics. Several organizations are gradually adapting people analytics to gain advantage. As the field is fast emerging, significant debate needs to take place emphasizing the real outcomes and the strategic role played by people analytics. The current paper discusses the advent of people analytics to business organizations and the corresponding implications. The paper reviews the studies and conclusions drawn about the people analytics. The paper would talk about the role people analytics can play as a strategic enabler