Evolution of analytics: Helping HR make key decisions for companies

People are talking about the growing importance of social media, analytics, cloud, and security (SMACS) and lately that has also been supplemented by new age technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things) and machine learning. If a company is to succeed, HR as a component should be integral to all parts of the organisation, said Dr S Venkata Seshaiah, director of ICFAI, delivering the keynote speech at the 51st Shine HR Conclave at Hyderabad.

Leading human resource professionals came together at the Shine Conclave, which concluded on January 17, to discuss the evolution of HR analytics and its impact on business strategy. Key topics? The power of data, changing landscapes, challenges and solutions.

Event moderator Sriniwas CR, associate director at Accenture, set the tone by talking about HR analytics. “Measurement of data and drawing meaningful inferences to drive business decisions became important as companies realised how to quantify the data that they had collected. This was the beginning of HR analytics,” he said.

On the significance of an analytics-oriented culture to develop business efficiency, Ekta Singh, vice-president of HR at Capgemini, said “Data in itself is not very useful without any insights. Analytics helps to derive insights from data.”

Throwing light on the evolution of analytics, Hrishikesh Mulay, director-HR Cognizant, said “the purpose of HR analytics was to improve HR decision-making and now companies are at different stages in terms of the analytics evolution levels. This is primarily due to the democratisation of data universally.”

Manoj Kumar Sharma, head of HR at Gulf Oil Corporation, said HR had different roles in different industries due to the difference in talent and skill requirement, but the role of analytics remained the same, to derive operational efficiency for the organisation.

Venka Reddy, global HR partner at Infosys, added that HR analytics was key to the improvement of each organisation because it directly correlates with the improvement of employee morale.

The panel discussion ended with an interactive question-and-answer round followed with a closing note by S Sreenivasamurthy, dean and chairman for placements at IPE. He emphasised that entry level salaries in the field of HR had to be increased to attract talent.

Zairus Master, CEO of Shine.com, said, “After the success of our previous summits, it is great to see the response repeated in Hyderabad. Through these summits, we aim to provide a platform for HR leaders to address key industry issues and trends. The feedback from the participants today has been extremely encouraging.”