Why it’s crucial for HR to draw from data

According to experts, HR departments should be drawing from data when making decisions within a business.

This was discussed in HR Leader’s “How HR can lead during economic uncertainty” webcast, in partnership with HiBob.

“At the most basic level, for successful message making, you need to understand the data and what’s behind it,” said regional senior vice-president at HiBob, Damien Andreasen.

“You’re talking about very uncertain times where I’m sure there’s a lot of companies out there that are doing huge amounts of scenario planning … How do you do that unless you’ve got a great data set that supports decision making and that scenario planning?”

Mr Andreasen highlighted how companies only seem to rely on datasets during hard times. This can be counterproductive as the information you need won’t be organised and ready for when you need it.

“What I’m seeing with a lot of the clients is that in the good times, no one looks at the data in a huge amount of detail because everything’s going well. They don’t need to question it. When the going gets tough, the inspection rates on the smallest level of detail goes up significantly.”

“Everyone’s trying to understand what the levers are, what the impact of certain decisions are going to be, so to be able to answer those questions, you don’t just need data, you also need data to be structured in a way where it can be queried properly,” explained Mr Andreasen.

Ultimately, HR professionals should be using industry data to be more effective in their roles.

Mr Andreasen commented: “HR teams are not just asked to create amazing work experiences and environments for people, but also to be strategic about what does the work look like now, in 12 months and 24 months based on scenarios.”

Meredith Crowe, interim senior vice-president for global people and culture at Telix Pharmaceuticals, agreed that data is crucial for HR departments.

“The business wants more data than ever. They want to be able to look at where it’s come from and what the source is more and more,” she said.

“It’s not only within businesses that we look at more data during economic downturns; it’s also external data. We talk a lot about GDP, we talk about unemployment rates, we talk about inflation rates. It’s really important to be able to have that data as well as internal data to be able to talk to the workforce.”

Ms Crowe said that being effective in data usage will give both the company and employees the confidence they need during uneasy times.

“I think one of the ways you can really undermine your credibility as a team is to give different answers to the same question,” she said.

According to Ms Crowe, with talent shortages affecting plenty of industries, using data to your advantage can assist in planning for hard times.

“It’s an employee market. And so, it’s such an interesting combination of data that we’ve got right now that we really have to consider when we are talking about decision making and planning with the workforce and that scenario planning,” she commented.

“It’s all very well to say I’ve got these five roles and those ones are the ones I’ll prioritise and fill, but if I can get my hands on data that’s saying this is taking eight months to fill this kind of position within this location, we might be making different decisions around that.”

This webcast, in partnership with HiBob, when quoted above, was slightly edited for publishing purposes. The full audio conversation on 28 February can be found here.