People Analytics: The Past, Present And Future

Big Data has left companies in a lurch since they are unable to handle the large tracts of disruptive information, and, are therefore cannot comprehend critical employee related queries. People Analytics enables them to manoeuvre this huge data tract for better business enablement by providing them access to the data that is relevant and is rendered the requisite priority.

- S.Ajay Kumar and Shruti Chadha

It is thought provoking that these lines should come from the Management Guru himself, but it is apparently evident that the social networking giants are manipulating and steering big data to achieve their business goals, and, this, in effect has sculpted their success story, making way for many others to follow the trail.

If we reef through the pages of history, we find that analytics had been in use since the prehistoric days the Egyptians introduced statistics for carrying out a census, and to date, this has been used in different forms and variations - to make way for the present day data analytics; a specialized area that aims its focus on the science and math of business.

Businesses the world over have been utilizing data analytics to get a quantified measure of their sales numbers, customer head count, product details and so on for many years now. The Human Resource function has only begun making use of customised analytics tools since the last decade, a quarter century after the sales and marketing departments.

Rising costs and the underlying risks involved in talent acquisition are among the multiple reasons why companies are making use of people analytics as their best effort at effective talent management. Premlesh Machama, MD, CareerBuilder says, "Today business leaders make use of analytic solutions to have a deeper insight into the workforce to improve business outcomes and fuel data backed and evidence-based decisions. While the most apparent benefits are correlated with time savings, proof of ROI (Return on Investments), percentage changes as well as cost saved and profit earned, there are less substantial advantages of HR analytics that leaders often unveil after they have started with their solution."