Expanding the Reach of Analytics - HR Analytics

There is no doubt that analytics is expanding its reach in the organization.  With hot topics of business intelligence and big data along with the growing demand for data scientists there is certainly a lot going on in this field.

Last week during our school meeting representatives from the college's careers services group shared with us the different ways they can help our students prepare for the job market.  During this conversation one of our faculty asked about hiring trends they noticed.  The career services staff mentioned a growing need for students with knowledge and skills in both human resources and computer information systems.  Due to the heavy reliance on information systems to manage and develop human resources this combined knowledge does make sense.  However, this combination will become even more important in the near future.

After the meeting I did a little research and found many application of information systems in the field of human resources.  In addition to simply applying information systems to HR business there is also a growing trend to apply data analytics to HR.  This trend can be seen by Overby's recent article in CIO Magazine on talent analytics and Waber's book on people analytics.

Considering that human resources are commonly one of the most expensive and valuable resource in the organization, it makes perfect sense to apply data analytics to predict future behaviors and to maximize the value employees can bring to the organization.