Managing HR through data, not feelings
Human resources (HR) management, which is concerned with people, relationships and culture, has long been viewed as the “soft side” of business. Even if these are still crucial, modern organizations require more than just intuition. Senior executives are looking for evidence that HR efforts have a direct financial benefit.
This is where numbers come in. By translating employee data into measurable insights, HR professionals can show how their work supports business growth. Numbers cut through perception and opinion, allowing HR to speak the same language as finance, operations and strategy.
We asked Carlo Carbonell, subject matter expert of Inquirer Academy on data analysis and spreadsheet training, for his thoughts on this.
There are four ways HR can prove its value through numbers.
1. Measure the attrition and retention rates for employees
One of the most obvious markers of an organization’s health is employee turnover. Significant costs are associated with high attrition, ranging from lost productivity and institutional knowledge to training and recruitment expenses. Monitoring attrition and retention rates enables HR managers to see issues early and take steps to fix them.
For instance, HR can look at whether workload, leadership or pay is the cause of a department’s higher-than-average turnover. HR may make a strong case for interventions like management training or career development programs by providing specific data.
HR may forecast future staffing demands and adjust recruitment efforts by analyzing attrition data. HR can plan ahead and anticipate resignations rather than reacting to them.
2. Use data to monitor recruiting efficiency
One of HR’s most noticeable contributions to company performance is the timely and economical hiring of qualified candidates. Time to fill, cost per hire and quality of hire are examples of recruitment metrics that give a clear image of effectiveness and efficiency.
Imagine the following situation: HR analyzes recruiting data and finds that one hiring channel consistently yields applicants who perform better and stay longer. In contrast, a different channel has a higher cost per recruit but a lower retention rate.
HR may recommend reallocating recruitment budgets to optimize impact based on these data.
These numbers also enable HR to communicate in terms that executives understand. Instead of simply reporting that “recruitment is challenging,” HR can show that the average time to fill has improved by 20 percent compared with the previous quarter. Such data-backed updates strengthen HR’s credibility as a strategic partner.
3. Showcase employee engagement and productivity
Beyond recruiting and retaining staff, HR work is essential to making sure that employees are motivated and effective. Despite its seeming intangibility, engagement may be quantified using information, such as employee feedback, training participation and performance ratings.
For example, evaluating if learning programs are truly producing positive results can be done by tying training attendance to performance reviews or post-training evaluations. HR may present proof that a leadership program offers quantifiable value if participants exhibit improved performance or better promotion rates.
Engagement surveys also provide valuable insights. HR can identify links between output and morale by measuring employee attitude and comparing it with productivity data. In addition to strengthening HR’s suggestions, these insights help executives make people-related decisions that complement company goals.
Decision-makers may become overwhelmed by numbers alone. Converting unstructured data into clear, visual insights is where HR analytics’ real power becomes apparent. HR professionals may use dashboards to simplify a variety of information, such as training effect, recruitment funnel progress and attrition rates, into graphics that leaders can quickly absorb.
In addition to making reporting easier, dashboards enable HR to play a proactive role in strategy. When HR comes to the table with visuals that highlight challenges and opportunities, it demonstrates the ability to guide—not just support—organizational success.
4. Creating business value from people data
People have always been at the heart of HR’s work, but demonstrating its worth to business leaders requires converting human dynamics into quantitative data. HR can demonstrate its concrete influence in a number of ways, including by measuring attrition, monitoring recruitment effectiveness, assessing productivity and engagement and displaying information via dashboards.
By grounding decisions in data rather than feelings, HR professionals position themselves as strategic partners who drive results and help shape the future of their organizations.
Carbonell will facilitate an online workshop titled “Data Analysis for HR Professionals: Using MS Excel to Visualize Metrics and Drive Decisions” on Oct. 7 and Oct. 8. The eight-hour course is designed for HR professionals who want to transform raw HR data into actionable insights.
For your employees’ learning and development, Inquirer Academy can help you in designing and facilitating a training program. For more information, write to ask@inquireracademy.com, or send an SMS to 0919-3428667 and 0998-9641731.
The author is the executive director of the Inquirer Academy.
