Global organisations upskill HR teams to unlock power of people data

Innovation generation: the big HR tech disconnect, a report released today by Thomsons Online Benefits, shows a dramatic uplift in the number of UK-based global organisations building people analytics teams – rising from 8% to 43% in just three years.

With tech talent in short supply, the survey of 60 HR decision makers from UK-based global companies suggests that employers are looking to upskill existing HR team members to make sense of people data, which is increasingly accessible.

• 70% of those surveyed have upskilled existing HR team members – almost 50% more than those who hired in external talent (23%)
• 22% plan to upskill HR team members over the next 12 months

Matthew Jackson, VP Client Solutions at Thomsons, comments: “There’s a common misconception that digitalisation and increasing automation will lead to job losses. Our research indicates that when it comes to HR, this simply isn’t the case – at least not in the near to mid-term. Instead, we will see an evolution of skills as businesses increasingly look to HR teams to supply data-based insights that can play a real role in measuring and informing people strategy.”

The advantages of drawing on people data

87% of UK-based global employers surveyed currently use or plan to use employee data to report on business operations and performance.

And those employers who do so are seeing significant results:

• 44% have used people data insights to improve employee engagement
• Almost a third (31%) have improved employee productivity
• 62% have improved their benefits programme by looking at employees’ interactions with their benefits platform

Lisa Morrow, Global Benefits Program Managers, at NetApp said: “We’re only just starting to tap into the potential that people data in the modern workplace offers. There’s huge potential for us as HR professionals to make a tangible business impact by harnessing this information, but it’s essential that our teams have the skills needed to interpret data and provide insights in a way that is useful to business leaders. The more we develop our understanding of people analytics, the more we’ll be able to contribute at the boardroom level, offering expertise that can feed into business strategy and encourage greater productivity and company loyalty among employees.”

The disadvantages of data disconnect

While 40% of respondents consider themselves ‘an innovator’ or ‘an early adopter’ when it comes to the adoption of HR technology, the research suggests there’s a disconnect between technology adoption and using the data generated effectively.

Almost 40% of employers aren’t using people analytics to report on benefits take-up, radically diminishing their ability to accurately gauge return on investment.

This is incredibly concerning, when 30% of UK-based global employers spend upwards of 16% of employee salary on benefits – equivalent to £3,542 per employee in the UK.

Among those global organisations not using or planning to use employee data to report on business operations, 31% cite a lack of data literacy in the HR function as the primary barrier, alongside poor-quality data (31%).*

Increasing availability of data driving change

However, with organisations set to increase the amount and variety of people data that they gather, data illiteracy won’t remain an option for long:

• Currently, 62% of employers collect employee benefits data on benefits take-up and scheme engagement, but this figure is set to skyrocket to 96% in the next three years
• 21% of companies collect data generated from building sensors, on employees’ footfall or desk time for example, but 50% are likely to do this by 2022
• When it comes to wearables, only 7% of global employers collect data from these, but this will soar to 43% within three years

Matthew Jackson continues: “At present, having people analytics skills within the HR function is optional – but soon they will be imperative. The significant budgets that HR teams are handling are simply too large not to track, and the potential for better, data-led decision making is too big to ignore.”