‘The Data Issue’

“The domain of people analytics is growing rapidly, offering new opportunities to better hire, manage, retain and optimise the workforce,” wrote Josh Bersin, alongside other experts, in Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends report in 2018. It’s fair to say that they were correct in their thinking.

People analytics and data was, and is, rapidly growing. In fact, this now-crucial area of HR practise has grown so much that it’s now underpinning a large part of the response to one of the UK’s largest employer’s response to COVID-19. This firm, who operates in the retail space, is using payroll data to track in real time the impact of coronavirus on its business – allowing it to inform staff acquisition, drive real-time strategy evolution and make key business decisions. HR is at the heart of this.

It is just one of the examples of how, if HR gets savvy to the data, it can become a central business function, delivering to it the ‘seat at the table’ that so many leading practitioners are calling for. Yet, knowing how to use the data can be a challenge. This is why, in this Data issue of HR Grapevine, we spoke to some of those using data in the most forward-thinking ways in order for HR to better understand it.

Inside is an exclusive interview with BP’s talent acquisition director: she explains how the energy giant is driving a new purpose with data-enabled hiring. There is another exclusive in the form of a Josh Bersin interview as HR’s data guru reveals the importance of data, as well as some practical takeaways on whether HR should trust ‘data or feeling’ alongside a deep dive into whether statistics should be trusted.

Stay safe and, as ever, enjoy.

Daniel Cave - Head of Content