Moneyball Analytics in HR?

Working at Trindent Consulting, an operational improvement consulting firm exposes me daily to the power and value of analytics. While businesses have embraced predictive analytics, HR professionals have struggled over the years just to prove ourselves as business partners. To be more aligned we started to report numbers, which became data which became metrics. It was (and generally still is) pretty basic stuff – we report such things as demographics, turnover percentages and the cost of recruiting. A good baby step but it is still just static data. We are out of step with the exploding world of analytics.

First, the Oakland A’s and now even the lowly Toronto Maple Leafs use HR analytics to predict performance.

We HR professionals have the key to a treasure trove of valuable data that we can leverage and by doing so will get the attention of our analytic loving business partners. Metrics are just numbers but analytics are strategic. Take the metric, analyse it to understand why it is what it is. Dive deep. We now “report“ metrics, analytics mean we can “predict” based on understanding what is behind these metrics. Right now we “track” where we are with metrics, we should be “forecasting” with analytics.

What is going to get our CEO’s attention – looking backwards or forwards?

How many companies have analysed the DNA of their best performers? What makes them the best? If you have 1000 employees and 150 stand out – why? Is it their attitude, their course work, their university, the in-house training program they participated in, their boss, their extra-curricular activity? What makes them better? If you determine this, you can change your hiring process from being “recruiting” to “analytical sourcing”.  If you double the number of top performers through this process to 300 – what is that going to do to your profitability?

Let’s play ball HR!

This blog was written by David Smith, Vice President of Human Resources at Trindent Consulting. He is a highly-strategic executive and has proven experience in establishing national and international human resources structures.