Excerpt from the blog post “The human problem in HR”, written by Den Howlett on October 20, 2014:

Like colleagues, I was assailed with all manner of talk about HR analytics and like others, I experienced a dark sense that while well intentioned, HR just doesn’t get it. It never has. I recall over 10 years ago attempting to address the issue of analytics with HR professionals who took the view that anything with a number on it must stink of the finance department and so was of no concern of theirs. Not much has changed. This from Josh Bersin:

“Our research shows that only 4% of large organizations have any ability to “predict” or “model” their workforce – but more than 90% can model and predict budgets, financial results, and expenses. So the problem is not only one of poor analytics skills in HR, but a historic problem of lack of investment, poor data quality, and old fashioned HR systems.”

In my view Josh is kinda right but not quite telling the whole tale. Brian Sommer’s assessment is more brutal:

“It’s like the business is coming out of the recession but HR is still stuck in 2008. The post-recession HR organization is more often than not comprised of survivors who possess pre-recession skills and use pre-recession tools. It’s as if HR has entered the Twilight Zone of irrelevancy.”

Has anything changed? In the post-2008 recession period, we’ve had advances in technology to help HR professionals. But pretty much the only thing that’s consistently hit the headlines and proven popular as ‘new’ has been the sprawl of Talent Management solutions. Sure enough, SuccessFactors had one of the biggest stands at the show. Now the new hotness is analytics – again.

My sense is that Sommer is being a bit too harsh but I take his point that investment in HR has lagged that of other parts of the business. I also take Frank Scavo’s point that:

“… most HR professionals do not have the quantitative skills to make use of new technologies such as workforce analytics. As Kelly

[former practice leader at Mercer,] points out, simple tools such as Excel may be sufficient for planning headcount by job function and geography. But more sophisticated analytical tools are needed to correlate projections of workforce skills, attrition rates, pay growth, diversity analytics, and external labor market data. Unfortunately,  most HR professionals lack the skills to make use of these tools. HR has always been a career that is more attractive to liberal arts graduates, such as those majoring in psychology, sociology, and communications, rather than those with science and math degrees where they develop the quantitative analytical skills needed to make use of these tools.”