Analytical abilities and the performance of HR professionals

Abstract

Recent years have shown an increased focus on workforce analytics and the importance of workforce analytics in helping HR professionals to be more useful business partners. This suggests that HR professionals may need to become more and more data savvy and develop better analytical abilities if they hope to perform well and contribute meaningfully in the future. Despite this emphasis, there has been no research explicitly connecting the individual level analytical abilities of HR professionals to their job performance. Using a proprietary sample of 360 feedback surveys from 1,117 HR professionals in 449 unique organizations we test this general relationship. We also test whether the relationship varies by industry‐, company‐, and job‐level factors. We find support for our main hypotheses that HR professionals with higher analytical abilities will also have higher perceived job performance. We also find that the strength of this relationship varies by some job roles. We explore and discuss these empirical results.

HR analytics: The onto‐epistemology and politics of metricised HRM

“…Some recent evaluations suggest that there are significant obstacles to the utilisation of HR analytics and that the transformational potential of the approach may be limited. At a very basic level, some commentators suggest that the appropriate analytical skills are missing from the HR function (Kryscynski, Reeves, Stice‐Lusvardi, Ulrich, & Russell, 2018), though even if this skills gap was to be filled, other critics argue that the peripheral position of HR impedes the development of analytics projects at a more fundamental level (Smeyers, 2015, cited in Angrave, Charlwood, Kirkpatrick, Lawrence, & Stuart, 2016). Further, and of central interest to this paper, Angrave et al (2016) and Guest and King (2004) assert that there is scepticism and ambivalence amongst HR professionals about metrics and quantified data, which they see as reductive and of questionable value in the context of “people management.” These points draw attention to important questions of onto‐epistemology and organisational politics.…”

Sixty years of research on technology and human resource management: Looking back and looking forward

“…Tool view : E‐HR: e‐training & web‐based recruiting (Baird, Griffin, & Henderson, 2003; Bell et al, 2006; London & Hall, 2011), HR analytics (e.g., Kryscynski, Reeves, Stice‐Lusvardi, Ulrich, & Russell, 2018; Minbaeva, 2018)…”

“…Tool view: Virtual and distributed work: virtual teams (e.g., Felin, Zenger, & Tomsik, 2009) Proxy view: Employee responses to IT systems and virtual work (e.g., DeRosa et al, 2004;Fisher & Howell, 2004) Ensemble view: Interaction of virtual teams with other HR practices and with work/family domains (e.g., Brandl & Neyer, 2009;Lobel, Googins, & Bankert, 1999;Raghuram & Wiesenfeld, 2004;Rosen et al, 2006) Tool view: E-HR: e-training & web-based recruiting (Baird, Griffin, & Henderson, 2003;Bell et al, 2006;London & Hall, 2011), HR analytics (e.g., Kryscynski, Reeves, Stice-Lusvardi, Ulrich, & Russell, 2018;Minbaeva, 2018) Proxy view: User perceptions on e-recruiting (e.g., Dineen et al, 2004;Williamson et al, 2010), e-learning arrangement (Charlier et al, 2016), HR analytics (Wolfe, Wright, & Smart, 2006), HR shared service (Cooke, 2006). Ensemble view: Contextual determinant of the effectiveness of e-HR (Dineen & Williamson, 2012) and HR analytics (Levenson, 2018;Minbaeva, 2018) Tool view: tailoring HR practices to IT professionals (e.g., Major et al, 2007).…”

The science and practice of workforce analytics: Introduction to the HRM special issue

“…Up to this point we have argued that the design and implementation of relevant workforce analytics systems create value through their impact on workforce strategy execution. The next reasonable question might be: Do analytical capabilities among HR professionals lead to enhanced performance?Kryscynski, Reeves, Stice-Lusvardi, Ulrich, and Russell (2018) explore this question in a global sample of HR managers. Based on 360 feedback survey data from over 1,100 HR leaders from nearly 450 employees, they find that HR professionals with higher levels of analytical expertise also have higher perceived job performance.…”