Workforce analytics: A case study of scholar–practitioner collaboration

Abstract

Drawing on a case study of a large multinational fashion company, we describe the process of development of a Workforce analytics initiative within the corporate HR department resulting from the collaboration of practitioners and researchers. The article elaborates on three main points: (a) how social science research methods and the competences of management researchers may act as the basis for a rigorous Workforce analytics infrastructure and support the development of such practice along time, (b) some of the key levers and limitations for the creation of a Workforce analytics initiative within a company, and (c) how this emerging practice illustrates a symbiotic relationship between academics and practitioners. After presenting the case, we close with a set of lessons learned both for practitioners and scholars in the field.

The dark sides of people analytics: reviewing the perils for organisations and employees

“…Nevertheless, conceptual papers that offer typologies to categorise different people analytics practices and areas of application (e.g., Angrave et al, 2016;Dulebohn & Johnson, 2013;Ulrich & Dulebohn, 2015) as well as literature reviews that integrate the mainly practitioner-oriented and limited academic literature (e.g., Ekawati, 2019;Marler & Boudreau, 2017;Tursunbayeva et al, 2019) still dominate this nascent literature. Similarly prevalent are case studies that focus on the consequences of particular people analytics practices (e.g., Martin-Rios et al, 2017;Simón & Ferreiro, 2018). Thus, empirical research in this field is still scarce and rigorous quantitative or qualitative research examining the consequences of people analytics are lacking (e.g., Greasley & Thomas, 2020;van den Heuvel & Bondarouk, 2017).…”

“…Thus, empirical research in this field is still scarce and rigorous quantitative or qualitative research examining the consequences of people analytics are lacking (e.g., Greasley & Thomas, 2020;van den Heuvel & Bondarouk, 2017). In sum, the literature on people analytics is still in its early stages (Angrave et al, 2016;Huselid, 2018;Marler & Boudreau, 2017;Minbaeva, 2018) and it predominantly paints an optimistic portrait of how people analytics could help organisations flourish (e.g., Green, 2017;McIver et al, 2018;Nienaber & Sewdass, 2016;Simón & Ferreiro, 2018).…”

21st century HR: a competency model for the emerging role of HR Analysts

“…For example, in a case study conducted with Inditex, a large Spanish multinational fashion retailer, as part of their workforce analytics program, HR Analysts with a background in engineering and quantitative analysis played a significant role in collecting, analyzing and reporting data linked to key performance indicators. As a result, the insights gathered by the HR Analysts allow HR managers at Inditex to effectively monitor and make more evidence-based decisions around their workforce, resulting in higher overall store performance (Simón and Ferreiro, 2018).…”

Tackling the HR digitalization challenge: key factors and barriers to HR analytics adoption

“…The last category refers to the people who should carry out HR Analytics. Several studies suggest that these people should have an analytical mindset (Rasmussen and Ulrich, 2015;Marler and Boudreau, 2017;Mirski et al, 2017) together with some previous experience in HR and business (Martin-Rios et al, 2017;McIver et al, 2018;Simón and Ferreiro, 2018). However, these proposals are very generic and difficult to achieve in the current organizational context.…”