Big data in Human Resources: true stakes or false adaptation?

With activities being digitized, HR have started a deep transformation. Big data in HR seems to offer strong perspectives in all activities. Just pay attention to misleading leaps though.

Dave Ulrich stated about 15 years ago the new HR paradigm: making HR the management’s business partner and enabling the HR Manager to have a strategic role among the board. The HR Business Partner concept still gets mixed results, some authors even highlighting the loss of HR’s main duty, that is social matters. And now comes Big Data in HR, driven by technology and the promise of giving to HR means to be efficient and predictive about employees. What are Big data’s real possibilities in HR? Is it really that promising?

Big data in HR is defined as the perspective for HR to improve performance, by being able to be predictive about crises. This perspective is made possible by the new storage and mining capacity of the data about employees and applicants. Thus, data collection is not solely about internal issues. The best example of Big data’s impact in HR is the transformation of recruiting for the last 10 years.

Digitization of recruiting (posting offers, unlimited access to applicants, and selection with several criteria) completely changed the value chain within the industry. Digital leaders like Monsters appeared. Groups that have been present historically in HR now apply their business models on the same bases, just like Manpower that has been investing for years in complete digital solutions for its customers, in recruiting as well.

Companies that exemplify HR performance are digital companies. Google is mentioned the most often as the reference company. These companies invest largely in Big data. The perspectives given to HR through Big data seem to affect all fields: recruiting of course, with a lower unit cost and a substantial improvement in quality, but training as well, with the perspective of sharing knowledge with each employee individually the most relevant way, and last but not least, talent management, by being able to identify the relevant action for each talent (promotion, higher experience) depending on the data collected about these individuals.

However, the talk about Big data in HR must be put in context. It is put forward by companies specialized in information systems, that see there a new wave to ride. The basis of this speech is an adaptation of the previous impact of Big data in some activities like marketing to HR. Yet this adaptation raises some question. Big data increased marketing actions’ efficiency by making possible the prediction of behaviors, by collecting data about customers.

A company can then send them targeted messages at a lower cost (promotions, preferred conditions) and maximize the customer relationship. In its adaptation to HR, Big data will increase the function’s efficiency and will not only allow lower costs (e.g. in recruiting) but also a higher turnover thanks to targeted actions (the impact on sales of better trainings). However, the adaptation from a sector to the other misses a crucial point: HR is not marketing and employees are not customers. Thus it is possible to highlight two misleading leaps in this speech.

The first leap is idealizing the action. Big data only gives an indication, a proposal of actions at best, that will have to be implemented by the HR Manager or more probably by the line manager. HR studies on employees’ motivation and involvement show that the environment the relationship occurs in is very important to them. To transmit this recommendation to the employee, the way the manager pays attention to them (tone, time spent, sincerity of the speech) will mean a lot in the decision. But, line managers are often inefficient in their interpersonal approach to HR situations with the employees they deal with.

The second leap is illusion and standardization. It’s not because Big data will give indications of the best external profiles or the best internal targets that the action will follow. HR is a function under time and means constraints. Targeting the best applicant profiles with Big data will not enable HR professionals to recruit solely on these profiles.

There will definitely be a lack of time and means and recruitment of those ideal profiles only will not happen. Most companies will need to complete the recruiting with profiles more or less different from the ideal one. HR people also build their value integrating the second and third optimums.

Finally, Big data should be developed and implemented by joint teams: function – information system. Things at stake are all the more important that HR is still far from information system and unfamiliar with using data. A successful learning curve of Big data in HR is based on this combination of different profiles.

Learn more (in French) onwww.lesechos.fr/idees-debats/cercle/cercle-135583-le-big-data-dans-les-ressources-humaines-vrais-enjeux-ou-transposition-fallacieuse-1136827.php