We live in a world where everyone is connected constantly. We are unconsciously producing 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day. Over the last two years alone, 90% of the data in the world was generated. This trend affects how we communicate and how we consume information, but also how businesses operate. 78% of companies believe big data is likely to fundamentally change their operations over the next three years, and HR is no exception.

Modern HR systems rely more than ever on automation, analytics, and predictive capabilities. Using workforce data enables HR to make decisions that drive both better business, and people outcomes.

Are companies implementing HR analytics? The answer is absolute YES. Multinationals like Facebook, Amazon, Credit Suisse, Google, and LinkedIn are all doing it. Credit Suisse saves up to a hundred million dollars every year, by increasing the retention rate after creating a more data-driven HR function. Big data and big savings.

Companies that implement people analytics are 56% more profitable than their less data-driven competitors. That is why, in the last decade, 72% of businesses in the United States increased their spending on analytics. And more investments lead to more jobs.

The digital workforce analytics market is expected to be worth more than 1 billion dollars by 2023. The projected number of jobs that require data analysis skills is 5 million in the US alone. Great chance for the people out there who are looking to grab these opportunities. People just need the right skills. If you are fluent in performing data analysis, using spreadsheets, programming, interpreting statistics, database management, big data, machine learning, and predictive analytics, you should start. Companies rate their HR teams low on analytical skills. Just 8% felt that the current state of their HR analytics was strong. There simply are not enough people who possess these skills to take on data-driven jobs. In fact, a study by LinkedIn shows that only 18% of HR professionals currently have these skills. It is also projected that the skill gap will keep growing.

The University of California estimates that the global demand for data scientists has already exceeded the supply by 50%. It is no secret that data, digitalization, and analytics are becoming crucial in HR. Therefore, now is the time for people to upgrade themselves and develop the skills of the future. It is time for you to become data-driven, bridge the gap, take charge of your career.

●     What Will be the Role of HR in 2025?

It is unavoidable now that the disciplines that are brought to bear in questions like this go well beyond the traditional disciplines of HR. As important as those disciplines are, there is a need to open the boundary so that an HR profession has within it. Already as mentioned, we are seeing data analysts, storytellers, etc. It is more likely to see more designers of technology, more professions that are good at disaggregation and re-aggregation such as architecture, engineering, where very often the problems they are already really good at having to do with disaggregation and then reinvention. Lots of engineers running around, architects running around. So one is the future of HR is this idea of an orchestra conductor, someone who is well connected to other disciplines, and who can bring those disciplines in.

One of the fundamental things of a profession, that is prepared to disaggregate the work and disaggregate the individual and to develop a language at that disaggregated level that is not chaos, but something systematic that we can use to reinvent the work.

These ideas about engaging humans differently, combining automation with humans. They have organizational implications. So, when automation takes over certain tasks, the power structure changes.

Now artificial information, when you have artificial information providing information, offering suggestions, etc., would also be a part of your or your organization’s social network. Because dropping it into a social network, changes the way everyone interacts.

Another significant element here for HR is to realize that once you start to reinvent the work, the echoes, the ripples, are going to mean vastly different organizational structures, vastly different elements of organizational design, such as power, accountability, etc. Now that the technology is there and with some of the passive network analysis to start to understand how organizations work.

CONCLUSION

At the centre of today’s rapidly changing workforce, hard-hitting digital revolution, and the swirling forces of globalization sits HR. In the midst of so much change, HR needs a way to respond quickly and adequately to the needs of the business. It must attract and engage the right talent and it must provide candidates, employees, and managers with the kinds of workplace experiences they expect. Therefore, HR needs to be on top of its game to satisfy the needs and desires of the business and its employees. With the help of technology and a data-driven society, HR is expected to do better than its predecessors and that is what the business and the corporate world need.