What does a HR Analyst do?
HR analysts are responsible for making sense of data and information using the company’s HR systems in place. Their ultimate objective is to make key strategic recommendations to management to drive change, anticipate trends and fix issues. HR analysts are typically operating within multinational companies within a dedicated HR department. Although the demand for HR analysts is increasing, the “Analyst” function is mostly shared between HR team leaders in organisations of smaller size.
Do not misunderstand Data Analysts with Data scientists, skilled in machine learning programming, mathematical modelling or regression analysis.
What does the future hold for HR Analysts?
Whether blended into generalist roles or as a standalone function, we can only expect demand for HR analytics to rise over the coming years. As organizations are getting onboard with HR systems and softwares, making sense of internal and external data have also become more complex. HR analysts shall operate as strategic advisors and tactical implementers to better support business decisions with data.
Yes, HR analysts will master the skill of collecting, structuring and analysing data on HR processes across the organization. To perform their jobs at their best level, HR analysts require fundamental skills at managing database, not only to prevent from data entry errors or human related omissions but also to consolidate large amount of datasets (Using tools such as Excel or PowerBI). HR analysts are no developers. Nonetheless, their toolbox will include basic programming language skills (most commonly used SQL) to connect and combine datasources.
Good, nice and reliable data doesn’t speak for itself. HR analyst shall be trained and developed to speak the same language as business line managers. Aside from visualization techniques, HR analysts require analytical skills to identify key areas of improvements and critical problems. To address solutions, they shall use story telling techniques to deliver compelling messages to their organization’s stakeholders.
Companies will invest further in HR analytics for a simple reason : performance. For example, organizations taking HR analytics seriously will be able to identify turnover patterns across the organization’s, analyse return on investment (ROI) for L&D programs, plan ahead compensation & benefits according to organisation structure and employee levels etc.
In the same department
Career Development
This position is similar to
Human Resources Manager
Personnel Manager
Talent Manager
HR Operations Manager
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