Outsource Magazine Issue 33 - (Page 68)

BIG DATA HITS HR With the quantity – and importance – of data in HR growing at a geometric rate, new skills and philosophies are needed to make the most of it, and to ensure HR continues to serve the organisation appropriately and optimally. Olusola Osinoiki, PricewaterhouseCoopers Olusola Osinoiki is a Senior Manager in the Human Resources Services division at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and PwC''s HRM Employee Data Solutions proposition lead. D o you remember the days of ﬁling cabinets full to the brim with personnel ﬁles of employees? Depending on the size of the organisation, the number of ﬁles and number of cabinets grew to match this. Then offsite centres came into play and the concept of retrieving ﬁles became commonplace. Fast forward to the 21st century, where we now have many ERP applications that we love to hate, along with the recent advent of cloud-based technology resulting in organisations being able to store and utilise vast amounts of data at a fraction of the cost and manpower required in the past. In 2013 one of the biggest buzz phrases is 'Big Data'. There is nothing new about the concept of big data, really, it’s just that the sources from which data can be gathered are much more numerous than in years gone by. Current estimates suggest that we are creating over two quintillion bytes of data every day and around 90 per cent of the data that exists today was created in the past two years. On the basis of the above, we are seeing a new trend in the HR space with technology and data now part of the day-to- ❛WITHOUT GOOD DATA GOVERNANCE YOU WILL NEVER GET GOOD DATA QUALITY ❜ day life of most HR professionals. The trend is leading to structured and unstructured data combining to give deeper insight for HR professionals. Big data in the HR space over the next ﬁve years is going to be a market-charger. The skills required to manage this type of data – cleansing, analytics and reporting – are not commonly found in the traditional skill set of HR professionals; companies have to identify and bring on people who can work on HR data. With the right skills, having access to a deep reservoir of big data provides an organisation with the opportunity to gather ‘Big Analytics’ which in turn can provide CEOs with ‘Big Insights’ into their organisations. HR big data will result in HR directors and managers being enabled to deliver better insight to the businesses they support. This is a challenge that HR has always been presented with and, ﬁnally, it looks like the right level of technology and the right data will result in HR demonstrating a clear return on investment by the insight it provides to business leaders. “The marketplace judges technologies by their practical effectiveness, by whether they succeed or fail to do the job they are designed to do.” – Freeman Dyson 68 ● ● www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Magazine Issue 33

Keeping in Touch
Shaji Farooq
Manoeuvre the Maze of Cloud Confusion
E-Invoicing: Where Now and Where Next?
Rick Simmonds
Only Strong Leadership and Governance Can Deliver High Performance
A Healthy Development
Getting to We: Time for a New Negotiating Paradigm
NOA Round-Up
To Outsource or Not to Outsource
Big Data Hits HR
John Willmott
Show Us The Money!
GBS: a Game-Changer for Finance
Neil Pratley
Go East
The Talent Challenge
Head-to-Head
Top Ten
NelsonHall Round-Up
Online Round-Up
The Deal Doctor
Inside Source
The Last Word

Outsource Magazine Issue 33