Talent Management - December 2008 - (Page 12)

[leading edge] by Jac Fitz-enz M M From Past to Future aybe it is just me, but I have seen a rather sudden increase in articles, books and conferences on analytics. Could it be that, as the walrus said, “The time has come to speak of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, and what’s so fascinating about these analytics things?” With apologies to Lewis Carroll, has analytics’ time ﬁnally come? Reactive vs. Proactive Decision Making A recent paper titled “Real Analytics for Real Business” was published by SAS Institute on the concept of analytics as a competitive action. As competitive analysis increases in sophistication, the degree of intelligence available to management rises rapidly. Managers can answer questions such as: what if these trends continue, why is this happening and what actions are needed, and what exactly is the problem? Gradually, value is added to the decision making that must follow. However, when statistical analysis is introduced to ask why something is happening, the degree of intelligence begins to increase exponentially, which shows the best that can happen. At this point, management has a solid foundation on which to make strategic talent decisions. Jeanne Harris, co-author of Competing on Analytics, said, “The key for CIOs is to think long term and enterprise-wide about how they’re going to capture, cleanse, manipulate, analyze and present data across the enterprise, to ensure there’s a common version of the truth. Then business managers can focus on the insights they’ve gained from the data, rather than arguing over whose data and analysis is correct.” Reread that statement and substitute CHRO for CIO. What if HR started thinking like that about the wealth of data that passes through its processes to hire, pay, develop and support the enterprise’s human capital? Wouldn’t that go a long way toward winning HR a seat at the proverbial table? Isn’t such as Oracle, SuccessFactors, KnowledgeAdvisors, Scarlett Surveys and others are upgrading their analytics offerings. The predictive initiative I led for the past 18 months is a model for predictive analytics. Still, it seems vendors are ahead of most of the market. Actually, the market is split. The vast majority of HR people are either not doing anything worth noting or are trying out basic metrics. A very small percentage are stepping up. On the other hand, HR innovators are starting to use the power of analytics. Most of them are coming in through the planning door. This is appropriate because reliable, valid planning data is the Isn’t it time HR graduated from kindergarten metrics of numbers of people hired, trained and retained to something more useful? About the Author Dr. Jac Fitz-enz is founder and CEO of the Human Capital Source and Workforce Intelligence Institute. He can be reached at editor@talentmgt.com. it about time that HR graduated from the kindergarten metrics of numbers of people hired, trained and retained to something more useful to the C-level? Once the CIOs get their act together and make the move from building databases to offering intelligence, they are going to look around for new worlds to conquer. Guess where the next fertile ground is? Wouldn’t CFOs like to have more robust data on human capital costs and returns? They would, and sooner rather than later, they are going to notice how much money they are spending on people and how little they know about what they’re getting in return. There are tools available to optimize human capital data. Vendors necessary baseline. They are also acknowledging there is more to planning than gap analysis. Now it is about capability planning. The more aggressive are looking into process optimization. There, they ﬁnd the most cost-effective sources and methods underlying stafﬁng, development and improvement programs. They are able to demonstrate that their processes are state-of-the-art. As Little Orphan Annie said, “Tomorrow is only a day away.” It will be here before we know it and we had better be prepared. The good news is the things we need to step up are here waiting for us. All we need to do is pick them up and go. 12 December 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - December 2008

Talent Management - December 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations Recruitment & Retention Assessment & Evaluation Compensation & Benefits Performance Management Learning & Development Succession Planning Insight Dashboard Application Advertiser's Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - December 2008

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