What Skills Are Required to Start a Career in HR Analytics?

Today, organisations are able to produce huge amounts of workforce-related data from their hiring practices and employee engagement studies to performance reviews and turnover rates. Yet, the mere availability of data is not enough to enhance decision-making. The value lies in the availability of professionals who are able to turn the data into insights. This is where the concept of HR Analytics comes into play.

HR analytics is the practice of using data to understand workforce behaviour, enhance HR practices, and improve organisational decision-making. As the trend of using data for decision-making is becoming the norm for businesses, HR analytics has become one of the fastest-growing fields within the domain of human resources.

For those who are interested in pursuing a role within the domain of HR analytics, the first question that comes to mind is: What are the skills that I must possess in order to begin my profession within the domain of HR analytics?

1. Data Analysis Skills

At the center of HR analytics is the capacity for data analysis and the recognition of meaningful patterns within the data.

HR analysts work with various types of workforce-related data, such as:

1. Employee turnover rates
2. Recruitment and hiring statistics
3. Absenteeism statistics
4. Employee engagement surveys
5. Productivity and performance statistics

The capacity for understanding these forms of data allows an organization to grasp issues such as:

1. What drives employees to leave the organization?
2. Which recruitment strategies yield the best talent?
3. What role does engagement play in productivity?

To become an HR analytics professional, an individual must be able to:

1. Descriptive analysis: Understand what happened
2. Diagnostic analysis: Understand why something happened
3. Basic predictive thinking: Anticipate what might happen in the future

2. Excel and Data Tools

Most HR analytics projects begin with spreadsheets.

For instance, Excel is a popular tool for HR workforce analysis. HR Analysts frequently utilize it for data cleaning, calculations, and summarizing HR data.

Some of the vital Excel skills that a person must master include:

1. Pivot tables for summarizing HR data
2. VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, IF functions
3. Data cleaning and transformation
4. Basic dashboarding and charts

Besides that, a person can also consider the following:

1. Power BI or Tableau for dashboarding
2. SQL for querying HR databases
3. Python or R for advanced analytics

However, a person must first master the skills for Excel and dashboarding, as they are the most frequently used in most HR departments.

3. HR Domain Knowledge

Technical skills alone are not enough.

A successful HR Analyst must also have an understanding of the way HR processes work. If the individual lacks an understanding of HR processes, it becomes difficult for the individual to interpret the workforce data correctly.

Some of the key HR concepts that an HR Analyst must have an understanding of include:

1. Recruitment and talent acquisition metrics
2. Employee engagement measurement
3. Performance management systems
4. Learning and development analytics
5. Workforce planning and talent retention

For example, an individual must have an understanding of organizational culture, job satisfaction, and the stages that employees go through in order to correctly analyze the turnover data.

It is the combination of data analysis and an understanding of HR that makes HR analytics important.

4. Data Visualisation Skills

Data is more powerful when well presented. HR leaders and business executives may not want to look at raw spreadsheet data. Instead, they want to see visual summaries of the data that help them identify key trends.

Therefore, data visualisation is an important skill in HR analytics.

HR analysts should have the ability to present data in the following forms:

1. Dashboards
2. Charts and graphs
3. HR scorecards
4. Workforce trend reports

Software such as Power BI, Tableau, and Excel dashboard enables the presentation of complex data in an easy-to-read visual format.

Data visualisation enables HR professionals to easily spot issues such as increasing turnover and engagement.

5. Business and Strategic Thinking

It’s not simply about reporting data. HR analytics is about helping an organization make better decisions.

This means HR analysts need to be able to tie data insights to business outcomes.

For instance:

1. What’s the business impact of employee engagement on productivity?
2. What’s the business impact of investment in training?
3. What’s the business impact of workforce strategies on turnover?

Understanding the business impact of HR decisions allows HR analytics professionals to contribute to the organization at a strategic, not simply an operational, level. Read our previous article on How to Transition From Other Career Paths into HR Analytics

6. Communication and Storytelling

The best analysis will not have the desired impact if it cannot be communicated properly.

HR Analysts must be able to communicate the findings of the analysis to stakeholders who may not necessarily have the technical background.

What makes good HR analytics storytelling:

1. To explain what the numbers are saying
2. To identify the problem
3. To provide recommendations

For example, instead of saying:

"Employee turnover increased by 8%"

A better insight could be:

"Employee turnover increased by 8%, particularly for those employees who have less than two years of service."

7. Curiosity and Problem-Solving

Finally, one of the most underrated skills in HR analytics is curiosity.

Great HR analysts ask themselves:

Why are employees leaving?

Which groups have the highest engagement?

What predicts high performance?

This curiosity makes HR analytics a problem-solving practice, not just a reporting practice.

Curiosity is the driving force behind better insights and better workforce strategies.

HR analytics is the point where people, data, and business strategy intersect. And as the need for using data in workforce decision-making continues to rise, the need for HR analytics practitioners will only increase in the future too. A career in HR analytics does not always require a candidate with a pre-existing HR background. People from various backgrounds, including finance, data analysis, psychology, and business analysis, can pursue a career in HR analytics by acquiring the right skills for the job. Therefore, HR analytics is all about answering the question: How can data help us build better workplaces? And this is only possible with the right experience. Click here to find out how.