People analytics is at the center of Human Resources.
Decision-making about people in an organization is now heavily analytical and data-based, and having and utilizing well-functioning people analytics is crucial to winning the war for talent.
Over the years, people analytics has evolved from reports of HR systems, headcount, vacation leave, and sick leave data to more advanced capabilities such as managing talent and workforce planning.
People analytics is collecting and applying organizational, people, and talent data to improve critical business outcomes. It enables HR departments to gain data-driven insights to make decisions on different people processes and turn them into actions to drive the performance of an organization.
People analytics is key to practicing evidence-based HR.
Organizations use people analytics in key HR functional areas such as compensation, recruitment and selection, retention, diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging, and performance management.
Difference between people analytics and HR analytics
The terms people analytics and HR analytics are frequently used interchangeably. However, there is a difference. HR analytics implies the data is exclusive to Human Resources, while people analytics goes beyond HR and includes finance, customer, marketing, and other data sources.
Furthermore, HR analytics is often overused, and service providers often only focus on HR solutions instead of holistic people analytics solutions.
