Today’s human resources professionals have it easy. They have the tools and the technology to help them with their work. But it could also mean getting too much distraction from what they plan to accomplish in the first place. HR should know which technologies to adopt and which ones to ignore, while also using the current practices that work.

Still, you have to marvel at the extent in which smart HR is bringing new solutions and new insights to age-old problems in human resources. For example, big data technologies have made it possible for human resources professionals to gather, analyze and store large volumes of data related to personnel and other HR stakeholders. Companies should be able to collect and harness all of these data in order to add or provide strategic business value. Taking cues from what the organization wants to achieve, HR should be able to formulate an analytics strategy that would help you contribute to the business goals. Having that kind of strategy in mind, you would need to figure out what data are required and what measures to use. You should be able to answer these questions:

• What do you need to know?
• How do you know if your efforts are on track, if you are successful, or if you need to adjust some things?
• What key trend indicators should you be looking at?
• How do you translate the data into actionable items for HR?

With this in place, you can now use data in order to make your employees’ lives better. All these data will help you attract, engage and train your employees.

Let us illustrate this by way of an example. You have conducted a survey among your employees and found that new employees were having a hard time adjusting to your company. You actually have a hint of this by taking a look at the data that measured each employee’s level of productivity. Doing this, you have gained a better insight and saw a bigger picture into your employee’s productivity and frustration. So now, you could come up with a more appropriate solution.

Problems and issues in human resources have not really changed that much from years or decades ago. Even in the 80’s, human resources have always tried to come up with solutions and ideas on how to recruit the best talent there is, how to help new employees acclimatize and adapt to the new company, how to develop and keep your employees. But today, technology has made it easier to come up with new and better ways to solve them. The HR professional would need to figure out which technologies to employ in order to solve these age-old HR issues. And how do they do this? By using technology to gain fresh insights and perspectives and turning things upside down.

The thing is, what works for one company does not necessarily work for another. You will need to develop your own solutions, harness your own data and decide on what technologies are going to help you most. Let Four Cornerstone help. We provide Oracle consulting in Dallas that could help you set up your HR initiatives. Call us today.

Photo by Nguyen Hung Vu.