Organizations may not be ready to tackle the challenges coming their way when it comes to new human resources demands, according to a recent study — and the problem appears self-imposed.
A Bersin by Deloitte report found that 86 percent of companies say they have no analytics capabilities in the HR function. Moreover, 67 percent rate themselves as “weak” at using HR data to predict workforce performance and improvement.
“Given the radical shifts in demographics and technology, doubling down on the human capital practices of the past will not be enough to get the job done,” said Josh Bersin, principal and founder of human capital research firm Bersin by Deloitte, in a press release. “The research shows that organizations should reimagine their approach to engaging people and move to re-engineer many of their HR practices.”
According to the report, 86 percent of respondents said leadership development was a big challenge, followed by retention and engagement (79 percent) and eliminating skilled labor within the HR function (77 percent). What’s more, a majority of the respondents in the survey said that their companies were not ready to properly handle these problems.
The survey also showed that business executives were dissatisfied with the HR division of their company. Roughly 34 percent of executives included in the survey reported that HR is just getting by or even underperforming. Less than 10 percent of HR leaders said they had confidence that their teams have the skills needed to meet the challenges of today’s global environment and to deliver innovative programs, the survey said.
Furthermore, 43 percent of respondents described their organizations as weak when it comes to providing HR with appropriate training and experiences, and 47 percent rank themselves as weak in preparing HR to deliver programs aligned with business needs.
As for building HR analytics capability, Bill Pelster, principal at Deloitte Consulting, said chief learning officers should aim to rebuild their learning curriculum to include more hands-on experiences.
“If chief learning officers don’t have a distinct class on analytics, they must embed analytics into teaching and make it come to life,” Pelster said. “You must give [the people in the company] a chance to experience it and a chance to use it. You can’t just talk about analytics; it really has to be done through experiential learning.”
By building a diverse skill set for their employees, Pelster said chief learning officers will have a better chance of adapting their HR functions for the inevitable demands surrounding big data and analytics.
“Whatever learning programs you have, whatever type of learning program you have, the challenge for chief learning officers is thinking how can they embed analytics into their underlining tool set and make it come alive,” Pelster said. “That is really the big ‘a-ha’ moment.”
Eric Short is an editorial intern for Chief Learning Officer magazine. He can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.