HR Metrics, HR Analytics & People Analytics

Do you find yourself in doubt about the difference between metrics, analytics, and people analytics in relation to HR management? You are not alone. The ways in which metrics, analytics, and people analytics relate and add value to the practice of Human Resource Management can be confusing, so here is a brief overview.

HR Metrics

HR metrics are measurements used to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of HR policies. Metrics help compare different data points. For example, if voluntary turnover was 5% last year and is now 7.5%, it has increased by 50%. The former are data points, the latter is the metric. Metrics don´t say anything about a cause, they just measure the difference between numbers. They can be interesting and important, but really, they just tell a story about what happened.

HR Analytics

HR analytics is a historical view of your HR metrics. Your input metrics consist of lists of voluntary terminations, group by business unit for a specific time period. By looking at the trend over time, analyzed by job family or termination reason, you will then be provided with your HR analytics. To learn more, you can download this Low-Tenure Metric Report, which provides practical examples of how SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics can effectively help you uncover your low-tenure termination challenges.

People Analytics

People analytics is the quantification of people drivers on business outcomes. Analytics measures why something is happening and the impact of the outcome on the business. People analytics is often interchanged with HR analytics, but it is a quantifiable combination of HR analytics with other metrics, such as finance (financial analytics in particular). If you have voluntary termination for the last 6 quarters and a decline in sales revenue for the last 6 quarters, you can prove a correlation between the two. This is people analytics.

While the greatest benefit is within people analytics, you need to have the basic HR metrics and HR analytics in place as a prerequisite in order to achieve success with people analytics. In other words, do not try to achieve too much in one go. Instead, try to take a few steps forward at a time. Put processes and technology in place that allow you to gather the HR metrics that will eventually let you develop people analytics.

Contact us for expert guidance on HR analytics, or follow the links to read more about SAP Analytics Cloud or Workforce Analytics.