People analytics

The situation

Historically, the people profession has attracted fewer people who are highly numerate and analytical. But this is changing.

People and technology are meeting halfway. People professionals are building their analytical skills and analytical tools are becoming more user friendly.

Using analytics to inform practice and decision making was a common theme reported in the changing roles of the profession in our People Profession 2023 report. Sixty-three per cent of respondents said they have responsibilities and influence in HR information systems or people analytics (see p12 and p16 in the report).

CIPD viewpoint

All CIPD qualified people professionals should be insights focused, as outlined in our Profession Map. People analytics specialists (a sub-group of people professionals focused specifically on people analytics) should, similarly, have the people analytics specialist knowledge outlined in our Profession Map. 

People analytics helps you understand your people and make evidence-based decisions about them, such as improving performance, wellbeing or EDI. See our people analytics factsheet for further details.

People analytics relies on good quality data from both bespoke measures and indicators from management information and helps people professionals to understand and measure core areas of HR, such as employee and team performance. 

As people analytics can involve monitoring and surveillance, it’s important to not exploit what you gather – don’t be too intrusive. If you decide to introduce employee monitoring software, be transparent about it, consult with your employees and explain why you’re doing it. 

Recommendations for employers

• Invest in your people professionals by providing training and development that enhances their people analytics skills. With these skills, your people professionals will be more confident in drawing insights from data. Grow your people analytics capability further by borrowing analysts and data scientists from other teams and hiring external consultants to undertake special projects.  

• Proactively look for opportunities where people analytics can help solve critical business problems and co-develop solutions with stakeholders to ensure they’re fit for purpose. Strengthening cross-functional relationships extends the business impact of people analytics.

• Invest in improving data and technology solutions that support better decision making. This includes developing measures that are robust and trustworthy, and embedding tools that make it easy to analyse and present data effectively. Making it easy for stakeholders to get timely insights increases the likelihood of people analytics being used.