Big Data Analytics and Its Impact on Human Resources Management

Introduction

Technology has unprecedently redefined the way businesses operate nowadays. In today’s scenario, analytics is not about determining interesting facts and waning them for managers. Big data has emerged as a game-changer in organizations and industries, particularly, in the HR industry. Human resource management (HRM) is experiencing an archetype shift from the conventional period of small data to the evolving era of big data.

The competence to analyze massive amounts of data has witnessed significant accessibility over the past few years, with businesses emphasizing on incorporation of analytics in managing the workforce efficiently. The growing popularity of this technology in organizations can be attributed to the decline in the cost of storing the data and the data production technology (Nocker, 2019). In addition to this, the techniques that augment the processing and manipulation of stored data are increasingly being embedded within standard software, thereby enabling HR practitioners to easily extract insights from the stored data, and subsequently, impact the overall performance (McAfee A. B., 2012).

Analytics in human resources poses to be profitable in making HR executive decisions concerning organizational and employee performance. Big data is becoming a pervasive tool and a resource, enabling the segments to shift from simply reporting data to organizations conducting advanced workforce planning, predicting employee performance, and making informed talent decisions.

Several companies are making substantial technological investments to manage their day-to-day transactions, with few of them using these aggregated terabytes of information to generate meaningful data-driven decisions (Fiore, 2014). The usage of data in HRM has witnessed significant evolution over the past few years from basic metrics to big data via human resource analytics. Analytics in human resources comprises of external and internal data collection and manipulation, to back up the decisions relevant to the personnel connected to the organizational performance and business results (Marler, 2016).

With predetermined expectations, generating an optimized big data deployment becomes relatively forthright. Adopting underlying infrastructure and technologies provides the highest levels of business agility, investment protection, and time to the market (Networks, 2012). With this trend, significant re-examination and extension of the preceding research methods and results are expected to witness a rise (Zhang, 2021). Capitalizing big data with HR, enhances every segment, such as performance management, training and development, compensation, and recruitment, thereby making efficient and smarter decisions.

The paper emphasizes on illustrating the factors bolstering the demand for analytics in the human resource segment of an organization, in terms of data governance, organization, environment, and technology). It also discusses the different aspects hindering the implementation of analytics in organizations.

Big data represents various prospects for organizations to augment their strategies and accordingly make the right decisions at the best possible time. With more and more companies implementing big data solutions, newer ways are being introduced to avoid wasteful spending, particularly on personnel costs. The role of this technology is thereby becoming prominent, accelerating the way any business functions.