A company’s financial report is prized for the data that executives can glean from them when it comes to cost and revenue decisions, Paul Rubenstein writers for Entrepreneur. He is the chief people officer at Visier. “This stands in marked contrast to human resources data. Although people costs are typically an organization's biggest capital expense, associated data is often neglected. Noisy, siloed and sometimes inscrutable, it's more likely to be greeted with indifference than reverence.”
It is incumbent on the chief human resources officers to “start treating data like a CFO would,” Rubenstein notes. The good news is HR already has access to plenty of information, including costs associated with learning, recruiting and compensation. The bad news is HR is failing to connect this information to their company’s bottom line.
“Whereas older HR paradigms focused on books and records, this new phase must focus on systems of insight,” Rubenstein writes. “In other words, instead of getting bogged down in tracking things like benefits and satisfaction, the focus needs to be on capturing data that can help inform decisions.”