3 of the most popular HRMS analytics functions

HRMS requirements analysis – or to speak more simply, working out what you want from your new HR software – is a detailed process. The deeper you go, and the closer you look at what will (and won’t) serve your business, the more precise a picture you’ll have during the selection procedure.

These days, there is an almost overwhelming array of features on offer. The ‘essential’ features for your organization will very much depend on your business needs and strategy. However, it’s fair to say that some features hold a more widespread and general appeal than others. Let’s look at the most popular and/or useful HR analytics functionality.

For most, HRMS analytics are still at the early adoption phase and it’s arguable whether many are using them to their full potential. To be fair, analytical applications for business processes, resources, customer interactions, and so on have been more fully embraced. HR is a little late to the analytics party. But when you consider that staffing and workforce commonly soaks up around 30-50% of the average company’s revenue, it’s only wise to analyse the return on that investment as closely as possible.

1) Real-time HRMS analytics

Workforce management functionality will likely cover the basics of shift patterns, scheduling and so on, but how flexible are those outputs? Can your system take real-time data about time and attendance, and labor activity, and adjust the deployment to maximize the benefit from the labor you have? Furthermore, when looking at staffing resources, does your workforce management data then feed into performance management, payroll, reward and recognition etc. ultimately adding to your long-term staffing, talent and succession management plans?

2) Linking to learning and development

How do you identify learning and development needs? The traditional route was through the performance management procedure and individual annual appraisals. But a sharp HRMS should be capable of analysing data from individual and team patterns of attendance, activity, and outputs and then ‘proactively’ make recommendations for training or other learning solutions. In other words, L&D is a more sophisticated and targeted process with the right analytics.

Recommended Reading: HRMS Software Guide - Find software offering HRMS analytics

3) Broad integration

The previous two points have one thing in common – they both rely on different ‘parts’ of your HRMS talking to each other. For analytics, the broader and deeper the data set, the more focused the outputs and insights. Going beyond the boundaries of HR, your analytics functionality will give more if it’s fed on a diet of varied data. Ask yourself, can your new HRMS not only link to other business intelligence systems (ERP, CRM, etc.) but also make smart use of the data to be mined there?

The bottom line is that HRMS analytics functionality is possibly the best measure of just how ‘intelligent’ your HRMS is!