“Big data” is
not just a trending catch phrase but a potential goldmine for human resources professionals
and reward systems, a consultant said April 30 at the 2013 WorldatWork Total Rewards Conference in Philadelphia.
The decreasing costs of storing data and the rise of
companies that can mine and analyze information is making it easier for
companies to uncover which of their high performing employees are at greater
risk of leaving, for example, said Richard Kantor, a senior vice president at
the consulting firm Aon Hewitt.
There are two main parts to big data—storage and
consumption, said Brad Cook, vice president of global talent acquisitions at
Informatica, a data-integration company with locations in 28 countries and annual
revenue of $811.6 million.
For example, a company might mine data from
individual profiles on the social networking website LinkedIn by using key
search words and creating employee profiles, Cook said. These profiles could be
used for internal recruiting and promotions. Companies then can take all the
employees who have listed specific skills, cross-reference it with the schools
and organizations they have listed and ask these employees if they can recruit
or recommend others from these groups.
Similarly, an organization might create a database
of employee-recruitment records and cross-reference the information with performance
levels, Cook said. Employers could then see if employees recruited from certain
places performed better than those from other sources.
“We are trying to take data to create predictable
outcomes, such as how an employee might perform if hired based on the data gathered
from various sources,” Cook said. “There are still interesting times ahead with
what can be done with data, rewards being one of them.”
Big data is used more by departments other than human
resources, though HR professionals can expect it soon, Cook said. Human
resources professionals should be ready to tap the information by having
information technology professionals become familiar with big data and related
programs.
“High-performance
organizations are using more data to make major decisions about total rewards,”
Kantor said. “They are moving away from theories and toward real data.”
Cook added: “Start positioning the data guy on your
team to get ready.”