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Reporting and analytical capability
While most respondents were comfortable with their ability to report on core HR activities, the survey findings suggest that data management, software and personnel issues continue to impede HR’s efforts to analyse its operations, assess people-related trends and deliver meaningful information to senior management.

Access to data – which in most organisations tends to be distributed across multiple systems, some of them manual – continues to be a significant challenge. Asked their views on the statement that “the difficulty of getting relevant data together undermines my reporting and analytical capability,” 40% of respondents strongly agreed, 38% agreed, and only 15% disagreed/strongly disagreed.

Similarly, 62% of respondents agreed with the statement that “I do not have the software tools I need to do anything beyond basic HR reporting”, although encouragingly, almost a third (31%) disagreed. Just as significantly, almost half of respondents (46%) agreed that “even if I had the right software tools to carry out more sophisticated reporting and analysis, I do not have sufficient analytical skills within the HR function to take advantage of them”.

Finally, while almost a third of respondents (32%) agreed that the level of business-relevant information provided by HR to line managers and the board needs to be significantly improved, almost three in five (57%) believe they are providing the necessary information.

Operational reporting and business impact
At an operational level, the vast majority of respondents (78%) were confident in their ability to report on HR operations, with 64% also comfortable that they can analyse people-based trends. Some 62% of respondents also said they were confident that they can manage people-related data, although a third were neutral (neither confident nor unconfident).

Asked to rate their ability to report on a range of workforce issues, most respondents were positive about the staple metrics of HR, including inwardly-focused operational metrics. For example, four out of five respondents (80%) said they were good at reporting on the composition of the workforce, while three quarters (75%) were good at reporting on the number of contractors.

But as Webster Buchanan’s research has consistently demonstrated over the last eight years, HR managers tend to be less confident about their ability to report on how broader people-related issues affect the business. Vacancies are a good example. The vast majority of respondents (84%) said they were good at reporting on the number of vacancies, but only 57% said the same about reporting the business impact of unfilled vacancies (such as the impact on productivity), with over a third (36%) describing themselves as average. When it came to more detailed analysis of vacancies, the numbers dropped further. Just under a half (49%) of respondents said they were good at reporting voluntary employee attrition rates, with 29% average and 22% poor – and only 44% claimed to be good at measuring the business impact of employee attrition, with more than a quarter (28%) admitting to being poor.

Similar patterns were seen in the recruitment field. Four out of five (80%) respondents said they were good at generating staple HR metrics such as days/time to hire. But the number who were good at reporting on direct recruitment costs (such as adverts or agency fees) fell to two thirds (66%), with 13% admitting to being poor – and those claiming to be good at reporting on indirect recruitment costs (such as time spent by HR or line managers) fell to 56%, with 30% saying they were average and 14% admitting to being poor.

Analytical capability in absence and training followed the same pattern. The overwhelming majority of respondents (86%) said they were good at reporting on sickness absence rates – but that slipped slightly to 76% when it came to measuring the cost of absence, and fell further to 58% for the business impact of absence (e.g. on productivity), with 22% conceding they were poor. Given the high profile of absence management in the UK, this indicates that many companies still have some way to go to deliver meaningful data.

Likewise, almost three quarters (71%) of respondents said they were good at measuring the cost of training, with 13% poor (the smallest companies being the worst). Asked about measuring training effectiveness – such as the impact of training courses on individual growth – only 58% described themselves as good, 30% as average, and 12% as poor.

Finally, approximately three in five (59%) of HR managers believed they were good at measuring revenue and/or profit per employee, with 21% admitting to being poor, and 60% said they were good at measuring the relationship between employee compensation and performance, with 18% admitting to being poor. At a time when the link between reward, incentive and performance is under close media scrutiny, that suggests that some 40% of companies still have a lot of work ahead of them.

Computers In Personnel Ltd
28-30 Chapel St
Marlow, SL7 1DD
0870 366 2345