Speaking at the HR Tech Europe conference in Amsterdam, Spirgi told HR magazine understanding analytics is as much about “business acumen as data acumen”.
“That’s where HR has a gap in understanding,” she said. “So bringing untraditional people in from other areas of the business and putting them in HR roles is useful. Then you can start looking at people issues as business issues.”
Spirgi added that another way to better understand analytics is to upskill the whole HR team, going further than the traditional L&D programmes.
“While there is a big opportunity for L&D to teach that skillset, when it comes to upskilling your whole HR function it can be a case of bringing in someone from a different area of the business.”
Appirio HCM strategy practice lead of EMEA Lynn Hanley told HR magazine that upskilling HR teams' analytics skills is a good way to stop them getting “stuck in their own ways”. She added that the most successful approach can be bringing in people to supplement existing HR professionals in the area.
“Sometimes you want to embed the skills into your HR function and then there are times you want to bring someone in to grow into that next phase,” she said.
