Introduction

“Big data is what gives a human power. It is a data realm created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the world together,” This quote succinctly defines how Big Data has become an integral part of our life.

Although this metaphor could even be barely far-fetched, it is crucial to state that big data are omnipresent, and lots of worldly things are no longer possible without tapping into the realm of massive data. From small to big organizations have embraced cloud computing and its different functions. The reason for the appliance has been the new software’s ability to boost performance, maintain high-quality and effective talent management, and do all this cost-effectively.

This Blogpost explores “How Big Data Analytics can empower Human Resource Management?” Most importantly, it highlights how organizations can utilize Microsoft Power BI tools to efficiently handle human resource management activities.

What is Big Data?

Big data is a combination of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data collected by organizations that will be mined for information and utilized in machine learning projects, predictive modeling, and other advanced analytics applications. Systems that process and store big data became a standard component of knowledge management architectures in organizations, combined with tools that support big data analytics usage. Big data is usually characterized by the three V’s:

1. Top of Form
2. Bottom of Form
3. The large volume of data in many environments.
4. wide variety of data types frequently stored in big data systems and
5. The velocity at which much of the data are generated, collected and processed.

We can say that big data cannot be categorized into existing technological dimensions like data mining, algorithms, and machine learning, or artificial intelligence. Big data are interconnected with those technologies and takes a completely new form after this process.

The cycle of Big Data Generation

Big data enable the Data Mining process, Data Mining, in turn, shapes suitable algorithms, Algorithms help us to train machines through Machine Learning techniques, The learning that happens from Machine Learning creates Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence further generates newer Big Data.   In simple words, Data Mining, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence enable Big Data creation.

The cycle of Big Data Generation

Importantly, in today’s context, Big Data is embraced by every sphere starting from agriculture to education, healthcare to manufacturing. Corporate organizations are under huge pressure to empower their Human Resource Management systems with people analytics tools. It is high time organizations reap the benefits of Big Data to drive HRM activities.

7 Salient Benefits of Big Data for Human Resource Management

The foremost successful concern understands the role and importance of HR to the organization, especially when it involves acquiring top talent and keeping them to remain competitive and at the very best of their game, HR departments are now looking to leverage big data analysis. Variation of several roles and advantages that big data offers the HR departments are: 

1. Bringing Transparency between the HR department and the Rest of the Organization
2. Traditionally, HR has often suffered from a communication gap. It had quick access to its information while being separated from the remainder of the organization. There has often been a communication gap, and a delay in accessing information & reporting was not instant. But with the cloud and big data, all the information within the organization becomes centralized. It will be accessed anywhere without having to depend upon being physically present within the HR department. The flow of data has become instant, which has made the analysis of this data much easier. This may help the department make better decisions and to enhance its recruitment and retention strategies.
   2. Mitigate the Risk & Cost Related to a Bad Hiring

   A bad hire is costly for the business in many ways. Many businesses invest their time and resources into training new hires. If they prove to be a nasty hire, they’d have wasted the resources spent on them. To not mention the value of sending them off, searching for a replacement, and affecting the business operation. A bad hire is bad for any business. This can be why HR managers are now turning to analytics to assist them to choose the proper candidate. If they’re ready to find the simplest candidates, then, the corporate can save the value of recruitment, productivity loss, training expenditures, loss of clients because of negative experiences and reviews about the worker, etc. A bad hire is just too costly a slip for companies to create. That is why they use big data to scale back the chance of that mistake.

    

   3. Employee Performance Prediction

   Big data helps in predicting the performances of employees upon or before hiring them. For example, HR personnel must determine if the person they’re hiring can fit into the work culture and offer a satisfactory work level like other employees. Having to depend on gut feeling in cases like these isn’t reliable. It’s also extra work if they need to check individual prospects to this set of top performers, employees in line with the work requirement. Instead, HR departments can use analytics to create a high-performance profile with the worker records. This can make it easy to headhunt for specific targets. This can make it much easier to search out and pick the simplest talent. These predictions are very strong and significant, so you’ll be able to use them in evaluating layoffs, promotions, and other job openings within the corporate. This may help the organization save its resources and time on recruitment.

    

   4. Streamline Employee Benefits Package Systems

   There are many perks that employees would like to have with their salary package, but many organizations don’t realize this. However, organizations can take a cue from insurance companies by gathering health information about their staff and prospective candidates to produce them with a decent health package or benefit. However, transparency could be a critical factor with issues like this in order that you don’t need to face the legal problems arising from discrimination practices. You will be able to do that by openly revealing how you get the information and the way you are using it.

    

   5. Efficiently Dealing with Legal and Ethical Issues

   When it involves big data, one thing that you just can never remove from its privacy is a giant concern, and rightly so. There is a legitimate fear in people about the likelihood of using those numbers against them, which is described as discriminatory. The utilization of massive data for the Human Resource department must be considered a method for risk management.

   6. Improvise the Employee Retention Rate

   It is more profitable for a business to retain its staff than to rent a replacement one regularly. A business with a coffee employee retention rate is extremely likely to suffer. This is often considered the reality. Once a corporation makes a hire, they are inclined to take a position in this person the energy, time, and resources needed to bring them up to plan. However, after they resign, what happens? They need to start out the method everywhere again and continue that cycle. By using big data technology, it’s possible to identify employees who are likely to run out on the corporate by browsing their job performances, employment history, payroll data, profile updates, and other online activities.

   7. Deploy better Employee Training and Development Programs

   Overcome the barriers of traditional training programs by using sophisticated training methodologies to not only deliver the training but also record the employee learning patterns through Big Data-driven tools.

    

   The Cloud and the Future of Big Data for HR

   To reap the benefits of Big Data HR managers, need to store and maintain huge volumes of data in data warehouses. But it is not cost-effective for all organizations to invest and own a data warehouse. So, leveraging the power and flexibility offered by Cloud computing is a boon for all organizations, irrespective of how big or small the organization is.

   Cloud eliminates the need to own data warehouses and streamlines the job of Human Resource departments in collecting and maintaining data.

   How Microsoft Power BI Tool can ‘Power-up’ Your HRM Activities

   Power BI could be a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together soon to turn your unrelated sources of knowledge into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights. Your data could also be an Excel spreadsheet or a group of cloud-based and on-premises hybrid data warehouses. Power BI helps you to easily connect with your data sources, visualize and find out what’s important, and share that with anyone or everyone you would like.

   Power BI provides us with the important features:

   • A Windows desktop application called Power BI Desktop.
   • An online SaaS (Software as a Service) service is called the ability BI service.
   • Power BI mobile apps for Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

The use of data analytics in Human Resource Management is driven by tools like Power BI. Here are important advantages:

Advantages Power BI

1. Easy to use: It provides a Simply plug and play and effortless reporting with no development and no unforeseen costs. The grouping, filtering, and cross-comparison criteria across the reporting set with an intuitive interface is additionally available.
2. Discover problems and replicate good practice: The dashboard contains multiple panels, so the HR team can spot high-level trends and so explore the detail to handle issues or exploit positive outcomes.Fully integrated business visibility: the reports surface reflects the information already held within your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources system in pre-configured reports that matters most to you, and addresses the multiple analysis needs within HR scenarios.

   Comprehensive analysis across the business: the out-the-box reports cover the key HR KPIs which incorporates worker demographics (languages, age, gender, job type), salary segmented by the role and team, leave and absence (as per calendar), upcoming events to drive priorities and workers’ list reports combining data from across Dynamics 365.

   

   Power BI for Big Data Analytics

    

   Power BI can provide you with real-time visibility into your data, allowing you to come up with greater insight into your HR key performance indicators (KPIs). You can also create dashboards to watch staff turnover, performance, or to live the efficiency of coaching. These dashboards are easy to adopt and use by HR professionals with no IT background.

   Salient Features of Power BI HR dashboards:

   Recruitment dashboard: Average interviewing costs, job vacancies as a percentage of total positions, moreover as internal, external, and total headcount recruiting costs and ratios

   Turnover dashboards: For Annualized voluntary turnover, average retirement age, and percentage of recent hire retention.

   Training efficiency dashboard: Percentage of the HR budget spent on training, the ratio of internal versus external training and return on investment (ROI) for training.

   Staff management dashboard: HR department cost per FTE, HR headcount, workforce productivity.

   Conclusion

   Big Data analytics offers a plethora of benefits to every business unit of an organization and the HR department is not an exception. Big Data and HR analytics in the digital era is trending today. There are many ways that HR can use Big Data. Power BI provides full end-to-end analytics and reporting solution – to assist you to discover useful HR insights for the strategic higher cognitive processes. It enables HR professionals to form data-driven decisions to draw in, manage, and retain employees, which improves ROI, and helps leaders make decisions to make better work environments and maximize employee productivity. It’s a significant impact on the bottom line when used effectively.

   How CloudThat can Help?

   As a pioneer in the Cloud Computing training realm, we are a Microsoft Gold Partner, AWS (Amazon Web Services) Advanced Consulting Partner, and Training partner. Also, as we are Google Cloud Partners delivering best-in-industry training for Azure, AWS, and GCP (Google Cloud Platform). We are on a mission to build a strong cloud computing ecosystem by disseminating knowledge on technological intricacies within the cloud space. Our certification training course Exam DA-100: Analyzing Data with Microsoft Power BI helps organizations to get their workforce trained on Power BI and thus reap the benefits of Big Data analytics to strengthen the organization workflow. 

WRITTEN BY Gurjot Brar

Gurjot Brar serves as the Vertical Head of Cloud Security at CloudThat, a prominent company specializing in cloud training and consulting services. Additionally, she holds the esteemed title of Microsoft Certified Trainer and boasts a remarkable nine Azure certifications. She is a proficient corporate trainer who frequently contributes insights on cloud computing, cybersecurity, AI/ML, Big Data, and technology trends through her blog posts.