HR leaders are increasingly looking to utilize talent analytics to gain insights into employee attrition, performance, and sentiment to influence critical business and talent decisions.

However, despite a commitment to making HR more data-driven, organizations are struggling to fully leverage talent analytics.

This is reflected in Gartner research which found that 78% of HR leaders now rely more heavily on talent data for decision-making compared to four years ago – the figure is up from 48% in 2019.

Despite this, a September 2023 Gartner survey found that 71% of HR leaders believe the current structure and capabilities of their talent analytics team is limiting their effectiveness.

Additionally, nearly three quarters of talent analytics leaders acknowledge the need for new skills to meet their strategic objectives, according to a June 2022 Gartner survey.

Among the skills they felt they lacked in achieving their strategic goals were widespread data literacy issues and challenges developing technical skills in the HR function.

CHROs must address this growing skills gap if they want to build a successful talent analytics team that can significantly influence major HR decisions, drive innovation within HR by providing objective and timely advice.

CHROs as analytics experts

As CHROs increasingly focus on using data to build skills-based organizations, the need for competent analytics experts within talent analytics teams becomes critical.

These experts are essential for maintaining and effectively analyzing talent data, as well as supporting an integrated approach to workforce planning and other strategic activities.

To develop these analytics experts, CHROs must cultivate a culture of technical learning within HR.

This can be achieved by fostering collaboration between talent analytics and Learning & Development (L&D) team leaders.

Together, they can identify the critical technical skills needed for their organization and develop targeted training programs, learning opportunities, and pathways to support technical upskilling.

Ongoing skills development is also crucial for organizations to keep pace with technological advances and new methods, such as predictive analytics, which unlock new value.

To ensure analytics experts can confidently leverage and analyze talent data, CHROs should take several key actions.

First, they should meet with HR technology and talent analytics team leaders to discuss technical skills gaps and how to future-proof the HR function.

They should also direct L&D to create learning pathways that help talent analytics professionals stay ahead of new analytics methods and technologies.

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