Three themes HR is likely to ignore in 2024 - but shouldn't!

Author: Paula Flores

Every year it's the same: January rolls around and suggested priorities for HR abound. But with teams increasingly stretched, important issues then get cast aside or neglected. Here, as organisations find themselves deep into Q2, we draw attention to three themes that HR professionals are likely to overlook, based on what they have told us in our surveys. But, for the reasons explained here, they really shouldn't!

1. Data analysis (and the importance of good data)

Most HR professionals know the importance data plays in their organisation. From benchmarking salaries and recording absence rates, to analysing the organisation's turnover or diversity representation, there is a myriad of tasks that require the collection and examination of data.

HR analytics became increasingly popular in 2023, yet many organisations still face data challenges. In our survey of the evolving people profession, respondents agreed that data skills would be valuable for their team to have, but they ranked them low on their list of priorities - placing them above only economic, social and governance concerns and compensation skills or experience.

At the same time, when respondents were asked about the biggest barriers preventing HR from working effectively across an organisation, they cited inadequate or outdated systems among the top three reasons.

Data collection

Issues affecting data collection are often related to the systems an organisation uses. For instance, respondents in our 2023 absence rates survey made reference to having "limited data to make calculations" and to the fact that "the system is not up to scratch".

In addition, the HR function may not "own" the relevant data. Data is often recorded and stored across an organisation and so may sit with other functions such as the finance department, which creates difficulties when it comes to data access or harmonisation. This can prevent organisations from making data-led decisions.

Data cleaning

The HR team may also find that the data is "unclean", for example it may be incomplete, inaccurate or inconsistent, or contain duplicates. Cleaning data can be a time-consuming task - it is estimated that analysts can spend up to 80% of their time on any given project cleaning data.

As a result, according to respondents, data that has been collected often remains unused owing to a "lack of capacity and resources" and data tasks being perceived as "too time-consuming".

Nevertheless, quality data is key to meeting an organisation's business objectives. The better the people function understands an organisation's employees, the better placed it will be to guide leadership in devising its strategy, thus becoming a fundamental decision-making partner.

2. Learning and development

Learning and development (L&D) has assumed a fundamental role in organisations, particularly as employees increasingly value opportunities for personal and professional development as a determining factor when they select an employer.

The role L&D strategies can play in regard to employee engagement and turnover is well known. In one study, we found that organisations with a more progressive approach to L&D were more likely to report an improvement across business outcomes such as NPS, talent turnover and employee retention.

For these organisations, knowledge is not a "tick-box" exercise. Rather, their senior leaders promote continuous employee improvement, tailoring the learning experience to individual needs. L&D, therefore, relates to much more than just offering a learning platform. It is also about fostering the individual's career aspirations and providing an environment that will enable them to continue growing.

Organisations that don't offer L&D opportunities are at risk of losing the fight for talent. A sound L&D strategy is also a key part of a good employee value proposition. In fact, a LinkedIn study shows that employees will leave organisations that don't invest in their development. 

In that same study, 89% of L&D professionals said that they agreed that building employees' skills would help navigate the future of work. Nevertheless, many L&D professionals still face challenges in demonstrating the relevance of their programmes to senior management.

3. Retention

While plenty of time and resource is spent on recruitment, less is lavished on retention. Most organisations (90%) measure staff turnover but, to make a meaningful assessment of retention problems, employers need to consider turnover data in conjunction with the underlying reasons for staff resignations. They need to analyse factors that may contribute to employees leaving. However, less than one-third of organisations collect data on, for example, employee wellbeing.

Useful information on the causes of turnover can be collected via exit interviews. These are widely used by organisations (93%). But this type of insight is gained too late to stop the employee leaving the organisation. By contrast, stay interviews can provide vital information about issues that might cause an employee to leave in good time to prevent that happening - but these are carried out by only 9% of organisations. Taking a more proactive approach ­and discussing potential issues with employees who are still in the organisation will often lead to better results.

Retention efforts should be seen as "good for business" in light of the fact that finding the right candidate for a vacancy was reported to be the biggest issue organisations had faced in terms of recruitment over the past 12 months.

The business case becomes harder to resist when you consider that a median of five days of HR's time is spent per vacancy. Factor in too that, in 2023, recruitment costs for a professional stood at £1,497 (median), rising to £3,000 for a manager, and the case becomes even more compelling.

So a staff retention strategy based on an organisation's unique requirements and challenges is fundamental - and can only be achieved using good data.