The geeks have arrived in HR, declares Josh Bersin. “Statisticians, mathematicians, and engineers have entered the people analytics space.”
Writing in Forbes, the noted industry analyst who is principal and founder at Bersin by Deloitte, outlines the development of the use of “big data” or, as he calls it, “people analytics” in the hiring and management of talent.
“Human resources departments are getting serious about analytics,” he says. “And I mean serious.”
Just how serious? Wanted Analytics coincidentally just came out with some numbers detailing the growth in human resources jobs asking for “big data” skills.
More “Big Data” skills wanted in job postings
Although the numbers aren’t big — only about 400 recruiter jobs in Q4 of 2014 mention data skills — Wanted says it’s a year-over-year 54 percent increase.
More frequently, big data skills are appearing in job postings for HR generalists, comp and benefit specialists, and trainers.
In the last quarter of 2014, some 1,500 HR generalist jobs required some knowledge or use of big data tools, more than a 22 percent increase over 2013. The 770 jobs for training and development specialists or managers mentioning big data was an even larger 46 percent increase.
Comp and benefit positions have always entailed some understanding and application of big data analysis, whether or not those words were actually used. In the fourth quarter, Wanted found over 1,000 benefits positions mentioning big data as a job requirement.
According to Wanted, across all HR jobs appearing online, demand has increased 41 percent.