There’s No Such Thing as Big Data in HR

HR departments are always under pressure to be more analytic, employing big data techniques — which is justified to some extent. Some wishful thinkers believe that the application of big data analytics will somehow rid HR of the some of the attributes they don’t like about it, such as the perception that they’re focusing on “soft” issues and not detailing the return on HR-related investments. But the real truth is that HR does not actually have big data, or more precisely, almost never does. Most companies have thousands of employees, not millions, and the observations on those employees are still for the most part annual. In a company of this size, there is almost no reason for HR to use the special software and tools associated with big data. For most companies, the challenge in HR is simply to use data at all.