Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

Chapter 11

Predictive Analytics Applied to Human Resources

By Jac Fitz-enz, PhD

“There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

—Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Fitz-enz Jac is known as the father of human capital strategic analysis and measurement. He published the first HR metrics in 1978 and introduced benchmarking to HR in 1985. His many honors include: HR World’s claim that he is one the top five “HR management gurus”; cited by the Society for Human Resources Management as one who has “significantly changed what HR does and how it does it”; and recipient of the Chairman’s Award for Innovative Excellence in Information Management by the International Association for Human Resources Information Management

Global competition, market volatility, and declining labor pools make investing in people a high-risk gamble. Still, future success is dependent primarily on your ability to attract, retain, and productively manage a shrinking pool of talented, motivated people. However, only since about 2010 has predictive analytics appeared on most HR agendas. Nevertheless, it is becoming more popular, even though fewer than 25% of HR departments have more than a passing experience with it.

Who makes the big decisions in your organization? Who has the last word? Final decisions are typically the province of a person who has the most formal organizational power. If the decision maker is a C-level executive, he ...