Business intelligence software could have major major implications for personnel professionals...
People Management (article updated June 2002), 25 Feb 1999
Business intelligence software could have major major implications for personnel professionals but, according to David Clifford, a partner at KPMG's people solutions practice, they must relinquish control of personnel data and accept that managers outside the function need access to it.
"HR people tend to be almost heroic in their efforts to collect data," he says. "But if they want to become less of a cost centre and more of a value generator, they need to spend less time collecting it and more in analysing it."
Devolving the task of data collection is an obvious way for HR to gain the breathing space it needs to be more proactive. This explains why perhaps the most popular development in HR systems recently has been "self-service" modules that give staff and managers access via an intranet. Assuming the necessary cultural shift also takes place, the function becomes the place to go for help in finding solutions.
"It's one thing for a sales manager to discover they have a problem, quite another to know what to do about it," points out Dermot O'Kelly, head of Oracle's HR applications division in the UK.
Measured response By dramatically reducing the time and money spent on managing human capital, the latest HR software systems are freeing up more time for strategic thinking
