To survive in a fast-changing and competitive environment, organisations need to manage their employees strategically. Past research has shown that the use of HR analytics has a significant impact on the introduction and consistent implementation of strategic human resource management. In the Slovenian environment, there has not been any research examining the role of analytics in the development of strategic human resource management. Therefore, this master thesis aimed to explore and define its role, with a focus on defining the field of strategic human resource management and identifying how developed the field is. Furthermore, this master thesis aims to define analytics as well as organisational and psychological factors that are key to the successful implementation of human resource analytics. For the research, I used a qualitative method – a combination of focus groups (three focus groups, N = 22) and semi-structured interviews with HR professionals from medium and large organisations (N = 29). The results have shown that the field of strategic human resource management in Slovenia is moderately developed and that organisations use a relatively wide variety of human resource practices. The study also revealed that most organisations in Slovenia collect basic employee data (e. g. first name, last name, gender, age, education, work experience) and data related to turnover monitoring. In addition, the term “human resource analytics” is the most appropriate Slovenian term for human resource analytics. Furthermore, it has been shown that human resource experts see the overload of human resource departments as the biggest challenge in implementing human resource analytics. Also, management support and employee readiness to change are key to the successful implementation of analytics. The findings have also shown that the use of human resource analytics has an important role in developing the field of strategic HR management. The research has added value for both academia and practice, as I have filled a gap in the literature by examining the topic, while contributing to a better understanding of the role of human resource analytics in organisations. The findings of the study serve as a basic starting point for further research and at the same time represent an important step towards raising awareness in organisations about the importance of using human resource analytics in developing the field of strategic human resource management.
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