HR pros who shy away from data risk irrelevance
People leaders who can't tell a data story are writing themselves out of the profession. That's the blunt assessment of Sarah Donegan, co-founder of Samuels Donegan, a Melbourne-based HR recruitment consultancy, who says the democratisation of people analytics is reshaping what it means to work in human resources – and who gets to thrive in it.
"If you're saying you work in HR because you don't like numbers or data, you're pretty much putting yourself out of a job," Donegan told HRD. "The strategic and progressive leaders are getting super curious about the data."
Fortunately, most HR leaders seem to be aware of the value people analytics can bring. A recent survey conducted on HRD's LinkedIn revealed that the majority of respondents were dabbling.
While most are leveraging peope analytics and even more recognise the value, there is still one in 10 who don't plan to. This, according to Donegan, could make them obsolete.
The shift from specialist to standard
For years, people analytics sat inside dedicated teams – the domain of remuneration specialists, payroll functions, and large HR technology platforms that only well-resourced organisations could afford. That era is over, said Donegan.
The arrival of accessible AI tools and cloud-based HR platforms has distributed analytical capability across the profession. Business partners, generalist HR managers, and even recruiters are now expected to interpret and present workforce data as a core part of their roles.
"In the past it was really difficult to get access to data because you had to have the money to have an SAP or a Workday," she said. "Now the tools that are out there are just fantastic. It's not a separate area of expertise. These days it's expected. From the CPO down, everyone has access to the data."
This matters because credibility in the boardroom increasingly depends on numbers. Donegan described a client who was recently able to answer a board-level question about a gender pay gap in real time, pulling the data together independently, on the spot, using AI tools to shape the analysis.
"The CEO is going to come to them and go, okay, where are our stats on gender pay gap or whatever it might be? They just expect HR to have that data and to be able to tell the story of what that data means," she said.
Small businesses now punching above their weight
One of the more significant shifts Donegan has observed is the reversal of a long-standing competitive disadvantage. Smaller organisations – those with between 500 and 5,000 employees – are now outpacing large corporates on analytics agility, she argues, for reasons that have little to do with budget.
"Big businesses are actually at a disadvantage, and that's never happened before," she said. "If you're operating across multiple jurisdictions, the bureaucracy is enormous. Smaller organisations that are nimble and agile can access their data much quicker, and it's more accurate."
Large enterprises, by contrast, are often locked into legacy platforms across multiple regions, with governance layers that slow data access and limit local flexibility.
Workforce planning emerges as the next frontier
Beyond day-to-day reporting, Donegan pointed to strategic workforce planning as the area where people analytics is creating the most significant organisational value. She cited Commonwealth Bank of Australia's reported analysis of its entire 50,000-person workforce to map skills across business units – enabling the redeployment of staff between divisions rather than redundancy.
"They've done a full analysis of their whole workforce to figure out what the skills look like in the business, so they can actually move people from private banking, for example, into consumer," she said. "It literally just means everyone now has much more visibility around that stuff."
For HR leaders, this is the commercial argument that can unlock executive buy-in. Donegan's advice is direct: take the data to the business before asking for budget. Whether the investment case is for a wellness program, a new platform, or a headcount change, the ability to show cost-benefit analysis in real time changes the conversation.
"The smartest HR operators go to the business and show them the data. If they can see the ROI, then 100% they'll sign off on it," she said.
As AI tools reduce the cost of analysis and increase access to workforce insight, the question for HR professionals is no longer whether to engage with data – it's how quickly they can build the curiosity and capability to use it well.
