BAHSTP3: You Have Been Requested To Design A New HR Metric System: HRM Analytics Assignment, NUI, Ireland

As an HR consultant (internal or external to the organization) you have been requested to design a new HR metric system or review and improve an existing HR analytics system in the organization.

You are to advise management on the various theories, processes of HR data management, systems, and the benefits and weakness of HR analytics. As a consultant, you should consider the organization’s requirements, budgets, and strategy and make recommendations that will best suit the organization. You can take choose specific and or a combination of HR metrics such as leadership, morale, absence management, performance management, equality, training, etc. or provide a general HR analytical framework for the organization to consider.

Introduction

Evidence-based practice is about making better decisions, informing action that has the desired impact. An evidence-based approach to decision-making is based on a combination of using critical thinking and the best available evidence. It makes decision-makers less reliant on anecdotes, received wisdom, and personal experience – sources that are not trustworthy on their own.

It’s important for HR practitioners to adopt this approach because of the huge impact management decisions have on the working lives of people in all sorts of organizations worldwide. Managers have an obligation to find the best evidence when making important decisions to strengthen the well-being of their workers as well as ensuring their organization’s success.

This factsheet outlines the four sources of evidence considered key to effective evidence-based practice, before highlighting the importance of combining these to ensuring actions have the greatest chance of success. It outlines and refutes a number of misconceptions about evidence-based practice, before looking at literature that demonstrates the effectiveness of evidence-based practice. Finally, the factsheet explains the practical implications of applying evidence-based practice to real-life organizational scenarios.

What is evidence-based practice?

At the heart of evidence-based practice is the idea that good decision-making is achieved through critical thinking and drawing on the best available evidence. Evidence-based practice leads to decisions and actions that are more likely to have the desired effect and are less reliant on anecdotes, received wisdom, and personal experience – sources that are not trustworthy on their own. Evidence-based HR draws together published research and people analytics with professional expertise and stakeholder opinions.