Dive Brief:

• Data is powerful. But with great power comes the possibility that it may be too intimidating for employers who are attempting to deploy people analytics to address recruitment, onboarding, training and other HR and talent management needs, according to iCrunchData News.

• The article cites tech prognosticator Gartner, which says more than three quarters of employers are investing or are planning to invest in big data initiatives. Yet, different research, from Pure Storage, says 72% of organizations gather data they end up not using.

• According to Pure Storage's research, the reasons primarily are because data owners feel that managing data is too time consuming (48%), they lack the internal skills to do it (46%), or they don’t have the proper tools to sufficiently process the data (30%).

Dive Insight

Author Joe Abusamra, vice president, product marketing for Acendre, a provider of cloud-based talent management software, writes that to fully optimize data as a strategic resource, employers need to understand what he calls the Three Stages of HR Data Empowerment: presentation, collaboration and sharing, and storytelling.

With presentation, HR should invest in products designed with simple, utilitarian dashboard displays that any staffer – including the least “techie” of employees – can immediately grasp and start using. In other words, the tech needs a very low learning curve.

It's also critical that data tools make it easy for users to share and collaborate. When a person learns something that can improve HR policies and practices, the info should be shareable company-wide, making tangible impact "limitless."

Storytelling is when data ascends from being “a huge collection of numbers” to something more revelatory and applicable. Strong data usage can reveal to users new info, for example, about the most promising regions/colleges for recruitment, or the best programs for onboarding, training, etc.