People Analytics Enabling HR Strategic Partnership: A Review

For more than two decades, academicians and practitioners have been theorising the role of people analytics in enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of the human resource (HR) management function, thereby prescribing people analytics as an enabler of HR strategic partnership. The objective of this study is to identify and synthesise existing literature on people analytics and its conceptualised efficacy. This is done with a view to assess how and why people analytics enhances HR as a field and elevates it to a function of strategic significance. The study uses the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) framework for systematic literature review to address the research objective. A total of 90 articles on the subject are identified majorly from Scopus. The analysis of this literature reveals four significant themes underscoring the role people analytics can play in enabling HR as a field and function. These include the following: (a) application of people analytics leads to greater vertical, horizontal and external alignment of the HR function; (b) people analytics facilitates better integration of HR management with the organisation’s strategic planning process; (c) people analytics aids the demonstration of causal links between HR management and business performance; and finally (d) people analytics endows the field with scientific rigour, consistency and resulting credibility. The study contributes to the existing knowledge on people analytics and HR strategy linkage by building a foundation and offering specific propositions for empirical enquiry relating the two. The significance of the study also emanates from its focus on the efficacy of people analytics which is being viewed as an HR approach with immense potential.