Predictive HR Analytics
A hands-on guide that teaches HR and management-information professionals how to move beyond descriptive reporting to apply inferential, predictive statistical techniques to people-related data using SPSS (and R).
Predictive HR Analytics: Mastering the HR Metric is the rare book that not only explains why HR functions must adopt predictive analytics but actually walks the reader, click-by-click, through running the analyses themselves. Across detailed case studies covering diversity, employee engagement, turnover, performance, recruitment and selection, and intervention evaluation, Edwards, Edwards and Jang demonstrate how to convert messy organizational data into rigorous, statistically tested insight using techniques from chi-square and t-tests to logistic and multiple regression, survival analysis, and beyond. The book demystifies the 'magic curtain' of HR analytics, teaches readers when and how to apply each statistical test, shows how to build evidence-based business cases and predictive models, and closes with a thoughtful reflection on the ethical limitations and pitfalls of analysing data that ultimately represents living human beings. It is equally useful to HR master's students, MI practitioners and people-analytics specialists who want to build genuine quantitative capability.
The model it argues
An inferred factor model expressing how design levers and contextual conditions (HR interventions, selection/onboarding practices, job and team characteristics) influence psychological and behavioural states (engagement, perceived support, justice, job strain, satisfaction) which in turn drive HR outcome metrics (performance, turnover, diversity representation, customer loyalty/reinvestment). The book demonstrates these relationships through applied statistical case studies.
Key ideas
- HR Intervention / Programme
- A deliberate management or HR action introduced to change employee attitudes, perceptions, behaviours or performance outcomes.
- Selection and Onboarding Practices
- The recruitment, selection and onboarding methods and the data they generate that determine new-hire quality and fit.
- Job and Team Characteristics
- Structural and contextual features of jobs and teams that condition employee experiences and outcomes.
- Demographic and Diversity Composition
- The demographic profile of individuals and the diversity composition of teams across protected and relevant characteristics.
- Employee Engagement
- A psychological-behavioural state of effort, focus, absorption, pride and belonging toward work and organization.
- Perceived Organizational Support and Justice
- Employee perceptions of organizational care/value (POS), fairness (distributive and procedural justice), supervisor support and organizational integrity.
- Job Strain / Stress
- A psychological response to demanding work conditions including stress, worry and lost sleep.
- Job Satisfaction
- A positive emotional state resulting from appraisal of one's job, with emotional, cognitive and behavioural components.