The use of reporting analytics solutions has expanded rapidly in several departments, most notably human resources, accounting, marketing and sales. It is worth noting that the first targets of many intelligence solutions that fall into the big data category were indeed marketing and sales departments, as the solutions tend to lend well in these endeavors given the increased attention to detail when conducting research for client insights. 

However, businesses are finding ways to incorporate this type of thinking and execution in other areas as well, and human resources appears to be one of the hottest involved in this conversation today. HR is dependent upon the accurate reporting of data and activities, as well as seamless, rapid analytics that provide insights in real-time to better inform every decision made, while modern solutions can do all of that and much more. 

The workforce is becoming more complicated by the day, and staffing demands have not been met in their entirety with much consistency throughout the private sector given the increased stress of talent gaps and skills shortages. This trend is expected to only intensify further as time goes on, so empowering HR departments with more helpful solutions such as reporting analytics tools can go a long way in helping the company overcome these and other challenges. 

Demand is building
Workforce Magazine recently reported that studies have been released which revealed that e-recruiting is becoming a more common practice among businesses, and that it is now popular among both recruiters and applicants. From an analytics standpoint, this trend could positively benefit a wealth of companies by way of generating more valuable data that relates back to workforce and staffing matters, all while better informing strategies to find and onboard the right employees. 

According to the news provider, companies are actually already beginning to have to partake in these types of recruiting procedures given how much talent is currently looking toward the Internet as a primary tool for finding open positions. If businesses are going to begin these strategies, they ought to get more out of the activities by storing valuable information and deriving value from it through the right reporting analytics tools. 

Finally, the source pointed out that mobile is likely the next step in the progression of e-recruiting technology, and that there is still a wealth of improvement and innovation to come in the realm of analytics within the HR department. 

Other relevant data
HR Analytics pointed out that most companies are sitting on top of a proverbial gold mine with their payroll information, but very few have actually started to dig through the swaths of stored data to identify helpful insights. The news provider stated that researchers and HR professionals believe this specific category of information can be especially helpful in the workforce management arena because of the specific bits of intelligence that can be garnered. 

"As we have moved through times of austerity there has certainly been more of a focus on where the pay bill is being spent," Ian Hodson of the University of Lincoln stated. "Payroll is the only area of most organizations where, for the core workforce, you have both the people and the associated costs, making it a hybrid of HR and finance functions, and a really important entity in its own right."

With the right reporting analytics solutions in place, not only will the payroll accounting process be a bit smoother, the firm will also be able to get more out of what it has collected and generated by way of intelligent insights.