Human Resource Analyst: Role, Responsibilities, and Job Description

In sports, coaches analyze results, track progress, and provide training plans. Their goal is to guide teams to perform at their best and get results. Human resource analysts apply the same principle —  they analyze your company's health and employee data to optimize performance. They use their expertise and know-how to guide teams to improve work efficiency over time. 

Let's explore the skills and responsibilities that make HR analysts invaluable assets to companies looking to improve their HR practices.

What is a Human Resource Analyst?

A human resource analyst is a professional in the field of HR management who collects, interprets, and analyzes employee data within a company. They provide their department and managers with recommendations based on their findings. For example, they could present data-driven recommendations on how to improve a company’s recruitment processes, onboarding management, training and development, or retention strategies. Analysts also commonly help their businesses track company trends and data to keep the organization in compliance with relevant regulations. 

By leveraging data-driven insights, HR analysts can help companies identify opportunities for improvement and paths to optimize their workforce performance. 

What Skills Help Human Resource Analysts Succeed In Their Role?

Human resource analysts typically have an educational background in Human Resources, Business Management, Psychology, or a similar field. This role requires hard skills, such as knowledge of HR practices, and soft skills, like critical thinking and a detail-oriented mindset.

A few common skills that characterize a Human resource analyst are:

• Expertise in HR analytics software and data collection/analysis methods.
• Strong problem-solving skills to make sense of a complex dataset.
• A creative approach to finding practical solutions to challenging problems.
• Excellent communication skills to interpret data and present findings in easy-to-understand formats.
• A great attention to detail in data collection and reporting.
• Resourceful and able to work independently.

When hiring for an HR analyst, many companies also value prior experience working in the HR industry. Candidates should be able to come up with innovative HR solutions that fit the needs of each company, and previous experience (as an HR specialist, for instance) can provide a solid knowledge base for that.

What Are the Responsibilities of an HR Analyst?

A human resource analyst is a crucial role responsible for providing accurate and actionable insights to help create effective HR strategies. With the right skills and expertise, this role can play an invaluable role in furthering a company's success.

As such, their responsibilities include the following:

• Analyze past and current job requirements: HR analysis can analyze past recruitment sources and applicant trends to provide insights into a successful hiring process.
• Conduct surveys and benchmarks: Use insights from surveys to identify areas for improvement in employee training and development.
• Monitor employee turnover: Track data and use insights to recommend retention strategies.
• Generate reports on HR metrics: For example, they can look into performance indicators such as retention and employee engagement.
• Create dashboards: This can help HR departments track and compare their workforce metrics over time to find improvements or weaknesses.
• Audit current HR policies: They can conduct a full review and use their expertise to give insights into the effectiveness of HR policies and processes.
• Assist in management decision-making: HR analysts can combine their industry experience with data insight to help management make decisions backed by data.
• Prepare reports: Data gathered from their analysis can be used to create reports shared with senior leadership.
• Provide input in performance reviews: Their data analysis skills are useful for providing valuable insights and quantifiable metrics when it comes to an employee's performance.
• Identify actionable goals: They can recommend short- and long-term goals for the company, as well as benchmarks for performance metrics.

Example of a Common Human Resource Analyst Job Description

The following is a brief example of what a common HR analyst job description looks like:

"We're looking for an experienced Human Resource Analyst to join us full-time in our growing HR team. This role is responsible for collecting and analyzing employee and HR data, creating reports, and providing actionable insights to help inform HR decisions.

The ideal candidate should have a bachelor's degree in HR or Business Administration or three years of experience in an HR analyst role. You should be confident with HR analytics software and analyzing data. If you consider having strong problem-solving skills, excellent analytical skills, and an eye for detail, then this is the job for you.

This is a great opportunity to join a growing team where your insights will be instrumental in driving the success of our company."

Why Are Human Resource Analysts Important?

Human resource analysts are key players in helping organizations build strong HR strategies that deliver results. They're able to provide data-backed recommendations unique to every company.

And these recommendations are objective, since they’re grounded in your company’s numbers. This can be a healthy advantage for an organization deciding between two HR strategies. For example, company leaders might be trying to decide if they’ll see a better return on employee engagement and collaboration by investing in more training and development, or purchasing new collaboration tools for the team. An HR analyst can analyze the results of a company engagement survey in conjunction with the productivity impact data provided by each product to provide a clearer recommendation.

Analytics Only Improve When Employee Wellbeing is A Priority

HR analysts specialize in collecting data and coming up with recommendations, but any HR recommendations need to account for workplace wellness. Ignore this factor and you’ll be fighting an uphill battle with a workforce that values their wellbeing as much as their salary. 

So, yes, HR analysts are super helpful in finding solutions that improve HR metrics. But, there still needs to be an emphasis on the human side of HR to really see results.

Focusing on the wellbeing of your employees leads to overall company health and productivity. In fact, companies with the right wellbeing strategies are over three times more likely to have engaged employees, a study by Josh Bersin Company found. 

Wellness programs can help you support employees while boosting retention, productivity, and lowering healthcare costs. No matter your specific HR goals, a wellness program is likely to help pave the way — the data checks out. 

If you want to learn more about how you can support business growth through employee wellness, speak with a Wellhub wellbeing specialist today!

References

• Josh Bersin Company (2021).  The Definitive Guide to Wellbeing The Healthy Organization. Josh Bersin Company. Retrieved May 18, 2023, from https://joshbersin.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/HW-21_10-DefGuide-The-Healthy-Organization-Defintive-Guide-.pdf
• SHRM. (n.d.) Human Resource Analyst.. SHRM. Retrieved May 18, 2023, from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/job-descriptions/pages/human-resource-analyst.aspx