Global study examines how data and analytics can bring finance and HR teams together

A short-term mindset and entrenched cultural habits are the biggest barriers to collaboration between HR and finance teams according to a new study from Oracle. The study of 1,510 HR, finance and business professionals found that in order to successfully unlock the value from data and help their organizations adapt to the changing nature of the global talent market, HR teams need to rethink analytics technology, skills and processes to improve collaboration with finance and drive a competitive advantage. The respondents came from a variety of industries and geographies, and all were from companies with US$100 million of revenues or larger.

“HR and finance departments bring different, yet complementary skills to the table. While they traditionally have not worked together closely, that needs to change in order for organizations to create a competitive advantage in today’s evolving market and talent economy,” said Donald Anderson, Director, Organization & Talent Development, Oracle.

“The first step to overcoming traditional barriers and bringing HR and finance teams together is having a collaborative mindset with the right skillsets to both gather and analyze data so that it can be used to make impactful business decisions. That alone will deliver significant benefits to an organization’s performance,” he added.

The global talent market is more competitive than ever with the rise of new technologies, climbing costs of recruitment and increasing demand for new skills. To be successful in this rapidly changing market, HR teams need to rethink their approach to analytics, skills and collaboration to drive a competitive advantage.
The study shows that, 95 of HR and finance professionals plan to make data-driven collaboration a priority in 2019.To act on data in a meaningful way, HR and finance teams will need to acquire new skills. The survey found that 49 percent cannot currently use analytics to forecast outcomes and 81 percent are unable to determine future actions based on predictive data.

The study also found the biggest barrier to collaboration between HR and finance is a short-term mindset, with 71 percent saying their teams focus on quarters rather than future strategic direction. Culture clashes between departments was another top challenge with nearly a third (29 percent) ranking traditionally separate habits as the biggest barrier. Other barriers included mismatched skillsets (27 percentage) and organizational silos (17 percentage). HR teams also lack the skills to act on data and solve issues (70 percent), cultivate quantitative analysis and reasoning (67 percent) and use analytics to forecast workforce needs (55 percent).