Organisations are not collecting meaningful information about their people because of the pressures of collecting and reporting on historical financial data, preventing them from driving growth and speeding up decision-making.

According to Robert Bolton, partner in KPMG’s global HR Centre of Excellence, this is creating an “organisational landscape dominated by more questions than answers, with HR teams and business leaders unable to identify the skills needed for long-term growth.”

Bolton was outlining his views in a seminar exploring why HR and financial data should share equal exposure in the boardroom. He argues that the days of viewing ‘people data’ as useful rather than essential should be “consigned to history.”

These comments come after research found just 15 percent of c-suite executives believe HR currently excels at providing meaningful analytics.

Bolton said: “Traditional financial data will always be an essential ingredient of transparent reporting, but we have finally reached the point where it is no longer enough to pay lip-service to the idea that HR analytics brings value. If organisations are to paint a full picture of their performance, shareholders and stakeholders must have access to information about the people and skills needed for survival today and success, tomorrow.

“The simple fact is that, if growth is to be stimulated, organisations need to re-skill, up-skill and reinvigorate their staff. Yet, only when HR teams capture and provide the Boardroom with metrics that clearly outline what action must be taken will it be possible to deliver HR programmes that build business results.”

He was also keen to stress the importance of engagement on performance.

“The connections between employee engagement and peak performance of an organisation should never be understated. However, too often, the temptation is to believe that an employees’ ‘commitment’ or ‘involvement’ is enough to improve productivity levels. Good HR teams recognise this is not the case, but they will only be able to prove this to the rest of the business by taking the time to collect the right data, analyse it and make the link between what staff do, how they do it and the bottom line.”