With the emergence of Big Data in the HR landscape, there is an ongoing debate on its use and effectiveness. Big Data analytics form an integral part of businesses across the world. However, its induction into the HR space is rather recent. With different schools of thought presenting it as a digitization of employees, rather than a serious business tool, the session on Big Data at TechHR 14 was an eye opener.

In an interactive session, Elango R, Executive VP Emerging Geographies SBU & Global CHRO at MphasiS and Prithvi Shergill Chief Human Resources Officer, HCL Technologies, shared their experiences and best practices of Big Data Analytics as a decision making tool. Elango stressed on connecting random data and presented the four pillars for solving business problems: Collect, Collate, Algorithm and Meaning. He however stressed that Big Data was a means to an end and not an end in itself. HR professionals should not overly rely on either data or intuition, what is needed is a balanced mix of both.

In his address, Prithvi Shergill gave the basics a hard look and raised the questions that every business needs to ask before delving in to Big Data. A critical question in the process was deciding the budget and justifying it across the roadmap. He said that the key to analyzing data was establishing a trend rather than looking at small isolated blocks. It is about using the insight rather than the information. The baseline to the argument was making sure that the effort and time being put in was being completely utilized.