1.What is evidence based HR? State some examples of evidence based HR.

Answer: In today’s challenging environment, employers naturally expect that their human
resource management teams be able to measure how they are doing if it is a “high performance”
organization. For example, “How much will that new testing program save them in reducing
employee turnover?” “How much more productive will their employees be if they institute that
new training program?” And, “How productive is their human resource team, in terms of HR
staff per employee, compared to their competitors?”
Providing evidence such as this is the heart of evidence-based human resource management. This
is the use of data, facts, analytics, scientific rigor, critical evaluation and critically evaluated
research/case studies to support human resource management proposals, decisions, practices and
conclusions. Put simply, evidence-based human resource management is the deliberate use of the
best available evidence in making decisions about the human resource management practices that
are focusing on. The evidence may come from actual measurements we make (such as, how did
the trainees like the program?). It may come from existing data (such as, what happened to
company profits after they installed this training program?). Or, it may come from published
critically evaluated research studies (such as, what does the research literature conclude about
the best way to ensure that trainees remember what they learn?). Evidence may also come from
knowledge from experts in the field, past experience of the HR team and input from people
who are directly impacted by the decision. In time of taking data from multiple sources, ensure
it’s applicable within your context and use it to make a better informed decision with a higher
likelihood of having the desired outcome. This process can be used when writing up HR policies,
when changing procedures, when evaluating new software, when creating strategy, etc.
So we can say that, evidence-based HR refers to a process in which organization evaluates any
decision or process against data, real experience, expert opinions and/or other types of
information to ensure the decision is likely to have the desired outcome.
Here are a few examples of how it works in practice:
(a)Selection Techniques: Hiring managers are often used to creating a high pressure interview
situations to see how candidates will respond. They also like using tools like application data and
GPA to filter out candidates. Evidence-based HR find research that demonstrates the validity of
their methods is in some cases no better than performing a coin flip to make a hiring decision,
helping to influence them into using more structured methods and assessments for hiring
decisions.
(b)Employee Recognition: Suppose, a manager is resistant to using recognition because
“everyone can’t get a trophy”. Evidence-based HR find some existing research that points to the
value of recognition not just in increasing worker satisfaction, but in increasing productivity as
well, helping the manger to see the benefits to his/her and the team by improving its recognition
skills and practices.
(c)Performance Management: One of the trends in US is “disposing” of the traditional
approach and taking a different avenue for rating and assessing performance. You want to make
this move with your company because you feel like your existing process is not adding
organizational value.
There isn’t much data, if any, available to support the different approach, but there is some data
showing that collaborative environments support better teamwork and cultures than those
focused on forced ranking and distribution of employees.

2.Why should organizations consider using Evidence-Based HR practices?

Answer: Evidence- based HR may seem obvious that we would all want to ensure our decisions
are based on as many reliable information points as possible. And in fact, we all are already do
this to an extent, both in our personal lives and in our work lives. But we often fall short. We
often do not intentionally seek out high-quality information to assist in decision-making. There
are lots of examples in which our instincts lead us to make assumptions that are false. All of us
have a tendency to let our preconceptions and biases get in the way of making rational decisions
—no matter how hard we try to do the opposite. It’s only human nature. In addition to these
problems, we are also simply not used to making a concerted effort to seek out additional points
of input, especially on topics where we already have some level of experience. We are more
likely to:
(a)Make a fast decision in the name of efficiency, without considering additional input.
(b)Rely solely on instinct.
(c)Forget to take into account circumstances that have changed from our past experience.
(d)Follow industry or workplace trends, perhaps without a full evaluation in advance.
(e)Be unaware of the latest research about a given topic.
It takes a concerted effort to get past these tendencies and to make the choice to seek out more
varied information sources. This is really the key to implementing an evidence-based HR
practice: we need to implement processes that require us to get additional reliable sources of
information to aid in better decision-making.
At the end of the day, we all want to make the best decisions we can with the limited information
at our disposal. Evidence-based HR proposes to do exactly that, in an intentional way to use
multiple sources of information to make better decisions. There’s no way to ensure you’ll never
make a bad decision, but this can help you feel more confident you’ll get it right more often.