Employee relations is an increasingly important HR discipline, judging by HR Acuity’s previous research of employee relations reporting structures. In 2018, the company’s benchmark study found that 34% of employee relations teams reported to a CHRO. In this year’s version of the survey, more than half of respondents said they reported directly to the CHRO, while 28% reported to a vice president of HR.
The growth of predictive and people analytics in the report also speaks to broader HR trends. A 2019 report from Thomson Online Benefits found that the number of organizations building people analytics teams had increased from 15% to 68% over a three-year period. Moreover, 35% of respondents to the same survey said they opted to upskill HR teams to handle people analytics, while 21% chose to hire external specialists.
