People analytics and the future of competitiveness: Capabilities human resource departments need to succeed in the “new normal

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly driven the development of people analytics (PA). Thus, PA has become the fastest-growing area of human resource (HR) management today. PA application is crucial to organizations’ decision-making in the “next normal.” Certain research shows that HR managers and professionals lack the “must-have capabilities” which highlights the importance of developing new skills related to PA use and implementation. Moreover, enrichment of related competencies is necessary to support the new frame of decision-making activities. Recent discussion on big data (BD) is interpreted according to the resource-based theory. Consequently, the concept of BD analytics capability is used to introduce a theoretical model that considers HR departments’ traditional capabilities and new skills that consider different information flows from BD processing.