People analytics: Data protection

Author: Graham Brown

Contributing author: Sarah Thompson

Overview

This series of Leading practice guides discusses how HR teams can use people analytics to generate insights and inform business decisions. In this final guide we discuss how to undertake people analytics in accordance with data protection law.

Data that relates to identifiable individuals amounts to "personal data", and the activities involved in people analytics amount to "processing" personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (retained from EU Regulation 2016/679 EU) (UK GDPR), which is supplemented by the Data Protection Act 2018. Therefore, organisations that engage in people analytics must act in accordance with this legislation.

Other guides in the series:

• People analytics: The core elements
• People analytics: Readying the HR function for people analytics
• People analytics: Identifying the objectives of the project
• People analytics: Deciding what to measure
• People analytics: Collecting data
• People analytics: Analysing the data
• People analytics: Communicating and acting on the findings
• People analytics: Measuring success