Unleashing the value of HR analytics: examining the competency influence on business performance in Sri Lanka

This study examines interconnections among human resource (HR) professionals’ HR analytics competencies, top management support, HR analytics deployment, outcomes of HR, and organisational performance. The data are gathered from 364 HR professionals working in 50 leading companies across Sri Lanka, such as telecommunications, banking and finance, education, tourism, textiles, and healthcare and energy. Each company contributed responses from 7 to 10 HR professionals at senior, middle, and junior levels. Mediation effects are examined using the Baron and Kenny method, along with Process Macro, while regression analysis tests the moderation effect. Structural equation modelling is utilised to assess model fitness, including the reliability and validity of the constructs. The findings support seven hypotheses: (1) HR professionals’ HR analytics competency significantly and positively influences HR analytics deployment, (2) HR related outcomes are positively affected by the execution of HR analytics, (3) organisational performance is favourably affected by HR outcomes, (4) HR analytics deployment enhances the performance of the organisation, (5) the HR analytics deployment intervenes the linkage amid HR analytics competencies of HR professionals and HR related outcomes, (6) HR analytics deployment has a mediated effect on organisational performance via HR related outcomes, and (7) the connection between HR professionals analytics competencies and the HR analytics deployment is moderated by the support given by top management. The results of this investigation inspire human resource experts to uphold human resource analytics (evidence-based HRM), particularly in emerging countries like Sri Lanka. A new conceptual model rooted in the analytics value chain theory and contextually-based human resource theory is constructed and empirically tested in this research.