Business leaders are rejecting HR support because they don’t believe HR is delivering returns on investment, according to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit and KPMG.

Based on the views of more than 400 C-suite executives, HR is seen as relying on ‘instinct’ instead of ‘hard evidence’. They argue that HR teams have failed to keep pace with the changing nature of workplaces – with many unable to handle an increasingly global, fluid workforce.

The result is that fewer than one in five senior execs believe HR ‘does a good job’.

The general view of the report is that to succeed, HR must ‘no longer rely on instinct’ but instead ‘collect clear information on where demands for skills lie’.

To demonstrate this, the report cites examples including BMW using data analytics to identify the skills gaps due to emerge in its workforce over the next 10 years as a wave of retirees exit the company. 

However, based on previous experiences, just 15% of survey respondents see HR as able to provide insightful and predictive workforce information.

Robert Bolton, partner in KPMG Management Consulting and global lead of the firm’s HR Centre of Excellence, says: “HR teams must now seize on this as an opportunity to shift from being seen as providers of operational delivery to advisors providing counsel on business direction and strategy.”