Abstract
Higher education institutions (HEIs) operate in increasingly complex environments that are marked by financial constraints, shifting labour markets, and heightened expectations for accountability. Against this backdrop, the human resource management (HRM) function is under growing pressure to demonstrate strategic value through evidence-based workforce planning. This study examined how workforce planning analytics and human resource (HR) metrics enable the HRM function to act as a strategic partner to South African public universities.
Adopting an interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative case study design, the research drew on semi-structured interviews with HR professionals across four universities. Thematic analysis revealed consistent reliance on core workforce metrics such as time-to-hire, turnover trends, ageing workforce profiles, succession risks, and equity-related staffing patterns. While these metrics support basic operational monitoring, their strategic potential is often constrained by inconsistent data quality, fragmented systems, limited analytical capability, and ambiguous institutional expectations of the HR professional’s role.
Despite these constraints, the study found that when metrics are translated into clear narratives about workforce risks and capacity, they enable HR professionals to influence planning cycles, highlight talent vulnerabilities, and shape resourcing decisions. The interaction between analytics and strategic partnering is therefore less a technical exercise than a relational and interpretive one, and is dependent on HR professionals’ ability to contextualise data, communicate the implications thereof, and mobilise decision makers.
The study contributes theoretically by clarifying how workforce analytics function as a mechanism of strategic influence rather than merely a reporting tool, particularly in resource-intensive sectors such as higher education. Practically, it highlights the need for strengthened data governance, improved analytical literacy in HR teams, and the institutional embedding of workforce metrics in governance and strategic planning processes. Collectively, these advances would allow HEIs to move beyond descriptive reporting toward genuinely anticipatory workforce planning, which will enhance HRM’s contribution to institutional sustainability.