Rio Tinto plans to build a ‘lakehouse’ environment with Databricks to combine siloed human resources data.
The mining conglomerate revealed the project’s plans in an employment posting, which has since been withdrawn.
When reached by iTnews, a corporate spokeswoman declined to comment on the initiative.
The ‘people data lakehouse’ will be built on the Databricks platform and “will allow Rio Tinto to migrate from a fragmented, siloed, convoluted data web to a single accessible source,” according to the commercial.
“By utilising a Databricks platform, we will enable our People department to present and analyse data from several sources in a unified and controlled manner – all in one place, simple, and historically accurate.”
Rio Tinto’s People function manages over 50,000 employees in 35 countries from the company’s commercial hubs in Perth, Brisbane, and Montreal.
The integrated platform, according to the job posting, will assure the “accuracy, homogeneity [and] consistency of People data assets, past, present, and future.”
“This will enable the people data lakehouse’s core purpose: assisting Rio Tinto’s HR function to make data-driven choices and provide actionable insights.
The mining hopes to recruit a new ‘data management programme lead’ to oversee the setup and operation of the lakehouse.
The position will take up responsibilities previously held by Kirsten Edwards, the people lead for advanced analytics and data science.
Edwards served as interim global head of people analytics and insights for much of last year, and she was named permanent global head of people data and analytics in October.
Increasing the capability of Rio Tinto’s People function to promote efficient personnel management is the latest in a series of initiatives the business has taken to accomplish its long-term goal of retaining productivity in the face of the tech skills crisis and labour squeeze.
