HR AND DATA

When I started my career in HR, many moons ago, it was all about hiring, firing and personnel administration. The function of HR has certainly developed and become more sophisticated over the years to be a critical function of any organisation, who carry the responsibility for the overall employee experience throughout their lifecycle.So how do HR professionals help guide the organisation to make decisions about their employees? One of the tools they use is employee data. Data can help you make better decisions about your employees, which will keep them engaged, with a high rate of job satisfaction, be more willing to be an ambassador for you and recommend you as an employer to potential candidates.An human resources information system (HRIS) has become more common and affordable over the last 10 years. There are a number of software companies out that that can cater to multinationals with thousands of employees globally down to small local organisations with less than 50 employees. Whether you use one of these products or simply an excel spreadsheet, at their heart they are a database. And like any database, the information that comes out is only as good as the information that goes in. Whichever type of database you use it is critical that the input of data is accurate and timely so that when you need it, it will provide you with reliable and up to date information. Or in other words, clean data that can be your one source of truth for all things employee information.

I was recently working with a client who wanted to roll out new employee/appointee contracts. Across the organisation they had 5 categories of employment/appointee relationships which was going to be complex – these covered three separate awards and non award employees, as well as unpaid appointments. They used an HRIS so reviewing this data was my first stop to gain an insight into the organisation and to lay out the steps for the project. I quickly established that chunks of the data was inaccurate and even missing in some instances. This resulted in having to spend precious time reviewing individual employment files, connecting with team leaders and employees to verify the data and updating the HRIS by amending and creating records. These extra steps ultimately delayed the rollout of this critical project and added costs to their budget.

Can you relate to this type of scenario? My client is definitely not the first (or the last) to find themselves in this situation. But what can you do to avoid this situation arising in the future?

In June 2017, Amy Stuart wrote an article in hrms, a US publication outlining four suggestions to create an accurate and reliable database of employee information.

Create Good System Documentation

Create an internal user guide specific to your organization, complete with screen shots, detailed descriptions on how the organization uses specific functionality and a checklist of related tasks needing to be performed (both inside or outside of the system). Add in any internal charts or guidelines that the team may frequently reference, such as a list of which employee types are eligible for which benefit plans, special notes on when and how custom fields should be used, or any data rules specific to the organization. Include any notes relating to processes and the frequency in which these processes are utilized.

Conduct New Team Member Training in Person

Despite how good your user guide may be, face-to-face training minimises the chances of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. And nothing can replace the personal element to the real-life interaction between you and a new colleague. Training is an ongoing task to be revisited frequently and your internal user guide should be a living, breathing document updated as systems and process change.

Create Validation Rules for Entering Data into your HRIS (or Database)

Validation rules verify that the data a user enters meets the standards specified before the information can be saved. Establishing data validation rules prevents data errors from occurring in the first place. There could be validation rules to warn the user if the employee is not eligible for a specific benefit, if a birth date is missing or if an employee’s rate of pay is outside of their grade range.

If validation rules are not possible, utilize the databases reporting function to create queries for the user to run highlighting data entry errors or omissions. Create reports that help team members not only stay organized, but on top of the data for which they are responsible. Even if you are using an excel spreadsheet as your database, find yourself an excel guru who can set up some rules to help the user ensure their data entries remain accurate.

Maintaining Data is Not Just Accuracy, But Aesthetics and Consistency

Think about all the ways data can be entered into a system and who could possibly be entering the data. It can be an initial upload of data from other systems, ongoing imports from auxiliary applications, updates from the HR team, or from employee or managers via self service. With so many methods to enter and update data, creating mechanisms to help ensure consistent data maintenance is critical.

It’s important to think how you want the information to appear when presented on reports or as was required by my client mentioned earlier, on employment/appointee contracts. One of the areas we had to fix was how addresses were entered into the HRIS.

Data accuracy leads to more reliable information and data consistency leads to the appearance of more professional looking results.

No matter what sort of ‘database’ your organisation is using to maintain your employee information, keeping the data clean is going to take time and effort with a focus on being proactive when it comes to data maintenance. But it will be worth it in the end. You’ll be glad you created a system for your team when the time comes, and you’ll never know when that will be.

Lesley Pinter

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