We've all experienced that frantic morning rush. You're hurrying out the door, patting your pockets to ensure you have your wallet, phone, and keys—double-checking even after you just swiped them from the counter.
The worst-case scenario of forgetting one of those things is typically relying on a friend to pick up your part of the check or calling a locksmith to get into your front door.
The same can't be said for businesses. Scattered employee data is a nightmare for HR teams and a liability for the whole business. To avoid problems that stem from this chaos, you must first take a few steps to get organized and better manage employee data.
Keep reading to learn the all-too-real risks of scattered employee data and what you can do to fix it.
Where scattered employee data becomes your downfall
Does this sound familiar? Employee financial data is in a Google Drive. The spreadsheet that tracks who’s taking vacation and when is on one person’s computer. There’s a file folder with continued learning ideas somewhere….
You might think it’s no big deal to have things scattered all over the place, but you’d be wrong. Poor employee data management leads to major problems that affect your team’s job satisfaction and your business as a whole.
Here’s what can happen if you don’t get a grasp on your employee data.
1. Payroll problems
The fastest way to tick off your employees is to mess up their paychecks. But that’s bound to happen unless you get a better handle on employee data.
You need to know what employment category and payroll classification each person falls into—are they a W2 employee or a 1099 independent contractor? You need an efficient system to track their salaried hours, overtime, and leave periods.
Without proper data management, it's only a matter of time until you miss a payment period, miscalculate paychecks, or scramble for coverage when someone is out.
2. Stagnant skillsets
Your employees should also be building their skill sets. Even if you put together learning and development (L&D) programs to meet talent demands and fill skill gaps, you need a way to measure the success of those programs.
A lack of good employment data management prevents you from knowing if L&D programs are having a positive impact on your teams. Is their productivity improving? Are they retaining the learned skills? Are they even completing the programs?
These are questions you won’t be able to answer with scattered data. If your employees don’t feel challenged with new learning opportunities, you can see a big dip in employee satisfaction.
3. Poor employee retention
Building strong, engaged teams requires careful tracking of hiring metrics and retention rates. This means maintaining easy access to key data points like average employment duration and turnover percentages. For actionable insights, you'll need this data broken down by team and job function.
This data can sometimes directly relate to employee performance—numbers can vary based on high or low performers. Which brings us to the next big issue caused by scattered employee data.
4. Declining job performance
You want efficient, productive, and impactful people working for your business. But how are you supposed to really know who those people are?
If you’re going to prove you offer employees unbiased treatment and promotions, you need to define and track:
- Job scopes
- Performance KPIs
- Individual, team, and department goals
You also need a way to gather honest feedback that can feed this data and offer context. And, perhaps most importantly, employees need access to this data so they know exactly what is expected of them, what they’re working toward, and what they need to do to rise in your company.
5. Compliance concerns
There are dozens of compliance laws related to employee labor, privacy, compensation, leave, and safety.
Off the top of your head, can you say where the last four years of your employee’s tax records are? Did you know you had to hold onto them that long? Have you had any OSHA-related complaints that need resolving?
Poor employee data management puts you at serious risk of noncompliance. What’s more, it puts your employees’ sensitive data—their social security numbers, bank information, addresses, etc.—at risk of breach.
The result? A whole lot of lawsuits and fines land on your desk.
6. Poorly-rounded workforce
Unified employee data lets you identify areas where you can pull in people from different backgrounds, career paths, and demographics.
If you have diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates to meet, you’ll need this data to track your efforts related to employee:
- Sourcing
- Hiring
- Engagement
- Pay equity
- Potential complaints
Even if you don't currently have DEI mandates in place, having consolidated employee data gives you the foundation to implement them and build a well-rounded team that reflects your diverse customer base.
7. Hunkered-down HR
Imagine how annoying it is for HR to have email after email, chat after chat blowing up their inbox anytime someone has a question about benefits, payroll, or promotion qualifications. Now, imagine how frustrating it is to scour every corner of your filing system (paper or digital) to find the answers.
Without a better way to manage employee data, keep HR busy searching for this information when they would much rather spend their time working on things that really make a difference in your business.
Clearly, there's no shortage of issues that scattered employee data can cause. But, believe it or not, it's a relatively straightforward problem to solve.
How to fix your employee data management
You don’t have to spend hours sorting through files or risk losing your best employees because you don’t have a way to efficiently manage information. All it takes is is few steps to get everything organized.
1. Define your problems
Is it that you have employee data spread out in half a dozen tech solutions? Are documents housed in private computer drives? Do you lack a way to measure engagement or give employees access to the data they’re looking for?
Identify specifically what's lacking in your current employee data management system, then develop a targeted plan to address these gaps.
2. Ditch siloed data storage
The spreadsheets on one person's computer? The complicated platform that only HR can get into? They have to go.
Siloed data storage is one of the most common culprits behind scattered employee data. You need to gather and store that data in one central repository. This. way, everything is right in front of you when you need it—no more bouncing between drives and systems.
3. Invest in connective solutions
In some cases, you need to keep things in separate systems for functionality reasons. That’s when you need to add another layer.
Find an HR management solution that connects your various systems. The ideal solution will automatically track compliance requirements and send timely alerts when action is needed. Prioritize platforms with enterprise-grade security measures to ensure your sensitive employee data remains protected.
4. Keep up with training
Don’t put in all the effort to fix your employee data management just to go back to bad habits after a few months. Ensure the teams involved in collecting and managing this data keep up with proper training so they know exactly what steps to take when new data pieces come along.
Definitively know what’s happening with your team
When you take care of your people, they take care of your business. To do that, you must have all your employee data—recruitment, learning & development, performance, and otherwise—in a single, secure place.
Hiline’s centralized HR platform allows you to transform your employee data management processes. From payroll and benefits management to compliance control, you have everything you need right in front of you to boost satisfaction and retention and foster a fair workplace.
Let’s talk about how we can work together to ditch your HR headaches.
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