HR data quality standards: HR data hygiene in practice

Is there anything more valuable than your HR data?

Initially, you may disagree.

Poor HR data quality runs rampant in many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across the UK, blocking the potential benefits.

However, when employee data management is prioritised, it can offer genuine insights into your workforce.

Who’s leaving and why? Where is sickness creeping up? What are bonuses really costing?

Good HR data quality turns your endless questions into clear answers.

If you want to operate more strategically and improve your HR data hygiene, read on.

What is HR data hygiene? 

For those unfamiliar with the term ‘data hygiene’, here’s a quick overview.

In essence, HR data hygiene is the practice of keeping your workforce data accurate, up to date and well organised.

Now, what HR data hygiene can look like in practical terms is:

• Making sure records are correct and free of duplicates or typos.
• Filling the gaps so that the information is complete.
• Storing data in one consistent place.
• Removing data you no longer need.

Your HR data quality impacts every part of your business.

HR, payroll, finance and compliance all rely on trustworthy data.

Get it right, and you have a well of knowledge that supports everything you do.

Get it wrong, and not only are you limiting your own capabilities, but you’re opening yourself up to risks, errors and non-compliance.

How poor HR data hygiene compounds over time

Poor HR data hygiene often starts off as a simple error.

Perhaps a mistyped National Insurance number or a typo in an employee’s address.

On their own, these mistakes may seem harmless; however, the problem is that bad data doesn’t stay still.

Every subsequent process inherits these errors.

An incorrect detail feeds into your payroll, your reporting and your compliance records.

What began as a five-minute fix becomes hours of reconciliation, failed submissions and frustrated employees.

How HR software can help improve your HR data quality

So, how do you actually improve your HR data hygiene? It comes down to the systems and processes you have in place.

If your data is spread across spreadsheets and inboxes, it’s extremely difficult to maintain good HR data quality.

With HR software, you can effectively support the three main pillars crucial to maintaining good employee data:

• Accuracy
• Completeness
• Accessibility

Employee data accuracy

Your employee data is only useful if it’s correct.

The most well-thought-out, strategic HR decisions become worthless if the data behind them is wrong.

Inaccurate records ripple through everything HR touches, skewing your reporting, undermining workforce planning and leaving you to act on a picture that simply isn’t true.

This is an area where HR software earns its place.

A central HR system, with employee self-service, hands much of the data entry back to the people who know it best: the employees.

Our HR Director, Lizzy Barry, explained: “A real value-add for HR teams of all sizes is giving employees the opportunity to self-serve when there’s something we need them to do or information they need to give us.

“Being able to give them a place to do that themselves not only means that it’s definitely accurate because they’re the ones entering the information directly, but it also reduces the dreaded manual entry.”

HR and payroll integration

Payroll is often where poor data bites the hardest; if the employee information being fed into payroll – such as salaries, overtime, bank details, etc – is wrong, errors are unavoidable and staff won’t be paid correctly.

The CIPP’s analysis clearly lays out the risk: poor employee data leads to record mismatches, failed submissions to HMRC, delayed pay and a mountain of correction work.

This is where integration between your HR and payroll systems becomes essential for maintaining data accuracy.

Manually moving data across substantially increases the risk of errors occurring.

But when the two systems are connected, data flows automatically between them rather than being manually copied across.

A pay rise, new starter, change of hours or leaver, recorded in the HR software, feeds straight through to payroll.

No need to duplicate entry and no opportunity for the two systems to drift out of sync.

Data completeness

Every data gap is a liability.

Missing information is a metric you can’t measure and a question you can’t answer.

The CIPD recommends that businesses proactively look for opportunities where people analytics can help solve critical problems and co-develop solutions with stakeholders to ensure they’re fit for purpose. 

To get the full picture of what’s going on in your business, you need to capture more data than just the basics.

For example, you should be capturing information on:

• Performance data from appraisals and objective-setting.
• Records of who has completed which training courses and qualifications.
• Absence reasons and return to work interviews.
• Milestones across the employee lifecycle.

To get these rich insights, firstly, you need the correct interface for collecting a wide array of data.   

Within your HR software, for example, having a dedicated leavers screen collects key information and can feature questionnaires. 

This type of functionality can apply to a range of scenarios, from capturing data when onboarding new starters to comprehensive quarterly review processes. 

Additionally, your HR software should also automatically capture and store real-time data on other key people areas, such as absences and churn.

Turning data into action

With a complete view of all your important data points, you can begin enacting meaningful HR strategies.

For example, if you’re looking at absence patterns and team performance in conjunction with department churn, you may spot worrying trends that suggest teams are struggling and managers may require training.

These types of insights enable you to step in before issues spiral.

Data accessibility

The best data in the world is useless if you can’t access it.

Does this sound familiar? The information exists somewhere, but accessing it is a slow, manual ordeal.

Many HR professionals struggle to piece together information from scattered sources, and by the time everything’s been gathered, cleaned and formatted, the data is already out of date.

You need to easily find, display and share the relevant information.

That’s the role of modern HR software.

Housing all your people data in one centralised location makes accessibility quick and simple. 

In practice, that means customisable dashboards surfacing the metrics you reach for daily, from cost of sickness to headcount and days lost.

Additionally, a library of pre-built reports, which you can schedule and run on-demand, makes in-depth analysis far less time-consuming.

The real win for HR professionals is that all the information is live.

Because data is taken directly from the source, your dashboards and reports reflect the latest changes automatically.

Unlocking the power of your data

HR data is incredibly powerful, but only when it’s trustworthy.

Get your HR data hygiene right, and the insights speak for themselves.

If you’re looking for HR software that makes HR data hygiene simple, not tiresome, check out Staffology HR.

Our cloud-based HR software, Staffology HR, removes the burden of employee data management and empowers you to make the biggest impact.

Learn more about Staffology HR here, or download the software brochure below.