We started this blog to help create value within HR and I got this picture emailed to me while working on data project. A light bulb clicked as one of the most valuable things within HR is the data it holds. If you follow the markets and listened to the most recent Meta (Facebook) earnings call, this only solidifies the value of data (as the drop in the share price was blamed on Apple’s new privacy policies.)
If your organization is already utilizing HR data in some capacity then this post might be a little bit of a refresher. While it is a cost to get a dedicated HR data warehouse setup and structured correctly, which will be briefly covered in part 2, it will prevent you from having to rely on your transaction databases for anything other than transactions. For a justification of building a system please refer to our earlier blog post “Why use analytics as part of the HR Function” for how to drive a return on investment.
I think starting on this journey can seem very overwhelming or it was for me atleast, and the systems and where you store this is up to what suits your business the best. A best case scenario is having a full scale IT solution such as a data warehouse or data lake where all HR data is stored in a few flavors, but that might not be suitable for all sizes of businesses due to cost and complexity.
The best place to start is by understanding the difference between information and data, mapping out what data you currently have, how clean it is, and where it is stored.
Information: facts provided or learned about something or someone.
Data: facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.
Once you have an understanding of the difference, and your mapping of the data has been completed, you can use this information to decide what is important to track in order to answer the currently relevant questions. Starting down this process can be very overwhelming, but it doesnt need to be. Building a data governance and data privacy team will aid in the process of how you are going to collect data which you may not be already collecting and keep you ahead of any data needs such as privacy regulations. The data and information you are collecting should encompass the entire employee lifecycle, from hiring to termination, breaking down each step of the employee life cycle, and building out what may be important for each cycle.
Provided below are some common industry standard data/information elements which may need to be tracked:
Hiring:
- Unique Identifier (IDs) – something that can be used during the hiring process and, ideally, through the remainder of the employee life cycle.
- Name – Full Name
- Source – A high level source
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Referral
- Family within company
- Education Level
- School
- Major
- Digital Copy of a resume
Employees:
- ID-continuation from the hiring process
- Name
- Employee email
- Status
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Age
- Hire Date
- Standard Hours
- Department
- Job Title
- Supervisor
- Performance Metric
- Tenure
- Salary
- Position within Hierarchy of Company
- Work/Home Address
- PTO/PTO Balances
- Effective Dating of all changes within org
Exit:
- All the information above
- Type of exit- Voluntary, Involuntary, Retirement
- Exit survey data
While this is just a very basic general list, there are many more sources of data you should do a deeper dive on the data that is pertinent to your company’s HR and Corporate objectives. If you collect, at a minimum, just this information, you can build out descriptive analytics about your company’s Human Capital. Descriptive analytics is the first step in the maturing of your analytics journey, and you may see trends that you can make immediate changes on to make improvements or find discrepancies in your employee population. Please stay tuned for part 2 which will include some tips of structure for this data and why you should start collecting data today! Please let us know if there is anything we can assist your HR department with.