The coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses to reevaluate their strategies moving forward. Supply chains across the globe continue to suffer from major disruptions and consumers have become more reserved in their spending. The World Bank even forecasts that global economy will shrink by 5.2 percent this year. These changes are sure to bring about unfavorable conditions for commerce.
Companies are forced to quickly formulate and implement strategies that would allow them to do business despite the crisis. Unfortunately, business continuity relies heavily on the availability and willingness of people to work and contribute. As such, businesses need to empower their workforces and minimize any issues that can impede them from doing their jobs.
Effective human resource (HR) management has become all the more crucial in order to prevent such issues from arising. For instance, many organizations have digitized and automated their key HR processes such as payroll and benefits. Others have even factored HR into their analytics efforts. As with any digitized process, these rely on accurate data to work properly. Inaccurate HR data can eventually affect matters like payroll, employees’ access to benefits, and the company‘s compliance with laws and regulations.
In the least, any of these issues can become an unnecessary distraction to a company’s operations. To prevent these from happening, companies should ensure the accuracy of their HR data.
Bad Data Can Compound Problems
HR processes needs to accommodate the many changes brought about by the pandemic. Due to the health protocols imposed to curb the spread of the virus, many businesses are forced to allow work-from-home arrangements for their employees. Governments have also enforced various pandemic-specific labor regulations especially in territories where lockdowns have severely limited mobility.
Payroll platform Papaya Global cautions companies that even small organizational changes can contribute to data errors in payroll and yet the pandemic has ushered in some major changes. The erroneous input of details or the wrong classification of an employee can instantly affect how pay is computed or limit the benefits to which the worker can have access. Just a single wrong digit that’s off on a timesheet could mean severely reduced pay for the affected worker.
Nothing can dampen employee morale more than failing to get their due compensation, especially at a time when people are cash-strapped. Imagine also if the employee would be needing access to leaves and other benefits, and then being denied just because of faulty information in the person’s HR records.
Bad data can also affect compliance. Governments have issued guidelines on how labor laws should apply during the pandemic within their jurisdictions. Some have even issued measures to protect workers from the impact of layoffs, reduced pay, and access to benefits. Again, inaccurate information with HR can inadvertently punish workers. Failing to comply with regulations can also expose companies to potential suit and penalties. Surely, no organization would want to deal with such issues right now.
How to Ensure Accurate Data
Companies should verify if the HR data that they have on their employees are true and accurate. They should provide means for workers to check their employment records and information. Should there be any discrepancies that will arise, these should be corrected immediately. This said, HR departments should still perform their due diligence and verify potential changes and corrections. It isn’t rare for some unscrupulous employees to take advantage of the situation. Occupational fraud is a common problem.
HR departments should also take the opportunity to revisit their practices. If HR records and processes remain paper-based, this might be a good time to explore digitizing and automating these workloads. Remote work may be the norm for the immediate future. Bad HR data typically arises from bad input. Departments should clearly take a look at who inputs the data and how they do it. Storing the data matters too. HR systems, payroll platforms, and document management applications should help companies get their HR data organized and usable.
Those with existing data efforts should also consider making HR data part of governance. Policies that ensure that data effort capture accurate data shouldn’t be limited to business and productivity metrics; they can also very well include information concerning their workforce. This way, all the other processes that use HR data, whether they for routine processes or for analytics, only get to use good information.
Good Data Yields Good Results
Ensuring accurate HR data serves very practical purposes. It helps companies provide their employees with the peace of mind that they can continue working and have the right access to their compensation and benefits. It also enables organizations avoid potentially damaging issues arising from noncompliance.
Moreover, managing HR data well during the pandemic should also benefit analytics and business intelligence efforts later on. Metrics such as composition, hours rendered, turnover, and payroll costs that can all be easily tracked through the use of the right tools can give a good picture of the workforce.
These can even be correlated to other metrics such as productivity during the new normal. Insights from these observations should allow companies to implement the right adjustments to help them better weather the storm. Data during this period can be used to develop resilience strategies moving forward.
