How to master HR Tech Integration

(By Jaen Beelders and Elmen Lamprecht)

This article forms part of a series around HR Tech and Analytics. The topic of this article is addressing a problem that most companies struggle with: Getting all their different HR Tech – e.g. Recruitment Software, Payroll, Timekeeping, Learning Management Systems, Performance Management, Employee Engagement Software (including surveys) – to ‘talk’ to one another.

Every business has its unique products/services, processes, procedures, values and ethos. Therefore, companies have traditionally followed a strategy of purchasing distinct stand-alone systems for every stage of the employee lifecycle to address their unique needs. This created a scenario where different systems, with unique specifications, met the unique needs for that specific HR function (e.g. Recruitment, Onboarding, Timekeeping. Learning & Development, etc.), but as stand-alone systems they had their own separate databases which are almost never fully integrated. Each standalone system has its own database and unique data architecture. The lack of integration of different HR systems defeats the purpose of efficiently since the data will first need to be downloaded and included in one central dataset, this is generally done with excel or in some unique cases Power BI. This has made cross-system reporting basically impossible (unless you loved exporting multiple Excel spreadsheets that had to be copied and pasted and manually analysed until your eyes stared going squint).

Lately, we are seeing the trend of companies moving back to company wide ERP systems that offer multiple modules for the entire employee lifecycle. While it certainly helps with data management the problem we hear over and over (unfortunately after implementation of these very expensive ERP systems) for the unique needs of each organisation. No matter how large ERP vendors claim that their HR suite can do everything for everybody, we soon find out that ERP systems are too generic, and companies are forced to purchase additional plug-in software to complement their ERP system. Therefore, companies end up paying double. Firstly, for the very expensive ERP system and then secondly for complementary systems that offer those unique specifications.

The main challenge for HR Departments is not software– it is a data problem. Data challenges cannot be solved on the software level, it can only be solved on the data level. Therefore, whether you use one ERP system or a hundred separate systems, making the most of your HR Tech demands requires an in-house people data management strategy. Only through controlling the flow and storage of your own data can you optimize automation and advanced people data analytics. Your data management strategy will be central to all systems. This will enable you to control the flow of data between systems and ensure data integrity and reporting reliability.

A HR data management strategy enables you to centralise and query all HR data in one place. In addition, you will gain the capability to integrate into finance, sales and operational data and correlate how employee behaviour is influencing business performance. This empowers the CHRO/HR Director to become the most important person at the Boardroom table.

If you want to know more about HR Data Management and how to integrate your various HR Systems, please reach out to COGO People Analytics. Also, watch out for more articles, videos and infographics about HR Tech from COGO People Analytics.

COGO People Analytics is Africa’s No 1 HR Analytics advisory. We offer HR Tech and HR Analytics consultancy services, while our development of HR Analytic Tools,such as advanced HR Reporting which includes Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, remain our flagship products.