3 HRMS Analytics Myths Which Render Your Data Useless

HRMS analytics can be a key driver of business intelligence. A strong backbone of HR data will enable your organization to make better, more informed decisions. Analysis of HR data is a hot topic these days, so time to set the record straight on some common misconceptions.

It's Just Reporting, Anyone Can Do It

A strong HRMS Analytics Analyst usually has a hybrid skillset: HRMS knowledge to understand the HR data usage, database and Excel skills to extract and combine various data sets, and statistical knowledge to discover and highlight data trends. If you hire someone to just ‘run reports’, you’re missing out on the value-add of the analytics to provide business insight.

Everything Can Be Automated

Often, to get the true value from HRMS analytics, you need to combine data from other systems such as hours worked from a time and attendance system, cost codes from a finance system and maybe further detailed data from payroll. Combining data from various sources is often a manual effort to connect the data, even if it is automated from each data source. It’s not difficult to see why some companies have standalone reporting, MIS and analytics teams dedicated solely to this task. To assume that we do not need resources due to automation is a serious mistake.

The More Data, The Better

While this road is paved with good intentions, HRMS data should be targeted and specific to a manager’s needs. As well, we need to ensure a manager knows what to do with HRMS analytics upon distribution. For example, a manager may receive employee spend data for a disparate, global team. On the surface, an employee in a high-cost country such as Singapore or the UK may be making more than an employee in a low cost country such as India or Bulgaria. An immediate reaction may be to raise the lower pay and that the more highly paid employees ‘are making enough’. However, it’s important to provide education to the manager about paylines in these countries, and further information, such as showing where the employees are in relation to market pay in addition to just the data. Otherwise, the manager may be directing budget dollars incorrectly based on an incomplete HRMS analytics cycle.

HRMS analytics are a powerful tool, to see what is available in the market, download the HRMS Vendor Directory.