December 9, 2024
Marketeer
December 9, 2024
This article has been published in Dutch by Consultancy.nl on November 26, 2024.
Many HR departments want to become more data-driven, but don’t know how to get started. Consultday’s HR Data Maturity Scan provides concrete tools to take this challenging process step by step.
Almost every CHRO is working on an ambitious data-driven agenda nowadays. With the use of data, the HR department can improve both decision-making and HR operations. But how do you put all this into practice?
“That’s exactly the question many CHROs ask us,” explains Rianne Verkleij of Consultday. “Because actually realizing data-driven ambitions often turns out to be quite the task for organizations.”
It is not due to a lack of data. HR departments collect data such as absence figures, payroll information, and diversity data on a daily basis. This information is often used to allow basic processes such as leave and payroll administration to run efficiently.
However, the real power of HR data only comes to fruition if you can link it to business issues for the entire organization, Verkleij emphasizes.
She gives the example of linking HR data – think age gender, work experience, education – to broader business data, such as sales results and financial performance: “For example, HR can answer the question of what the ideal team for achieving the best sales results looks like.
In addition, linking HR to company data provides opportunities for strategic workforce planning. “The combination of scenarios about the development of the business and HR figures can provide insight into where recruitment, training, and advancement priorities lie. Here you can, for example, look at figures around expected turnover and skills available.”
In short: more data-driven work offers plenty of opportunities for HR departments. However, it also presents quite a few challenges.
A common complaint within HR is that it is difficult to get the data right. “Data quality is low because the necessary checks are missing and data is entered manually – sometimes even in multiple systems, which is error-prone,” Verkleij outlines.
This problem exists not only within HR, but also within marketing and finance. “Finance does have more attention to standardization of processes because of audits by auditors, and ownership is better established there,” she nuances.
In addition to data quality, HR departments run into numerous other obstacles. “These include the lack of the right tooling or a lack of data savvyness.”
To help organizations deal with such challenges, Consultday has developed its HR Data Maturity Scan. “Our scan provides detailed insight into the maturity of your HR data and processes,” says Verkleij.
The scan not only captures how effectively the organization is using its data to make strategic decisions, but -just as important-identifies opportunities for improvement.
“We start with an extensive questionnaire and conduct several interviews to map the current state of data maturity within the HR organization after that,” explains Verkleij. “In doing so, we look at practices around data strategy, data governance, data management, data quality and architecture, and supporting processes.”
A key component the scan examines is the collaboration between HR and departments such as IT, finance, and the overall business. It also looks at the organization’s level of ambition and its realism.
Verkleij: “The most important output of the maturity scan is a roadmap for the coming period, which indicates step by step how data maturity can be brought to the desired level. Including insight into the necessary resources and projects you can take up as an organization.”
Verkleij gives one important tip to HR organizations that want to take steps in data-driven work: start fast and small.
“Our vision is that you have to bring focus and simplicity. You should not wait until you have the data quality fully in order or only create products when the architecture is complete. By not making things too complex, you can develop nice little use cases where you can already surprise your business with data.”
Taking a pragmatic approach is therefore the motto. “In the Data Maturity Scan, we therefore also pay particular attention to pragmatic choices that organizations can make in order to find the balance between the costs of data management and the benefits of the insights you are looking for.”
Because in the end, it’s all about the valuable insights it delivers. “Working data-driven requires ownership, focus and simplicity – and above all, a willingness to use data as a strategic driver of business value,” concludes Verkleij.
