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Attention HR professionals & decision-makers, this one’s for you!
Having an HR platform that stores your data in a single place, acting as a single source of truth, is one of the most powerful things you can do for your business. And, though this term may seem foreign right now, it has incredible benefits on process efficiency, employee productivity, data management, and business insights.
So, what is an HR platform that acts as a single source of truth (SSoT)?
It is the modern version of the HRIS! It brings together all your HR data, such as recruitment, onboarding, position information, and reporting lines into a centralised platform. The goal of this is to create efficient processes that give relevant staff access to the same data. When your HR platform is an SSoT, it stores each piece of information in one place, instead of having the same info duplicated into different records.
An everyday example is when candidate details merge into contract and onboarding documentation. Rather than needing to be copied & pasted into the new docs and forms, it is drawn from a single source automatically.
Here are the top five reasons why your HR platform should be an SSoT:
1. It will make sure your data is reliable
The data you enter will save and change in real-time; in one place. This means there is no waiting for updates to sync and no need to edit multiple records manually. Having this accurate, up-to-date info ensures you can be confident in the reports you use and the information you work with. And, no time spent second-guessing or triple checking.
Let me explain this further with an example. If you were to change an employee’s job title in their record, this new title will automatically update for anyone else needing to see this information. The employee could check the org chart or call the HR team and would be met with a completely up-to-date record including the new job title.
2. An SSoT makes info instantly accessible
We’ve all had to request access to important information by sending a request and waiting on a reply. I remember in one of my previous jobs, I sent a request for an updated position description (PD) for a role I was hiring for. The original PD I received was old and outdated, even though it had been ‘updated’ months ago. It ended up taking me a week to get the position info needed to begin recruitment! One week! This is what happens when HR data is segregated and stored in multiple locations.
With an SSoT, you will have no such roadblocks, no time searching, and no long email chains. Information will be stored and updated through one source. That way, any employee (with the role-appropriate permissions) can access accurate, real-time data instantly.
3. It reduces admin burden
Say goodbye to copying & pasting and hello to efficiency! With one centralised platform that houses HR data, you only need to enter information into one single place. That one entry can then be resurfaced throughout the system where needed. This is how you end up with pre-populated forms!
For example, an employee’s name will be entered into the system once. That name can then be merged into their documentation, the org chart, internal communication, or reporting lines. If the name is later changed in their record, it will also be changed in every place that it appears – instead of HR needing to manually change it over and over again in various places.
4. It leaves little room for human error
Reducing admin burden is not only great for efficiency, but it also means you are leaving far less room for human error and data inaccuracy. The less copy & pasting and duplicating you do, the less likely you will make a mistake.
There are so many examples we could look at for this. But let’s say you needed to report on how many Sales Consultant positions had been filled in the last two years, compared to how many Marketing Consultant positions had been filled in that same time. Rather than exporting two separate reports and copying & pasting them into one excel spreadsheet for viewing, the SSoT platform will do it all for you. All that information is kept in the one place ready to be looked at, compared, analysed, anything you need! Less human intervention equals less room for error.
5. Data will easily be protected and monitored
Data protection may not immediately sound as impressive as the other benefits. But, take a look under the surface and you will see that protecting your data from unauthorised access and data corruption is a serious benefit. If your HR data is stored across various platforms (e.g. one for recruiting and one for onboarding), then all the data needs to be duplicated across different platforms with different access controls. Or, what if HR are using excel spreadsheets to store all their candidate and employee data! The lack of access control and visibility could mean dire consequences.
In comes an SSoT HR platform! In there, all data is managed in one place to make sure you have control and visibility over your data security at all times. No Excel spreadsheets saved onto multiple desktops, or important information sent via emails. Instead, your data is all managed in one secure place.
Final thoughts
How data is stored & used doesn’t always sound like it’s directly related to HR. As an ex-recruiter myself, I had never heard of the term ‘single source of truth’ before. In fact, I’ll forgive you for thinking it was straight out of a Lord of the Rings movie – “one source of truth to rule them all” – I thought so when I first heard the term.
Nonetheless, centralising your HR data in a platform that is an SSoT is an important concept to learn. And, even more important to implement. By doing so, you are creating efficiency and HR data visibility that will make your job, and your life, so much easier.
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