Manage Effectively With An HR Data Quality Audit

Managing HR data is increasingly challenging though as organizations deploy more applications and give employees greater access to their information. Data quality and integrity often deteriorate as data management grows more complex.

Companies can identify gaps and inaccuracies among systems by assessing data integrity and quality through an HR data audit. They also can use such audits to validate employee data, confirm whether data is optimized for intended uses, and to help prepare for audits and compliance reviews.

Common benefits of data audits include the following.

• Improving data quality
• Improving data integrity
• Reducing data volume through detection of redundant and obsolete data
• Reducing data extraction and upload time
• Improving data integration
• Increasing reporting and analytics capabilities

A data audit ensures that your leaders have the information they need to manage effectively.

Data Quality And Integrity

Inconsistent or inaccurate data can lead to poor investment and management decisions, Rui Carvalho, managing director of enterprise solutions for S&P Capital IQ, told Argyle Journal for an article about the difference between data integrity and data quality. “Poor decisions, in turn, can lead to inefficiencies, errors, additional costs or loss of business, which no one can afford today,” he said.

Companies can make better decisions by compiling and maintaining quality data. “The derivative of data quality is data integrity; valid information producing trustworthy knowledge that ultimately drives organizational business intelligence,” Carvalho explained.

Data quality relates to information’s usefulness while data integrity refers to its validity. In assessing data integrity and quality, an audit can help you overcome challenges like:

• Reconciling data from the systems you use for different HR functions, like payroll and benefits;
• Validating employee data, plus benefit elections and deductions before open enrollment; or
• Improving HR analytics and reporting.

Auditing Data

In an audit, auditors review your data in accordance with established protocols and best practices. For example, during data discovery auditors will collect data from company databases and consolidate it for evaluation and optimization.

When you hire an outside company to audit your data, they may have domain-specific HR consultants review your data with sophisticated, proprietary data analytics technology. This methodology improves collaboration among technology professionals, HR practitioners, and auditors.

Providence Technology Solutions used its HCM Data Audit Xpert technology to help a company with 9,200 employees find $900,000 in missed deductions owed by employees. The project included an employee benefits audit and reconciliation of four months of payroll deductions and direct bill premium payments for leave-of-absence employees. The audit included data from the client’s core HR/payroll system as well as its benefits and direct-bill administration systems.

Auditing for data integrity includes steps like analyzing data storage and protection methods, and processes for deletion. You may check for outdated records like contact information for former employees, for example.

You assess quality in an audit by determining if you have collected the right data and have stored it correctly. You also review how easy it is to find and check for any inconsistencies. For example, you may check if you are storing employee-performance data properly and accessing it efficiently so that you can improve productivity.

If you hire experienced auditors, they will help you protect your data throughout the entire audit process.

A data audit can help you unleash the potential of the information you have by improving data quality and minimizing data integrity issues. Leverage your data to transform HR into a strategic function at your organization.