Building workforce data trust and credibility

‍The Executive Team needs workforce data, so you spend three days validating numbers instead of analysing insights. Here’s how you can avoid that next time.

In this article, our Senior People Partner Catherine Livermore discusses how inconsistent management of workforce data can cost time and credibility. We outline what this means for businesses, and how you can build confidence by putting consistent workforce data collection processes in place.

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Question 1: What typically happens when an Executive Team asks a People or business leader for workforce data?

It often creates stress and anxiety over data accuracy and consistency. That’s because there’s very rarely a single source of truth. Multiple systems can show different numbers so even a simple question like “current headcount” can show 104 in one system and 102 in another.

It’s generally not a quick process and can take days to fulfill executive requests, requiring significant manual manipulation to ensure data accuracy. This highlights the complexity and time-consuming nature of managing data sourced from various systems, where discrepancies can frequently arise.

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“It's easy to think that AI will fix your data problems, but AI is only going to analyse the data you input.”

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Question 2: Manually pulling together workforce data is common but why is it so tricky?

Workforce data is key for executive decision-making as it provides strategic reasoning. But manually pulling data is an extremely time-consuming process - as anyone who’s done it will know! 

The accuracy concerns from using multiple sources and systems raises questions like, “how current is the data?” and “who has been updating it?” There’s also the risk of presenting outdated information, such as showing employees who left weeks ago. This can lead to a loss of credibility if you can’t confidently communicate or prove to the exec team that what you’re showing is accurate.

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Question 3: How can People teams bring consistency to workforce data collection?

It's easy to think that AI will fix your data problems, but AI is only going to analyse the data you input. So if you’re using multiple sources for data collection, AI isn’t going to be able to say “this is the correct data”, because it doesn't know your workforce. But what it can do is analyse your data and tell you where the discrepancies are.

Ultimately, it comes down to governance and putting strict processes in place for regularly updating and verifying your data. That way you know what your one source of truth is. Depending on the size of the organisation this might be your HRIS or it might still be a manual spreadsheet. Having a system is great, but governance around regular and consistent updates needs to be in place first, otherwise it’s useless. 

The system needs to be updated at the exact point in time there are changes, not just at the end of the week or month. Teams must also decide what they’re using it for - is it just to check in and see how you’re progressing, or is it for broader strategic use?

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“Stop being the team that fixes spreadsheets. Become the team that drives business performance.”

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Question 4: What is the biggest shift this leads to?

The biggest shift is we stop talking about the data and start talking with the data. It builds trust and when trust exists, boardroom conversations change completely. You stop wasting time debating “is the number correct?” and can instead get to the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’.  

That means HR can play a much more strategic role and focus on questions like:

• Why does that team have high turnover?
• What’s the risk if we lose everyone?
• How do we prevent future issues?

HR shifts from an administrative role to a strategic role and can provide reasoning for decision-making when requesting budget or new initiatives. You stop being the team that fixes spreadsheets and become the team that drives business performance.

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We hope you enjoyed this conversation. Want to hear more from the WRC team? Head to our Articles page where the crew covers more of the most common and difficult People & HR challenges we see every month.

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Need a people and culture partner who gets it? Reach out to start a conversation of your own around how WRC can support your team with an upcoming project or ongoing support. 

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