Employee Data Management: New Horizons for Improving HR Business Practices

Cloud computing continues to open new opportunities for enterprise companies to capitalize on one of their most valuable and often underappreciated assets: employee data, also known as “people” data. This is particularly true with the surging trend toward online programs for benefits administration, employee engagement, and learning and development. For HR, the ability to manage benefits and talent management programs in the cloud has the valuable potential to transform a wealth of their people data into accurate and practical insights that can drive more-effective strategic decisions for the business and HR. Most significantly, an optimal online employee- or people-data management system gives HR the ability to efficiently and accurately integrate and manage the continual flood of data from several sources. In most companies, benefits data lives in many disparate locations — HRIS, payroll, provider systems, and in-house spreadsheets. A quality vendor (like Optis, for example) will offer fine-tuned expertise in mapping and integrating data from multiple systems, allowing HR to centralize its separate depositories of data into a single source of truth. The results include: + The confidence that employees receive the right benefits at the right time, while controlling access to data + An improved employee user experience, by eliminating the piecemeal system that develops when information needs to be obtained from several providers + A more effective and easier-to-access bank of data for investigating trends and developing changes (more on this below) Improved data security — risk mitigation — is another primary benefit of people-data management software. A cloud-based employee-data management system can remove the burden on employers to ensure data is secure when it’s transferred among myriad parties. Many legislatures have used ISO 27001, a globally recognized industry standard for information security management systems (ISMS), as the framework for accessibility, confidentiality, integrity of information, and legal compliance in the field of personal data like the kind HR depends on. Optis, for example, in February 2017 announced the successful renewal of its ISO 27001 certification. A third primary benefit of employing cloud software for managing people data is the increased power it gives HR to identify and act on key trends and metrics. It enables HR to better adapt to and make defensible decisions around changes in employee and business needs. Centralized employee data can be used to investigate everything from cost of employment to international migration costs to which benefits choices are creating greater engagement and higher retention rates. With this kind of data — easily accessible through the cloud if you have the right vendor — HR can deliver better-informed and more-effective decisions. Easier compliance is a fourth benefit of cloud-based people-data management. For example, it can automatically record employee interactions and create a full audit trail for HR and benefits administration teams. For global companies, another example of increased compliance capabilities from cloud-based people-data management is the ability to easily and accurately manage country-specific reporting requirements from a single centralized source. Optis is one of the leading options for making your people data visible and manageable through cloud-based software. Optis Insights is intentionally built to work for enterprise employers, insurers, and third-party administrators with complex people-data needs. People-data management solutions from Optis include: + Data Warehousing — to put your people data in one location and make that mountain of data easier to manage + Reporting and Intelligence — to turn your people data into actionable business decisions + Analytics — to create cost savings and increase workforce productivity + Data Conversion Services — to adapt your people data to meet changing business needs Learn how Optis Insights can mitigate risk and give you greater insight into data from all of your HR data systems. [Contact Optis now.](/contact)