Employee data: How data management is central to HR

Human resources— the backbone to any organization. As a People function, it’s easy to forget the large volumes of data that human resource managers hold. The right employee data is a must-have for legal, payroll, taxes, and safety reasons. Capturing employee contact information is the easy part but ensuring continued accuracy can be trickier than you think.  

Whether it’s something as simple as a spelling error or an outdated employee profile, there is a chance that employee contact information is incorrect, or even blank, especially since the start of the pandemic. How many people do you know moved over the last two years?  Have they all updated their employee contact records? 

In our latest research, we find that 94 percent of respondents say the quality of contact data has become more important over the last year, and just under half say address data is crucial. With work-from-home being the new norm, people have taken the opportunity to move and change lifestyles—including your employees. Did they update the company with their new address? Maybe not. 

There is no room for error when it comes to employee data. Employers need to know that their team members are getting the proper government paperwork and their checks, W2’s and 1099’s are sent to the accurate addresses Not only does an address verification solution ensure valid employee addresses are in your database, but it will save your HR team time and money.

How does address verification work?

Employee address data should be accurate at the point-of-entry, the start date. However, at what point does the employee data start to decay? According to The NY Times, “about 30 million change-of-address requests [were made]to the U.S. Postal Service in 2020…”.1 In the last year, it’s likely that many of your employees have moved. Now is the time to upload your addresses in bulk to make sure they are right.

Here’s how it works:

1. The address list is uploaded.
2. Addresses are checked against postal data from over 240 countries.
3. The data is scanned for formatting issues, mismatching city and postal code data, and spelling errors.
4. Lastly, the errors are fixed and sent back to you in the correct format.

Try our free address look up tool

Benefits of data quality for HR

Organizations across industries are incorporating data quality best practices into their business model as they realize the outstanding benefits of a data-driven culture. When the HR department has their hands on high-quality data, they see:

• Better and faster decisions: Having accurate employee data, the HR team can make more informed decisions for employee engagement programs, government regulations, and so on.
• Operational efficiency: The HR team is constantly working with timely processes, like taxes, so it’s important that they can automate as much as possible. A data validation solution can help!
• Cost savings: With so many mailers, an organization can be at risk of address correction fees if the mail is returned. By validating addresses before paperwork is sent, the cost of these unnecessary fees can be reduced
• Positive experience: To the human resources department, their customers are the employees, so it is important to give them the best experience possible. With the right contact information, they can be certain they are reaching their employees effectively providing the right information.

Employee data is critical for an organization to operate effectively and efficiently. As a human resource manager, it’s necessary to make sure you know who your employees are and where they live by investing in high-quality data.

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