There’s something lurking in the deep. Unseen until it makes itself known. And then it attacks with vengeance.
It’s your bad data.
Across companies, data issues are a common. Whether you’re in marketing, sales, accounting, customer success, every department undergoes data challenges as you scale.
However, People data challenges have some compounding issues. Creating data structures across all departments, keeping appropriate permissions relative to someone’s role, and the responsibilities that come with handling personally identifiable information (PII).
This is a topic that isn’t fun. But, like payroll, it’s important that you get it right. Accuracy has real implications. And the earlier you get started, the better your life will be.
At a surface level, the challenges we encounter with People data aren’t much different than the rest of the business.
We just have the added complexity of working across every department, often with heavily siloed or restricted access to the data, some of which is incredibly sensitive. Likewise, the workflows that impact end-state data (ex. changing someone’s salary can vary widely).
Further, People teams are much less likely to have dedicated headcount to data related-roles until much later. (Ex. hiring a data analyst or People Analytics professional). Consequently, a coordinated strategy often comes late. And so does the enforcement mechanism for keeping your data clean.
If you haven’t done so already, I recommend giving my piece, “We’re building a city” a read. It helps outline why exactly organizations become more complex.
In the toggle below, I’ve listed out some of the most common reasons complexity comes about. All of these are pretty obvious. But it’s the lack of coordinated strategy that causes chaos.
In startups, there’s often an absence of coordination across teams. Haphazardness leads to organic, duplicative, development. For example, Engineering may start on a version of a career ladder / hierarchy. And so does sales. But neither are talking with each other, which is to be expected.
That’s why you need a central coordinator to align structures. Enter: you!
The level of ‘control’ you exert may differ. On the ‘loose’ end, you could provide basic ‘frameworks’ to leaders and leave them to adopt. (Laissez faire HR if you will). On the ‘control’ end, you could mandate that every single change be ‘approved’ by HR. (The ham handed approach).
Laissez faire leads to inconsistency but gives the departments a sense of autonomy. Ham handed makes it feel like overbearing, bureaucratic HR.
<aside> 💡 For further reading: shadow systems
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