If you’re an HR professional, you’d most likely understand the value of HR technology that helps you analyze and relay information about your workforce to those within your own department, as well as those above it. However, it can be challenging to convince executive management if you don’t have the proper HR software to unify your data. By creating a business case, HR leaders can easily relay relevant information and justify the investment of unifying human resource information. In this blog, we’ll explain exactly how to create a business case to justify better HR data, as well as dive deeper into why it’s imperative for your organization.
What is a business case and why is it necessary?
Every department in a business is clamoring for budget allowances and adjustments. When presented with a clear case that makes evident the needs, benefits, costs, and effective solutions, decision-makers can see the potential for return on investment. It’s important to show how streamlining processes and leveraging data will provide cost savings and improve the organizations as a whole.
So, what should be included when creating a business case? Consider these key points.
- What are your current issues as an organization? Outline the issues that your organization is presently facing because of their lack of data visibility pertaining to your employee life cycle.
- How are these issues impacting your department’s bottom line? Explain how your lack of visibility is hurting your department’s KPIs or overall revenue trajectory. By not having visibility into X, will your organization expend more resources than needed – inflating your budget?
- How will having more data visibility solve your current problems? Point out the positives and how they will impact all departments within your employee experience.
- Provide organization-centric examples. Leverage what you already know to make your points relatable to your audience. Recommended read: How Can HR Speak Better CFO?
- How much does automation and efficiency impact growth? Bring data points and case studies about how a transformation of your HR analytics and reporting process can help you make smarter decisions and save hours per week.
Why numbers matter and other benefits
Decision-makers focus on quantifiable benefits before choosing to approve expenditures. So, it’s important to quantify the value of the software you’d like to invest in by showing the ROI.
For example, if your company employs applicant tracking software, you would want to break down the present and future costs. If your company hires 20 recruits each year this would require 40 hours for each search. This totals 800 hours or 20 weeks of employee time to craft job descriptions, publish them on job platforms, review and narrow down resumes, hold interviews, and more.
If the individuals handling this cost $35/hr, the total cost to the company would be $28,000. This additional work would also take away from their primary duties and leave tasks undone. So, an effective applicant tracking system that costs around $4,000/yr could save the company roughly $24,000.
Other benefits to consider that can be showcased in your business case are as follows.
- Employee benefits and compensation. The largest expense for a business each year is the cost of employee pay and benefits. An HR data unification software can not only help lower costs but also leverage data analytics from multiple sources to help determine a unified strategy for benefit offerings. Recommended read: compensation planning.
- Employee satisfaction and retention. Many companies see the HR department as one area of the business that doesn’t generate revenue, however, when employees are satisfied and productive, the company’s bottom line improves as performance improves. Being able to properly gauge this and unify it with other relevant data will help reduce costs and improve the overall employee experience.
- Improved productivity. When HR data is unified, it requires less time and attention from HR data managers, improving productivity and streamlining projects. The time it takes to wrangle 100 spreadsheet CSVs and perform vlookups for each HR report, based on whatever reporting cadence you currently follow, can all be streamlined with Employee Cycle. Recommended read: how your data-driven peers saved hours a week by automating their HR analytics process.
- Improved risk management. Decreasing liability and ensuring compliance with government regulations happen easily when companies leverage unified data. With a unified HR analytics software, you can maintain all employee-centric information and file on time to avoid unnecessary costs.
If you’ve gathered anything from this blog, hopefully, it’s that HR data doesn’t just benefit HR. Having unified HR data not only improves a company’s bottom-line but also allows the company to have real-time HR metrics and data at their fingertips that enable them to make the best employee-centric decisions. If you’d like to see what your data would look like in a unified, central HR data platform, connect with our experts to schedule a complimentary, personalized live demo.
