Most HR professionals rely only on internal employee data to assess behaviours, track attendance, monitor efficiency, and gain other workforce insights. Many use analytics tools to identify patterns, forecast trends, and make data-driven decisions.
However, not every HR department looks beyond their respective organizations. Even when sourcing talent and filling vacancies, many don’t consider collecting external data and base decisions on experience or gut feelings, opening the door to bias, unconscious or otherwise.
External or alternative employee data unlocks a world of possibilities for HR professionals. Keep scrolling to explore its benefits and learn how to acquire it.
What is alternative employee data?
Alternative employee data comes from external sources. It includes employee records with names, job descriptions, active job titles, education information, experience, skills, location, connections, and other data points.
HR professionals feed this data into their applicant tracking systems, HR onboarding solutions, human capital management (HCM) software, and other tools. It helps enrich their existing data for better decision-making.
HR benefits of external employee data
Better HR decision-making due to external employee data comes down to these benefits.
Better talent acquisition
Relevant, accurate, up-to-date alternative employee data helps HR professionals enhance talent acquisition. Accessing a vast pool of external employee records gives them a better picture of potential hires, helping them shortlist the most qualified candidates for open or future positions.
That may sound identical to traditional talent sourcing strategies, but alternative sources eliminate the need to collect, parse, and structure the necessary information. You receive parsed, clean, and accurate data that you can instantly analyze and use.
Streamlined recruitment
Gathering employee data from alternative sources can help HR experts streamline the entire recruitment process.
They can quickly find qualified job candidates and minimize hiring costs. Removing bias from the equation becomes a reality rather than a goal to strive for because they rely on accurate data.
They can reduce every new employee’s time-to-productivity and ensure high performance because they’ll minimize the risk of unqualified hires.
Successful onboarding
Onboarding can make or break a new hire’s experience. It’s the foundation of retention, representing more than a one-time event; it’s a journey that guides new employees to becoming top performers and getting a sense of belonging that makes them stay.
However, onboarding is often underrated, with many companies skipping the process and getting straight to business. That’s a huge mistake.
Gallup recently found that 20% of US employees experienced poor or no onboarding. Most (70%) employees whose onboarding was exceptional reported having “the best possible job,” and their likelihood to stay almost tripled.
Better talent acquisition and qualified hires make for successful onboarding, besides making the transition smooth, comfortable, and welcoming.
Using external sources to enrich employee data and improve HR onboarding solutions will help you turn every new hire’s experience into an exciting journey.
Lower turnover
According to the latest employee turnover statistics, 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for a minimum of three years after successful onboarding, which improves retention by a whopping 82%.
Hiring practices also affect turnover, starting with job descriptions. Most (72%) hiring managers report posting clear job descriptions, but only 36% of candidates agree.
Alternative employee data can help you create accurate, concise job descriptions to attract qualified candidates. Their education, skills, experience, and other data points can shed light on their strengths, weaknesses, and interests, helping you meet their needs and reduce turnover.
Empowered workforce
External employee data can help uncover workforce trends, helping HR professionals make data-driven decisions for growth.
They can forecast skill and talent gaps, measure and improve HR metrics, estimate recruitment and hiring costs, and address various issues to retain employees and attract qualified candidates for future positions.
They need analytics tools to gain insights into an existing workforce and potential candidates, gathering information to empower and motivate them to grow with their company.
Working with a dedicated team of data strategists, reviewers, architects, engineers, and analysts is the key to enhancing their existing tools like HCM software and HR onboarding solutions.
This team can also develop a unique data architecture with AI-based tools for improving talent acquisition, recruitment, onboarding, and retention.
For instance, a company’s workforce data analyst can feed alternative data into their analytical models to enrich and expand existing records. They can gain insightful people intelligence, predict someone’s likelihood to change jobs, and help recruiters find ideal candidates.
How to acquire alternative employee data
Acquiring alternative employee data is pretty straightforward when you know where to look.
You can do it yourself, but that’s time-consuming and arduous, requiring scraping, parsing, cleansing, and organizing data (probably for hours on end) after scraping.
Purchasing relevant data from an alternative data provider like Coresignal is time-efficient and cost-effective. You can obtain raw, parsed, ready-to-use data containing rich, in-depth information you can instantly use.
Reliable data providers keep their records accurate, correct, and complete, regularly updating them to provide real value to clients. Check if your potential provider complies with data privacy laws and regulations to avoid legal troubles.
Conclusion
Alternative employee data can supercharge HR professionals’ efforts, from sourcing, recruiting, and hiring the most qualified candidates to onboarding hires and retaining top talent. It’s the key to data-driven decisions for better workforce planning.