If you're an HR professional or recruiting leader, you probably know the importance of recruiting metrics. You have to collect and maintain all relevant data about your candidates, such as where they come from, their skill sets, education background, employment history, etc. This kind of data not only enables you to bring in the most qualified candidates, but it also enables you to know where to focus your recruiting efforts and resources.
Take this hypothetical scenario: imagine you're going through your employees' data and realize that some or most of it have been altered or deleted. To make matters worse, there's no documentation justifying why those changes occurred, when they occurred, and who is responsible for it.
If crucial employee data isn't trustworthy, making crucial data-driven business decisions based on that data is likely to do your business more harm than good. To avoid such a scenario from happening, you should put measures to protect your employee data integrity. If this sounds alien to you, you should learn about data integrity now.
Luckily, this article explains the important aspects of data integrity that you should know about. Let's get right to it, shall we?
What is Data Integrity?
Data integrity refers to the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of data over its lifecycle. It means that data has to remain reliable regardless of how many times it has been replicated, how often it has been accessed, how much it has been transferred, and how long it has been stored.
3 Elements that Ensure Data Integrity
Good data is maintained in its original format. Any alterations to the original data can make it difficult for decision-makers to make the right decisions. In case you need to make reports, you should use copies of original data to reduce the chances of altering the original data.
For companies that rely on data-led insights to make business decisions, the importance of keeping accurate data cannot be overemphasized. This is because inaccurate data can escalate a minor issue into a huge issue that can harm a business and its bottom line. To preserve data integrity, you have to ensure that your data is highly accurate to avoid making bad decisions.
Just like accuracy, consistency of data is quite important when it comes to making data-driven decisions. Inconsistencies in data not only lead to ill-informed decisions, but it also prevents decision-makers from being on the same page. One way to ensure data integrity is to ensure that data is consistent across all databases at all times.
How Data Integrity Differs from Data Security?
Data integrity should not be confused with data security. Data integrity focuses on maintaining data dependability and trustworthiness, while data security focuses on protecting data against internal and external threats like data breaches.
Why HR Professionals Should Care About Data Integrity
HR systems have come a long way since the early 1990s when companies started automating basic HR and recruiting processes, to now when companies are increasingly shifting most of their HR processes to the cloud. One important factor in utilizing HR and recruiting systems is preserving data integrity.
The important question here is – why is data integrity important for HR Professionals and recruiters? The answer is simple – accurate and consistent data provides historical data that enables company leaders to make the right hiring decisions and make other changes that affect the workforce.
For instance, when considering an employee for a new leadership role, data about the employee's education and employment history can help inform HR professionals of their readiness for a promotion. As such, duplicating and backing up data becomes crucial to ensure that data loss is prevented, maintaining data integrity.
How a Talent Data Platform Can Help
Are you having a hard time putting your talent systems and data to work? SwoopTalent helps companies efficiently use rich data to make informed talent decisions.
Contact us today to find out how we can help you preserve the integrity of your data.