Effective Employee Data Collection Methods, Types, and Best Practices

Employee data gives you vital insights into what's really happening within your organization and tells you what your team needs to reach its full potential. In fact, businesses that effectively use people analytics have seen a 25% boost in productivity, along with an 80% improvement in recruiting efficiency, according to research from McKinsey.

Today's post is about employee data management and how to go about it – including the specific types of information to gather. We'll also highlight some best practices to follow when managing this type of data and show you how Atlas UP can be your trusted partner in your day-to-day HR work.

What Is Employee Data?

In simple terms, employee data is any information you collect about your employees. This could include basic information such as name, address, or ethnicity, as well as more specific and in-depth information such as job performance, employee reviews, how many times they ask for a leave, and salary history.

Why Is Employee Data Important for Companies?

Aside from the legal aspect that requires employers to accurately collect and securely store employee data, particularly related to work hours, wages, benefits, and leave taken, employee data management goes beyond just following the rules.

It helps you understand the factors that attract and retain top talents and what they need from you to grow in their careers. You're also able to make strategic decisions about your workforce management to determine their peak productivity hours, schedules, and work preferences, which then help answer questions like:

• When are your teams at their best?
• What types of roles or projects lead to the greatest job satisfaction?
• Are there any skill gaps within specific departments?
• What makes employees feel fairly rewarded?
• What are the biggest factors contributing to employee burnout?
• What flexibility works best for different roles?

This yields several benefits, including:

• Improved talent acquisition
• Data-driven decision making
• Reduced absenteeism and turnover
• Enhanced performance management
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Informed compensation & benefits strategies
• Stronger team collaboration

5 Types of Employee Data

Employee data can be classified into five broad categories. In this section, we will go through them one by one.

1. Basic Employee HR data

Regardless of your company size, you need to collect basic HR data for every new hire during the hiring and onboarding process, and it usually includes:

Moreover, depending on your industry and the organization's policies and needs, you might also include specific details like allergies, licenses, and lifestyle habits (smoker/non-smoker, dietary restrictions, etc.).

This information is particularly helpful in identifying how new employees value your work environment and their overall satisfaction, and it can help determine if they have had any extended breaks due to parental leaves or illness in their previous or current roles. You can gather this type of information through job descriptions, offer letters, employee agreements, resumes, and exit interviews.

2. Data on Employee Attendance

This is a bit obvious. You need to know whether or not employees are consistently present and working their assigned shifts as expected. Additionally, this attendance data is essential because it directly impacts compliance with labor laws around work hours, your business's overall productivity, and payroll.

The employee attendance data will also give insights to your HR team into:

• The types of leave taken by employees (sick leave, personal days, family leave, etc.) and how that compares to company policies.
• How often are employees showing up on time for their scheduled shifts?
• Any issues with work-life balance or potential burnout among certain employees.

3. Timekeeping and Scheduling Data

Time tracking data is pretty self-explanatory. It's about tracking and recording the time each employee spends working. This could be the total hours worked per day, per week, as well as the time spent on a particular task or project (mostly applied when working with freelancers). Plus, as an employer, you're legally required to track employee time if you are in the US or Canada.

Four key elements make up the whole picture of time tracking:

• Time entry
• Time off/leave
• Schedule/shift management
• Payroll

4. Job Satisfaction and Morale Data

Job satisfaction and morale data are also called employee engagement data. This tells you how emotionally invested and committed your employees are to their work and your company's goals.

There exist different levels of employee engagement; you have:

• Highly engaged: These are your brand advocates. They speak highly of the company, motivate others not to give up and do their best, and will be willing to stick around during bad times.
• Moderately engaged: These employees are 50/50 in terms of their engagement. They like their work, but there's just something about the work environment, the company, or their teammates holding them back.
• Barely engaged: These types of employees usually hold a high turnover risk. They're not particularly interested in their work or the company and will do enough just to get by.
• Disengaged: Disengaged employees are those who speak badly of their jobs, organization, and work environment. They don't feel particularly connected to the mission or the future of the company; they're just there for the paycheck.

5. Employee performance

Employee performance measures how well an employee gets his job done and their behavior while at work.

The data collected here include:

• Quality of work
• Time management (whether or not tasks are being submitted on time)
• Customer satisfaction
• Sales revenue
• Team collaboration
• Productivity and efficiency

How to Collect Employee Data?

The exact way in which you collect employee data may vary from one company to another. A lot to take into consideration, such as your goals, the amount of data that needs to be collected, your HR software, and so on. Here are a few methods you can use to collect the information you need from your employees.

Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

Employers and recruiters use an ATS to track candidates during the hiring and recruiting process. You can use it to collect information like name, gender, resume, cover letter, educational background, qualifications, and interview notes and feedback.

HR Management System (HRMS)

An HRMS allows you to easily gather a large data set of your employee data.

Some information includes:

• Personal information: Job details (title, department, pay rate), work experience and skills, time and attendance data, etc.
• Talent Management: Performance reviews and feedback, development plans and goals, and Internal job application tracking.
• Payroll and Compensation: Salary and wage data, bonuses and commissions, tax deductions and withholdings, leave and absence tracking, etc.
• Compliance Management: Legal documents (I-9 forms), training records, accident reports, and regulatory compliance tracking

HR Information System (HRIS)

An HRIS is a basic HR system. It's also used to collect HR information such as employment information, time and attendance, payroll, and training and development. The main difference between an HRMS and an HRIS is that an HRMS is used to manage the information you collect about your employees, whereas an HRIS functions more like a database to collect and track data on everyone in your team.

And, so both systems have similar HR functions, such as:

• Self-service portal
• Time tracking
• Payroll
• Benefits administration

Interviews and Surveys

Another effective way of collecting employee data is through surveys and interviews. Surveys can be anonymous (pulse surveys, engagement surveys) to gauge overall sentiment or targeted (onboarding surveys, skills gap surveys) to gather specific feedback.

Interviews, on the other hand, allow for in-depth exploration: one-on-one meetings and stay interviews can uncover individual concerns and motivations, while exit interviews provide insights into why employees leave.

Using Atlas UP AI to Make Data-Driven Decisions

Alt text: Atlas UP logo.

Atlas UP is an AI SaaS solution designed to streamline how you access and understand your company data. Our goal is to help you eliminate the time-consuming process of searching for answers and reporting status so you can focus on more crucial decision-making tasks.

To assist with employee data management, Atlas UP connects directly to your internal HR systems, giving you a real-time, comprehensive overview of all your business information. From one platform, you’re able to access sensitive employee data such as:

• Salary history
• Benefits and health information
• Performance and engagement
• Identification details, and many more

For instance, using , you can pull employee data like compensation and time off directly from your company's payroll system and then combine that information with performance review data from a separate HR platform.

Using this consolidated data, our tool can provide advanced workforce analytics and insights – all without requiring any manual data entry or syncing between the different software systems.

The basic plan starts at $14 per month per user and you only pay for when users actually use the system.

Getting Started With Atlas UP

Getting started with Atlas UP couldn't be easier. Just head to the Atlas UP website, sign up for an account, and you're ready to go. To integrate Atlas UP with your HR system, your customer success manager will help you set this up quickly and easily, ensuring your data gets connected, securely and with minimal effort on your part.

Once those integrations are complete, you can start tapping into your business data right away through the Atlas UP interface. And, if you run into any issues during the setup, our support team is always here to lend a hand and make sure you get up and running smoothly.

Whenever you need specific details, simply ask, and Atlas UP will retrieve the answer, presenting it in a clear and easy-to-digest format.

So, no matter what HR tools you're currently using, we've got you covered. Check out our full list of HRIS integrations to see how Atlas UP can seamlessly connect to your existing systems and data.

How We Protect Your Data

We take security very seriously. We've made it a top priority to create a secure, transparent, and reliable environment where you can confidently leverage the power of Atlas UP to drive your business forward without ever having to worry about the safety of your most valuable asset – your data.

The first line of defense is the encryption of all data that flows through our systems. Every piece of information, whether it's employee records, financial details, or sales metrics, is scrambled and protected using advanced encryption algorithms before it's transmitted or stored.

But we don't stop there.

Our team has also developed a unique, proprietary process for generating AI-powered analytics and insights without ever exposing your raw data to external language models or third-party systems. This innovative approach allows us to harness the power of advanced AI technologies while maintaining complete control over your information, safeguarding it from potential misuse or leaks.

Interested? Book a demo with us today, and be part of the future of HR management.

Employee Data Management Best Practices

We get it – collecting employee data is not as simple as handing out a form and calling it a day. There are all sorts of data privacy laws and guidelines that you need to navigate, governing what information you can gather, for what purpose, and how you need to store it.

Below, we share some best practices to follow that will help you do it the right way:

Follow the Rules

Make sure the way you gather and collect data follows the rules and regulations set by the government (provincial/state or international). These rules can be different from country to country or region to region; for this reason, you must stay up-to-date with any changes in data privacy laws that can potentially affect your company.

Grant Limited Access

Information about employees is often sensitive. Only grant authorized personnel access to the necessary level of information to keep the team's data safe and comply with data privacy laws and regulations.

Be transparent With Your Staff

You must let every team member know how, why, and when you're collecting their information. Be transparent about the types of information you're going to gather, why you need that information, and how you'll store and protect it to build trust with your employees.

Set Clear Policies

It's also important to have a set of rules on how your business gathers information and keep those rules up-to-date as your business grows or changes and as laws change. The main purpose of these rules is to explain why you need to collect information and how collecting this information helps the business run smoothly.

Delete Unnecessary Information

There may be certain things you have to keep for a set period due to legal or regulatory requirements, such as employee payroll and tax records or I-9 employment eligibility verification forms.

But once they're no longer needed, check with your local laws and regulations on how you should delete them and proceed to delete them. The key is to establish clear guidelines on retention timelines and deletion processes, making sure you're complying with all the relevant laws and regulations in your local area.

Final Thoughts

Employee data collection is more than gathering employees' personal information, demographics, and set of qualifications; it's key to scaling your business. It tells you how your employees are performing, what you need to do to attract top talents, and how you can help your staff advance in their careers.

We at Atlas UP specifically built an AI SaaS solution to help streamline your HR work so you can focus on strategic priorities. See what Atlas UP can do for you and unlock your full potential.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to collect data from employees?

There are different methods you can use to collect employee data. You can do it through your ATS, HRMS, or HRIS. Alternatively, you can use different methods such as conducting interviews, collecting employees' feedback, focus groups, and running surveys.

What is data collection in HR?

In HR, data collection is the process of gathering information about employees. This could include things like names, addresses, resumes, training programs, job performance, salary history, etc. However, certain rules and regulations need to be followed to ensure the collected data is secured and ethically used.

How to manage employee data?

Employee data management varies across organizations, but some general guidelines include complying with regional data privacy laws, limiting access to authorized personnel, informing employees about data collection practices, maintaining clear documented guidelines for data collection, and regularly deleting unnecessary employee information.

How do you analyze an employee?

You can use several methods to analyze an employee, the most common ones being performance reviews, 360-degree feedback, skills assessments, management by results, and daily observations.