The digital transformation of companies’ HR departments is progressing, but still in a fragmented manner. This is revealed by research conducted by HR Capital, a subsidiary of De Luca & Partners and a leader in outsourced personnel management and administration services, which analyzed the level of integration of personnel management systems in the companies it assists, selecting those with at least two digitized HR processes.
The study highlights that only 14% of companies have adopted a single digital HR database to date. In contrast, 86% of the sample analyzed has at least two different platforms for managing payroll, attendance, travel, and human capital. Not only that, but even when the main processes are aligned, which is the case in71% of cases, integration only affects part of the HR ecosystem.
Commenting on the survey results, Alessandro Gozzetti, Head of Digital Services at HR Capital, said: “In many cases, the adoption of different platforms is the result of necessary choices,
linked to the limitations of the offering or sector-specific characteristics. In other cases, it is a deliberate choice for reasons of confidentiality: some sensitive data is intentionally kept in separate databases. In many other cases, however, HR departments are not fully aware of the consequences of fragmented choices. But this fragmentation leads to inefficiencies, integration difficulties, and increased management costs.”
The issue, Gozzetti continues, is not only technological: “The challenge today is cultural. The digital transformation of HR cannot be limited to the adoption of tools, but requires a unified vision of processes, oriented towards data integration and the simplification of operational activities.”
In any case, the research highlights the transformation taking place in people management, which has so far been characterized by a process that is often layered over time and has not always been designed to communicate effectively. The possibility of integrating software exists, HR Capital emphasizes, but this type of solution does not guarantee the same benefits that would come from a single database, which is currently the most effective tool for centralizing data, simplifying processes, and improving overall efficiency.
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