The Cloud has fundamentally changed migrating human resource data

The world seldom stays the same for long, especially these days, and human resources is no different. Just 10 years ago the average time a company would make a new human resource system was every 7.5 years. Now it’s closer to 3.5 years which means migrating data is happening faster and faster. Whether you are purchasing a new HCM system, Payroll, Benefits, or talent management these days people generally have a legacy system they are replacing which means how to migrate your data is always on the table. More likely than not those new systems will be in the cloud.

In the past migrating data followed the same simple formula. The last year of active data was ported over to the new system which is still the best practice for today’s system migrations even in the cloud. However, this still doesn’t address an important question. What do you do with the remaining historical data? Before the cloud, old data was archived in the old system. If you ever needed to answer questions about past data you had to go back into the legacy HCM system to pull up the information. And when the world purchased software contracts in perpetuity you could do this. You owned the software, and didn’t have stop using it. The cloud has completely eliminated this option.

Now companies do not own the software they use. They rent it from a SAAS provider. Whether that is ADP, Workday, SAP Success Factors, or Ultimate Pro all of these modern HCM systems are sold as services, and you don’t own them. This profoundly impacts Human Resources’ responsibility to migrate data efficiently when switching systems. What could be simply tossed into a closest and mostly forgotten will now be lost permanently when the contract terminates. Ignoring data migration is not possible anymore. You have to have a plan for data archiving.

Switching from owner to renter has trade offs that aren’t easily seen. These trades off matter if you are acquiring companies and need to consolidate your HR data frequently.
Contracts may have to extended for systems you plan on migrating just so they can have access to the data. Customers often find out after they quit their current HCM SAAS provider they’ll loose data typically around 30 days. Those windows are tight and not all of the data can be easily retrieved in only 30 days.

Your SAAS vendor has great control over how easy or difficult the process of retrieving your data can be. Some vendors are better than others about handing over your data to you when the contract terminates. But, all vendors have their own unique challenges when getting your full data.

Fuse Analytics can help you with the strategies of How to break up with your HR vendor, and migrating other tricky changes with the modern cloud infrastructure. Fuse HR powered by Fuse Analytics gives you a place to merge and consolidate your HR data into a single system you control.