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Cons of Excel Spreadsheets in Human Resource Management

The humble Excel Spreadsheets have been a trusted partner of HR professionals across the globe since its advent in ‘70s where it graduated in form and brand nomenclature starting with the initial VisiCalc, SuperCalc to improvised Multiplan, Lotus 1-2-3 and the very monopolistic Microsoft Excel. Whether it is attendance, payroll or leave management HR function gracefully progressed from paper records to excel sheets. Did it work? Well it did for some time, but not when it became increasingly evident that it has major lacunas, a reality which is surprisingly easy to ignore. <br><br>So where is the epicenter of the issue with spreadsheets? One of the major drawbacks of Excel sheets lies in the fact that it is not sustainable for HR tasks that require complex correlations and real time analysis. Today a firm that uses Excel might have manageable employee strength and processes, but once the business operations expand, the use of spreadsheets becomes non-scalable. <br><br>The other disadvantages of relying exclusively on excel sheets include compromise on the privacy of data and possibility of letting the information fall in wrong hands. Password protections don’t help as the files go through multiple hands at multiple levels. This makes any critical data highly prone to fraudulent use and worse even business losses. Not to mention the pain in consolidation that also sometimes leads to inaccurate status reporting considering there are various teams or departments involved. <br><br>Testimony to the views expressed above is echoed in several organizational case studies that had to suffer losses in millions due to Excel Errors. <br><br>We are sure you would be enlightened with the nuggets presented in the deck!

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Cons of Excel Spreadsheets in Human Resource Management

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  1. Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition Reasons why Excel may not be the best option for managing organizational workforce 8 Cons of using excel spreadsheets inhr

  2. Evolution of SpreWadhsahteIetss Em- AploqyuiceekAtpimpreelinciaetion

  3. 1978 – VisiCalc: First ever electronicspreadsheet Timely, formal or informal, expressed and appreciative acknowledgment of a person’s or team’s efforts above and beyond the call of duty or reasonable expectations in the course of their professional endeavors, or behaviors and results which uphold the company’s goals and values.

  4. 1980 – SuperCalc: Solution bundled with WordStar Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  5. What Is EmployeeAppreciation 1982 – Multiplan: Early spreadsheet program byMicrosoft

  6. 1983 – Lotus 1-2-3: Improvised tool with charts &graphs Timely, formal or informal, expressed and appreciative acknowledgment of a person’s or team’s efforts above and beyond the call of duty or reasonable expectations in the course of their professional endeavors, or behaviors and results which uphold the company’s goals and values.

  7. 1985 to present day: Progressive versions of Microsoft Excel madeavailable Timely, formal or informal, expressed and appreciative acknowledgment of a person’s or team’s efforts above and beyond the call of duty or reasonable expectations in the course of their professional endeavors, or behaviors and results which uphold the company’s goals and values.

  8. What’s behind Excel’spopularity? Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  9. The fact that it is free, readily available, configurable on basic machines and easily manageable for small business setups has backed its extensive use Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  10. Around 81% of the organizations use spreadsheets to supplement their Corporate Performance Management solutions Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  11. Does this imply it is the best solution for HR? Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  12. Probably Not. It is not geared to face the challenges posed by large well-established organizations with evolved HR processes and soaring employee strength Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  13. What are the major disadvantages of Using Excel InHR? Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  14. Reason #1 - Privacy Issues and Poor Built In Controls Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  15. You can hardly control the viewership of the data making it vulnerable to alterations. Not to forget, there are no checks to test the accuracy of data sources gettinEmg ppulolleyedeinAtpoptrheecisaptiorenad&shPeretsoductive Recognition

  16. Reason #2 - Prone to Human Errors Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  17. The reason why people love Excel is the scope for rework and manipulation. The chances of mistakes increase drastically when several versions of a spread- sheet are saved by severalpeople. Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  18. Reason #3 - Unfit for Dynamic BusinessScenario Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  19. Excel is incapable of error proof knowledge transfer. If a person X leaves, then person Y has to apply his own interpretation when working with spread- sheets. Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition Non-responsiveness to business agility leads to wastage of time, opportunity, productivity and competitiveknowledge

  20. Reason #4 - Doesn’t support automaticreporting Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  21. Manual naturEme polof hyaenedAlinppgrescipraetadionsh&eets,PromducaktesivescRheecogdulenidtiodenlivery of standard reports to multiple users next to impossible. Tedious E-mail is the only wayout!

  22. Reason #5 - NotScalable Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  23. Data grows with organization. Managing huge databases on excel without slips and misses is a non existent case. Larger organizations need solu- tions thatEmcanplodeycieephAerppcoremcipatlexionco&nnPreocdtioucntsivaenRdedepcogennitdenioncies

  24. Reason #6 - Hinders Quick DecisionMaking Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  25. Long drawn consolidation process with different versions of data and error checking mechanisms leads to handicap situation for business Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  26. Reason #7 - Teams and Excel don’t gotogether Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  27. Organizational activities are rarely individualistic. Excel in non-suitable for collaborative initiatives as there is no central database with real-time accurateinformation Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  28. Reason #8 - A riskyaffair Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  29. Excel spreadsheets constituting too many formulas and cell references becomes prone to costly mistakes as there is hardly any documentation available explaining the links with zero auto-correctfeatures Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  30. Cake HR - Your HR.Simplified. Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  31. Are we blowing the issue out of proportion? People have been using Excel for years now!– We don’t think so Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  32. Seemingly benign human errors have led to dramatic and horrific businesslosses! Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  33. Case #1 - The TransAltaMistake Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  34. One of the biggest Canadian Power Generator in American Continent suffered a humungous loss of $24 million. Reason? You guess it right. Excel Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  35. TransAlta CEO, Steve Synder, reported that the losses was an outcome of simple copy paste error which went unnoticed prior to bid submission. Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  36. Result of the spreadsheet error – Company bought more US Power transmission Contracts at higher prices leading to thefiasco. Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  37. Case #2 – Centre for RegionalStrategies Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  38. Messed up Excel sheet led the company incorrectly report that only 11 percent of New Century’s population above 25 years old held a bachelor’s degree. The correct figure was 20percent Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  39. How did it affect the company? Botched up its reputation and credibility How did it affect the region? PEmlaceplodyNeeewApCpenretciuratyiorneg&ionPrboedloucwtiovtehRerecogareanis tliiokne Nashville and Athens which were thought to be better educated

  40. Case #3 – Dominion TransmissionInc. Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  41. The Natural Gas Provider reported incorrect figures of weekly Gas Storage resulting in false inflation of gas prices Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  42. The artificial price hike was estimated between $200 million and $1 billion. Consumers of the company sued it for this atrocious mistake Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  43. What was the reason behind this big goofup? A naïve blunder of saving the excel sheet under same name for each weekly storage report. A classic case of oversight! Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  44. Case #4 – Fidelity’s MagellanFund Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  45. The company had to face huge embarrassment when their estimation to make $4.32 per share proved to be a failure Employee Appreciation & ProductiveRecognition

  46. Culprit – Data Transfer among ExcelSpreadsheets The company accountant accidentally omitted the negative sign on the net capital loss of $1.3 billion treating it as net capital profit instead. All this while taWkinhgatDIsatEma frpolomyeSeheAetppAretcio aBtion

  47. Trivial Mistake with huge implications Fidelity Fund’s estimate was off by a staggering $2.6 billion What Is EmployeeAppreciation

  48. AfterThoughts What Is EmployeeAppreciation

  49. For those who still believe in the comfort of familiarity offered by Excel Spreadsheets, can suffer both - in the short term or long haul owing to its offline and non-dynamic nature What Is EmployeeAppreciation

  50. World is moving towards internet and cloud based Business Intelligence Tools and Software that make life easier and organized for HR Commu- nity What Is EmployeeAppreciation

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