Everyone loves a good spreadsheet. But if you have more than a few hundred employees, it can be a nightmare to track performance, training and succession activities with real-time insight. Our clients share why they made the switch from spreadsheets to talent management software - check them out.

1. 8 Reasons to STOP
managing your people
with spreadsheets

2. Everyone loves a good spreadsheet. But if you have more
than a few hundred employees, tracking performance,
training, and succession with them is the stuff of nightmares.
Spreadsheets and paper-based processes can’t
give you deep, real-time insight into how
your faculty, staff, and administrators are
performing or how to make them—and
your campus—more successful.
But a talent
management
system can.
Our clients shared their reasons for making the switch from spreadsheet to software.
Which one tops your list?

3. Streamlining your talent management data and increasing access not only saves administrative
time—and dollars—but in the long run ensures faculty and staff have the skills to make real
strategic contributions to campus success.
Reason #1
We never had
enough time.
If you’re relying on spreadsheets to track competencies,
compensation, and professional development, you’re also
spending a lot of time finding and filing information. Manual
tracking doubles your administrative workload—which leaves
less time for your real raison d’etre: educating, engaging, and
retaining students.
Our clients find that a talent management (TM) system
slashes the hours it takes to access employee data, which in
turn reduces stress and saves money. The corporate arena is
already on board with the many benefits of TM: studies show
organizations using integrated talent technology see 26% higher
revenue per employee. How can this translate to success in
higher education? Streamlining your talent management data
and increasing access not only saves administrative time—and
dollars—but in the long run ensures faculty and staff have the
skills to make real strategic contributions to campus success.

4. Reason #2
We needed to
reduce data entry
mistakes.
With all the manual entry involved in spreadsheets and docs,
mistakes are bound to happen. Plus, it’s difficult to track
reviews and compensation plans that require approval from
multiple people, and there’s always a risk of compliance
snafus if you can’t prove professional development training
has been completed.
As your university grows, these problems can only get worse.
And growth is a given: the National Center for Education
Statistics projects a rise of 11 percent in enrollments of students
under 25 and a rise of 20 percent in enrollments of students 25
and older from now until 2020.1
By ditching the spreadsheets
and switching to a TM system now you can eliminate duplicate
efforts and put the kibosh on human error.
1
Fast Facts, Institute of Education Sciences National Center for Education Statistics, US Department of Education, accessed on January 7, 2014, at
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98.

5. ...integrating performance management with other elements of talent management can
account for one-half of the variability in that organization’s performance.
Reason #3
We couldn’t take action
on our performance
management results.
Performance management and professional development
planning should work in tandem. Yet creating learning
opportunities from spreadsheets and annual reviews doesn’t ever
really work, does it? Without a way to integrate performance with
development, annual evaluations simply aren’t actionable.
A TM system puts purpose and value back into the process.
It links performance with recruiting, leadership development,
learning, and compensation—from week to week, not year to year.
As result, you get the whole picture, from how faculty goals align
with university goals to who is ready for leadership now—and five
years from now. Acting on performance data delivers truly tangible
results: research shows the effectiveness of an organization at
integrating performance management with other elements of
talent management can account for one half of the variability in
that organization’s performance.2
2
Talent Management Systems 2013: Market Analysis, Trends and Provider Profiles, p.9.

6. Reason #4
We couldn’t access
talent, performance, and
succession data quickly.
Vanguard universities will want to pay close attention to the corporate arena’s success with TM:
a study by Bersin found that while only 10% of survey respondents had implemented a TM
system, the ones with such a system saw a 60% higher return.3
It takes time to compile employee information. Yet your board,
president, dean, and everyone else on the executive team expect
you to deliver that information in minutes. With a TM system,
you can immediately access records, reviews, and succession
opportunities. You’re always prepared for that next audit and
ready to meet with your board at the drop of a hat.
The result? Because you’re up to date on competency
measurements and compliance training, you can worry less about
regulatory fines. Because you can look across and into your entire
organization to determine future leaders, you’re making better
long-term decisions for the financial health and organizational
longevity of your university.
3
Bersin Associates Study of Corporate Talent Management Identifies Top 22 Processes Which Drive Business Impact, accessed January 7, 2014, at
http://www.bersin.com/News/Content.aspx?id=4752.

7. Reason #5
We needed to be
ready for enrollment
and hiring increases.
If you’re struggling with manual tracking now, imagine the
paperwork you’ll have when your university grows. Higher
enrollments means an increase in faculty and staff. Yet
unfortunately, the number of spreadsheets and the rate of hiring
have an ugly one-to-one relationship. Many clients sought us out
when they began to grow and realized their manual processes
simply wouldn’t be able to keep up.
The right TM system will allow you to manage more employees
and faster growth thanks to more efficiency around compliance
tracking, succession planning, and recruiting–something
spreadsheets simply weren’t designed to do.

8. Reason #6
We needed to retain our top
talent to stay competitive.
Your people are a powerful resource, and recognizing top talent
is key to keeping them. Yet if you’re relying on paper-based
tracking, you’ll never really know who your top talent is or what
they’re contributing.
With tools designed to identify and incentivize high performers,
a TM system helps you hold onto your superstars. Research
shows that organizations with a mature integrated talent
approach have 40% lower turnover in high performers,4
news
that’s great for universities already using—or ready to use—a
TM system to engage and retain their best talent.
4
Bersin and Associates, Research Bulletin 2012, October 19, 2012, page 3.
…organizations with a mature integrated talent approach have 40% lower turnover
in high performers…

9. ...organizations with an integrated talent approach have an 87% greater ability to ‘hire
the best people.’
Reason #7
We needed to find the
right talent quickly.
Thanks to the growing skills scarcity, the fight for top talent can
be brutal. Add the impending talent shortage thanks to the Baby
Boomer exodus, and sourcing talent can feel like a scene out of
the Hunger Games.
Taking advantage of social recruiting is critical to nabbing
the best and brightest new hires. Yet connecting candidate
networks with career opportunities while capturing
referrals can be difficult—unless you’re using a TM system.
Organizations with an integrated talent approach have an 87%
greater ability to “hire the best people.”5
A TM system helps
you use your networks, social media, and employee referrals
to find top faculty, staff, and administrators in less time—and
with less paperwork.
5
Bersin, Talent Management Systems 2013: Market Analysis, Trends and Provider Profiles, p. 21.

10. Reason #8
We’re sick of slugging
it out with our core
HRIS/ERP provider.
Love is a battlefield—and so is the talent management arena.
Our clients who relied on HRIS/ERP systems found them good
at payroll and recording information but woefully ineffective at
talent-specific processes like identifying their next president,
dean of students, or director of admissions.
There’s a big difference between an HR generalist—most
ERP providers—and a true TM specialist. Only a specialist’s
tools are designed to help manage people’s engagement
and performance in a simple, easy way, whereas clunky ERP
solutions frustrate employees to the point they stop using them
altogether. Our clients were relieved when they discovered
they could get solutions that were both tailored for talent
management and easily integrated into their existing HRIS/ERP.

11. csod-industry-brief-higher ed-2014
Spreadsheets can’t bridge the gap between people management and
your campus’ goals. An integrated talent management system helps
you find and keep the best talent, plan for succession, and spend less
time on data gathering—and more time on strategies for student
success. But where do you start? Check out Cornerstone. For more
than a decade we’ve helped 1,500 clients source, develop, and retain
their talent with tools that are both powerful and easy to use. Start the
conversation at csod.com.
More than 1,500 organizations around the globe rely on Cornerstone OnDemand’s
specialized integrated talent management suite to recruit top talent, manage
performance, plan for succession, and deliver professional development opportunities.
Find out more by visiting csod.com