{"id":238,"date":"2018-03-06T11:33:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T11:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/?p=238"},"modified":"2023-08-30T09:36:21","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T09:36:21","slug":"the-problem-with-excel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/the-problem-with-excel\/","title":{"rendered":"Excel Unleashed: Transforming Your Workflow for Good"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Who doesn\u2019t love their Microsoft Office programs? Word, Excel and PowerPoint have been our reliable go-tos for over a decade, making it difficult for companies and individuals alike to put them aside in favour of more suitable alternatives.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve entered the age of big data and digitization; of companies racing towards optimization with whatever means they have available. The big trends are all about the importance of communication and the relaying of data, from market to customer research, to internal sales and HR analytics. As far as industry best practices are concerned, entrepreneur and business pioneers are of one mind: you need to start processing your information in a smart way. And that means leaving good ol\u2019 Excel behind.<\/p>\n<p>As many as <strong>1 in 5 businesses are reliant on Excel for spreadsheets<\/strong>. Whether it\u2019s to communicate data internally, or to provide external communication to relevant parties, Excel is still the preferred method for specialists; particularly those in the field of HR.<\/p>\n<p>Used as a means for calculating gratuity and payroll, organizing employee records, and even as a semi-notepad for upcoming expiry dates, Excel has been seen as the panacea for HR departments for all their processes and tasks; a one size fits all program that acts as a balm for all the mundane administrative items they need to complete to keep their department running.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re looking for optimization, Excel ain\u2019t going to cut it, and here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019s no analytics. There\u2019s nothing but numbers. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve discussed the importance of data in this day and age. There\u2019s no disputing that if you want to improve and grow as a department and company, there needs to be some backlog of information you can use to make informed decisions about what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, if you\u2019re looking for optimization, Excel isn\u2019t going to provide you with the solution you really need \u2013 at least, not without you spending more of your time sifting through thousands of bits of information, many of which you\u2019ll have to find and manually insert yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps you want to put together a spreadsheet of which days\/months employees are mostly taking annual or sick leave to better prepare your department for absences? Perhaps you want to see if there\u2019s any correlation between productivity and the activities organized by HR? Most HR software will be able to give you a breakdown on those kinds of figures. Excel will not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s messy, and unsafe. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You might be the best at making beautiful spreadsheets, but the simple matter is that they are messy, require constant update and upkeep, and are prone to corruption. How awful is it to find your trusty document with all 5 years of employee records no longer opens? Surely, the discerning HR professional would want to acquire something with more stability \u2013 like a cloud system that can be accessed from anywhere from any member of your department, edited independently, without fear of being deleted or lost to the software void.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s not sharing-friendly. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Everyone wants data \u2013 not just your line managers. It\u2019s helpful for the team to see where they\u2019re going, what\u2019s new, what\u2019s happening, etc. Naturally, one of the best ways to get around that is sharing the spreadsheets and information discussed. The problem with that? Nothing is truly live or safe when a document is being passed around. There\u2019s ample opportunity for something to accidentally be deleted, changed, or saved during rotation. So, what\u2019s the point of amassing all this awesome information if it is too delicate to really touch on a daily basis?<\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019s alternatives. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no excuse. Hundreds of different types of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/hr-software\">HR software<\/a> (HRMS) are around to sort your administrative tasks and streamline processes. Automation is the key to alleviating workload, improving transparency between colleagues via communication of data and goals, and ensuring that your business is on the right path to optimization.<\/p>\n<p>As much as Excel has been a great friend to all of us in the past, it\u2019s time to bid farewell to this antiquated piece of tech and approach new software that enables so much more than Excel was ever capable of doing.<\/p>\n<p><em>Related links:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/3-hr-headaches-that-you-can-no-longer-afford-to-ignore\/\">3 HR Headaches That You Can No Longer Afford To Ignore<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/empowering-team-members-it-s-possible\/\">Empowering Team Members. It\u2019s Possible!<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/what-to-look-for-when-you-compare-health-insurance-in-the-uae\">3<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/3-signs-you-are-ready-for-hr-automation\/\">\u00a0Signs You Are Ready for HR Automation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard removing dead-weight from your life: bad friends, unhappy jobs&#8230; outdated programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hr","tag-learning"],"aioseo_notices":[],"modified_by":"Bhakti","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayzat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}