HR professionals want to be able to access more workforce information from their software systems that applies to all the geographies they operate in, a PM mini-survey has suggested.

Almost half (46 per cent) of respondents said they cannot access as much data about their global workforce as they would like, while another 30 per cent said they could access sufficient data but only by pulling it together manually with additional effort. Only 24 per cent were completely happy with the HR data they can obtain from their software, found the mini-survey, which was sponsored by Workday.

One of the reasons for the problem may be that international companies tend to use different HR systems around the world, the mini-survey suggested. Over four in ten (43 per cent) of respondents said they were in this position.

Unsurprisingly in the light of these issues, 41 per cent said they planned to make improvements to their HR system within the next two years. However, only a minority had plans to move to a cloud-based HR system – seen by some as the technological solution to more nimble workforce management. Such systems were only used by 7 per cent of the survey respondents, with another 12 per cent planning to move to them in the next two years. A further 39 per cent said they would like to move to a cloud-based system eventually, but had no medium-term plans to do so.